Steven’s breathing halted at this. After a while, he asked quickly, “What can I help you with?”
He thought they would never cross paths again after how things ended in the hotel. It took him a long time to gather up his courage to make this call, and he never thought Gwen would actually request a favor from him.
He was willing to help. No matter what Gwen asked of him, he would do it.
Gwen was right. Luke and he were selfish. They ignored if their contributions were what she wanted and didi it anyway. Hence, if Gwen was willing to ask for a favor, he would do anything to help her, no matter what it took.
Steven’s excitement was evident in his response. A weird feeling appeared in her heart as she heard it through the phone.
She thought… after how cold she treated him, he would outright reject her. It surprised her that Steven would agree to help out so quickly, as though he was so afraid she would regret asking it.
Gwen felt like her heart was stuffed with something, making her feel slightly suffocated because of Steven’s reaction.
She took a deep breath and said, “Steven, I’d like to be your fake girlfriend.”
She knew it was an absurd request. Nonetheless, she could not bear not doing anything to help out with Luke’s case. If letting down her dignity before Steven would help Brettley and Thomas even just a little bit, she thought it was worth it.
On the other side of the phone, Steven could not believe what he heard.
He gripped his phone tightly. His mouth was wide open, but there was no sound coming out of him.
After a while, he lowered his hoarse voice and asked, “Why?”
He did not understand why Gwen wanted to be his fake girlfriend when she sternly told him they would be strangers in the future.
Gwen smited bitterly and told him about Brettley’s plan.
“Steven, I won’t lie to you. We’re planning to distract your parents so Brettley and Thomas can have more time and advantage to put your parents in jail. They have to focus on me to prevent turning you back to Luke, and they hate me so much that they’ll pay more attention to me. You can reject it, and I won’t blame you. As you said, they’re your parents, and they’ve never done anything that harms you.”
It was a long moment of silence after Gwen explained their plan.
Just when Gwen thought Steven would not agree with the request and was about to give up, Steven suddenly replied, “Okay.”
Gwen’s eyes widened in astonishment. “What? You agree?”
“Yes.”
Steven closed his eyes. “If that’s what you want, I can help you.”
Helping her this last time…was a way for him to bid goodbye to the short romance that had not even started.
“Perhaps…after we pretend to be a couple, my parents will focus on you and me. Then, they won’t pay that much attention to Denise and Sean too.”
After a moment of silence, Gwen nodded vehemently. “Thank you. I’ll go tell Brettley and the rest about Denise and Sean now. After I’m finished here, I’ll go over to your place to look for you.”
Since Denise and Sean were both in danger, it was better for her to go over as soon as possible to distract Mr. and Mrs. Hughes.
“Steven’s parents are gross.”
Bethan frowned after knowing what happened to Denise and Sean. “They specifically said Denise had nothing to do with them. They made it very clear that she was adopted. Now that Denise finally found the love of her life and wanted to cut ties with them, they’re pulling this?”
She pursed her lips. “They’re so mean.”
Although Bethan did not like Denise, she was a mother of four. She knew the bond between the parents and the child. Even if the child was adopted, the parents should never treat the child any differently.
The only explanation was that Steven’s parents were heartless, cold-blooded people that had not a smidge of sentiment for Denise. The only thing they cared about was the advantage they could attain from being her parents.
She stretched her mouth and said, “How could people like them have Steven and Luke as their parents?”
Brettley smiled. “Parents and children are different from one another. My father is a jerk. Do you think I’m a jerk, too?”
A simple statement, yet it left Bethan speechless. When they were organizing the information on how the Hughes family and the Miller family plotted against Luke, Brettley had already taken out all the evidence of what Adrian had done to Brettley’s mother, Rianna.
Bethan had a hard time believing how shameful and despicable a man could be.
In the past, she thought Adrian was someone bad at displaying his affection and had no feelings for Brettley…until she saw the information on how Adrian plotted, little by little, to drive Rianna nuts that finally drove her to kill herself. She knew she had underestimated how brutal and cruel Adrian was.
Gwen did not know what Brettley and Bethan had read or chatted about. She frowned. “It’s not the time to talk about this now. Do any of you have any way to contact Sean? Steven said there are a lot of traps and secret passages in the residence. If Sean is still in there, he could be in danger.”
