All of a sudden, he remembered something and said, “Get Mr. Zink here.”
Mr. Zink was Senior Howard’s personal lawyer.
Tina, baffled at how he was summoning his lawyer, furrowed her brow and looked at him. “Why do you want Mr. Zink here?”
Senior Howard rolled his eyes at Tina.
“To get him to sue Thomas for causing intentional injury. Are you happy?”
Suddenly, Tina felt spirited.
“Really?”
She gloated while peeking at Thomas. She said coldly, “That’s right. Since he doesn’t care about his father and brother, there’s no need to care about his feelings anymore. Sue him for intentional injury; that’s the best for everyone. I hope when we are in the court in the future, Mr. Howard here doesn’t try to use the excuse of being a family to plead for mercy!”
With that, she snorted and left the ward as if she was on the runway. As she left, she took out her phone to make a call. “Mr. Zink…”
Yannie was scared to death as she heard the conversation between Tina and Senior Howard. She was afraid Senior Howard would really sue Thomas.
She quickly let go of Thomas’ arm and approached Senior Howard. “Uncle, I know there is a misunderstanding between you and Thomas, but…” “What are you trying to tell him?”
Thomas rolled his eyes when Yannie tried to please Senior Howard. He extended his hand to grab Yannie’s collar from the back and pulled her back into his arms. “Just sue me if that’s what you want. Do you think I’m scared of you?”
He grabbed Yannie’s clothes and forced her to leave the ward with him.
“Why did you stop me from talking with your father?”
She got pulled into the elevator. She looked at the closed elevator door and looked back at the man behind her angrily. “I know you’re not scared, but it’s better to have one less issue to deal with. We haven’t helped Bethan solve Gwen’s problem yet, and you’ve yet to accomplish your mission. You shouldn’t waste your time fighting with your father.
“Also, I think your father still cares about you. Maybe after talking to him, he won’t sue you for this. Even if you quit the entertainment industry now, who knows if you’ll return one day? It’s not good to let other people find out that your own father sues you to court!”
Thomas curled up his lips when he saw how Yannie panicked. After a while, he smiled even when Yannie was still panicking.
“What are you laughing at?”
Yannie was still angry. It infuriated her further to look at his look. “Can you not underestimate everything? You’re always like this, not giving a damn about anything, yet you’re so sensitive and weak… You can’t always be like this!”
The way Yannie pouted her lips looked awfully adorable.
Thomas curled up his lips and extended his hand out to pinch Yannie’s cute cheek. “It’s alright. I have you, don’t I? Everything I simplified, you’ll treat them seriously. With you around, I don’t have to change.”
This irked Yannie. “Yes, I’m with you now, but what if I leave you in the future?”
Thomas smiled. He reached out his hand and pulled Yannie into his arms. With a soft, deep voice, he asked, “So, are you going to leave me?”
Thomas’ alluring, husky voice rang next to Yannie’s ear, and her ear grew warm as his breath fanned the side of her face. She bit her lip and shrunk. Her mind drifted to how not long ago, she was locked outside of the door while listening to his…and Denise’s moans of pleasure.
Instinctively, she bit her lip and moved away, creating a gap between them.
Thomas’s brow furrowed once more when he noticed this. He tried to pull her back to him by wounding his arms around her. “Why are you moving away? Is there anything you’re not telling me?”
That was the only reason why Yannie kept on distancing herself from him after he woke up from his unconsciousness.
She bit her lip. After a moment of silence, she pushed Thomas away. “Nothing. I’m not hiding anything from you. You think too much.”
With that sentence, the elevator reached the first floor, and the door opened. Yannie hastily walked out of the elevator, much to Thomas’ confusion as he chased after her.
“Yannie!”
However, Yannie did not look back and just left.
Thomas thought Yannie was just having a tantrum and she would not walk too far before he could chase after her. Moreover, she knew better than anyone how weak he was that she would not just leave him alone.
She would always put him first, after all.
Little did he expect for Yannie to not wait for him like usual–not today. She walked straight to the street and hailed a taxi, leaving without Thomas. She did not once look his way.
Thomas frowned helplessly as he watched the taxi leave. He took out his phone. After a moment of hesitation, he called Bethan.
Yannie’s behavior was far too odd. She had been purposely avoiding him after he woke up. Other people might not know the reason for the changes Yannie had, but Bethan would surely know about it.
Shortly, the call got through. Bethan had just sent Denise away and had not talked with Gwen before she received a call from Thomas. She looked at the name on the phone and hesitated to answer.
In the end, she accepted the call, knowing the reason before Thomas himself even spoke. Even so, she asked patiently, “Can I help you?” “Something’s wrong.”
Thomas took a deep breath and said in a deep voice, “Yannie’s hiding something from me. I’m sure you know what it is.”
Bethan said nothing as she grasped her phone tightly. With a hoarse voice, she replied, “What makes you think I know about it?”