Bethan furrowed her brow. “I don’t have Sean’s number.”
On the other hand, Brettley took his phone to make a call. Albeit, it could not get through.
“You can’t reach him?”
Gwen frowned and asked.
“Well, not really.”
He curled his lips and called another number. “Contact Sean for me.”
“Daddy, did you call Nigel just because of this?”
Nellie was the one who answered the call. “You sound so cold. Nigel is not your employee. He should be like me, your previous!”
Finally, there was a smile on Brettley’s tensed and worried face because of what Nellie said. “When did I say he’s not my precious? It’s an emergency and I need your brother’s help.”
“Hmph! Excuses!”
Nellie felt sorry for her brother. “I’ll let you go this time! If I hear you ordering him and not treating him like your precious, I’ll be angry!”
After Nellie said what she wanted to say, the phone got snatched away. Subsequently, Nigel’s voice came through. “I’ve contacted Uncle Sean. What do you want to tell him?”
Gwen was astonished to hear Nigel’s mature voice coming from the other side of the call. “How… How did Nigel do it?”
Brettley tried calling Sean, yet the call did not go through. How did Nigel contact Sean from so far away, especially when Sean’s phone was off the network? Did he have some kind of superpower?
“Before Sean came over, Nigel had given him a special piece of jewelry.”
Brettley furrowed his brow as he listened to Nigel repeating what Sean told him and explained it to Gwen in a low voice. “It was the same type of jewelry Bethan and the kids used to communicate right in front of me back in the past. Sean was sent here by Nigel to protect Riley.
“During his operation, he had to avoid many surveillance cameras, so Nigel gave him the jewelry. That’s why we can’t contact Sean, but Nigel can.”
Even after the explanation, Gwen still felt puzzled by it all. Although she did not understand entirely how it worked, she realized one thing: Nigel was a genius.
A genius in computers and telecommunication.
Shortly, Nigel described Sean’s situation based on the jewelry Sean was wearing. Sean had not left the Hughes family’s residence, and he was not in any danger. He was in a room that stored many documents. As he flipped through those documents, it was all the fake accounts the Hughes family had been reporting throughout all those years.
Under Brettley’s and the exclusive communication channel between Nigel and Sean, Sean took photographs of all those fake accounts and the evidence of corruption. Nonetheless, the amount of data from those photographs was too large. Sean could not send all of the data out at one time and could only save it on his phone, which could not detect any signal.
Brettley then requested Nigel to inform Sean to stay in the document room for the time being. Steven once said that his parents had done many bad deeds in the past. Thus, they set up many traps and secret passages in the residence so that no one could easily discover the skeletons in their closet.
Since Sean was safe, it would be best for him to stay put. The consequences would be unbearable if he accidentally triggered a trap should he try to leave.
“Daddy.”
After Brettley requested Sean to stay put, Nigel said helplessly over the phone, “Uncle Sean said… he’s worried about Denise. He said if we could help save Denise, then he’s willing to stay in the document room forever, even if he has to eat paper to survive. If we can’t save Denise…”
Nigel sighed. “No matter how dangerous it could be, he’s willing to take the risk. Both of them had done what a married couple would do. He can’t leave her anymore.”
Gwen bit her lip quietly as she listened to what Nigel said.
Maybe Sean truly was the best Denise could have. It was a blessing and good fortune that Denise could meet Sean after she realized her misdeeds were terrible.
Brettley frowned and replied, “We’re going to save Denise, regardless of whether he asked.”
After that, he gave Nigel a few more instructions before ending the call.
When Brettley put down his phone, Gwen frowned and asked anxiously, “What should we do now?”
Brettley raised his head and looked at Gwen. “Now, you’re going to go buy a matching outfit and buy a pair of couple rings with Stever. Then, you’re going to treat his parents to a meal in the city center and meet them as Steven’s girlfriend.”
Brettley had said it before-they hoped Gwen could pretend to be Steven’s girlfriend to distract Steven’s parents. Therefore, Gwen was not surprised when Brettley said that.
She pursed her lips and looked at Brettley with a pair of serious eyes. “Do I need to do it now?”
She thought there was time for her to prepare mentally.
“We don’t have much time left.”
Brettley looked down at his watch to check the time and said, “It’s going to take roughly half a day for you and Steven to get ready and ask Steven’s parents out to the restaurant.
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.