“You’re the one she trusts the most in the city other than her mother. She’s a thoughtful girl. She’ll never tell her mother about her relationship because she’s afraid that her mother will be worried, so if anything is bothering her, you’re the person she’ll talk to.”
After that, Thomas furrowed his brow and spoke, “Bethan, Yannie has been avoiding me ever since I woke up. Did something happen when I was unconscious? Does it have something to do with Denise? I hope you can tell me the truth.”
As Bethan grasped the phone tightly in her hand, her eyebrows were pressed into a firm line. She had assumed that Thomas would come find her because of Yannie but never expected it to be so soon.
It had been less than 24 hours after the incident happened, and she had been busy dealing with Denise and her family. There was no time for her to think about how to explain it to
Thomas if he asked.
The moment was here, yet she could only bite her lip and made it up as it went. “Why do you think so? Yannie… Is there anything wrong with her?”
Thomas furrowed his brow slightly upon hearing Bethan hesitating. He grasped his phone tighter and replied in a deep voice, “Something’s wrong with her. Bethan, I know you and Yannie are best friends. The only one she trusted other than her mother is you. So, I’d like to ask what’s going on. Previously…”
He closed his eyes and thought back to the time when Tina and Denise had drugged him when they were at Howard Mansion. “Was it…”
He hesitated and said the thing he was unwilling to accept, “Was it Denise who helped me detoxify the substance, and not Yannie?”
It shocked Bethan to see how sensitive and clear Thomas’ mind was. Her jaw hung open widely, yet not a sound came out of her even though she thought of saying something.
Perhaps she had underestimated Thomas. He was Brettley’s cousin, so he must have the same alertness and sensitivity as Brettley did. He could presume the problem based on Yannie’s attitude and her words.
“I’m right, aren’t I?”
Thomas took a deep breath after not getting any response from Bethan.
With his hoarse voice, he said, “I slept with Denise. Yannie wants me to remain calm and not be upset. She wants to be in the best condition to handle the issue between my family and the Hughes family, so she pretends that nothing happened.
“That’s not all. She even pretended to be the person who helped me and told me she was by my side all the time. Am I right?”
As Bethan listened to Thomas’ affirmative tone, she paused. After a moment of silence, she answered, “Yes.”
She knew it was impossible to hide it from Thomas, and with him guessing right, it was useless for her to continue lying. The smart man was never going to believe her just because she made up a story. Thus, she tried to calm Thomas’ emotions after a deep breath. “Brettley said your father’s condition is quite severe. Before you are completely in control of the Howard Group and your family’s wealth, you shouldn’t be sidetracked on this issue, so-“
“So all of you asked Yannie to endure and asked her to admit that she was with me all the time? “he cut her off coldly. “Is this Brettley and your idea?”
Bethan was at loss for words. After a while, she answered, “You can say that. We-“
“Do you really think of Yannie as your friend? As part of the family?”
Thomas furrowed his brow as his voice raised. “Yannie cares a great deal about this! You know it tortured her, but you had her pretending that it didn’t. You even asked her to pretend she was the one who slept with me! “Have you ever thought how sad Yannie would be? Bethan, I never thought that you’d be such a cruel person.”
He closed his eyes. “If this happened to Brettley, would you have done the same as Yannie did?”
Bethan held her phone as she fell silent for a good while. It was not long until she exhaled deeply and answered, “I would.”
She took another deep breath and said plainly, “Thomas, maybe you don’t know me that well yet. In the past, I hated Brettley so badly, but it was because of my son that I took it all in strides and went back to Brettley.
“The misunderstanding got cleared in the end and we knew that we fell into a trap, but even if it wasn’t a misunderstanding and Brettley was really a scumbag, I would still tolerate everything for the sake of my children.
“To me, being sad and uncomfortable because of someone important is just temporary, and it’ll pass. “Maybe you’re right. Brettley and I were wrong on this matter; we shouldn’t have used our thoughts to decide what Yannie should do. Nonetheless, she cares about you. She hopes that you can settle your matter peacefully and that incident will not affect you. She just can’t get past the hurdle in her heart and pretend that nothing happened.”
Thomas furrowed his brow vehemently. His fingers were turning white because of how hard he gripped his phone. Yannie’s troubled expression appeared in his mind, and he recalled how Yannie blurted out that she would leave him in the future.
Suddenly, his vision turned black. His legs turned soft as he felt himself falling.
At that moment, a pair of hands reached out and grabbed onto him steadily. He furrowed his brow vehemently at the sudden support…and the familiar scent.
He looked back
Yannie was supporting him from behind with a helpless expression and furrowed eyebrows. “I thought you could take care of yourself.”
To be frank, she did not go too far. After getting in the taxi, she was still worried about Thomas even though she was upset. Thomas was a patient with a weak body, after all, and she could not allow herself to leave him like that.
New Book: Back Home to Marry Off Myself
Loredana’s father left the family for his mistress, leaving them to fend for themselves abroad. When life was at its toughest, her father showed up with “good news” after 8 years of absence: To marry off Loredana to a paralyzed son of the wealthy Mendelsohn family.