It was a dark night when heavy curtains shrouded the room in complete darkness.
Two bodies were pressing against each other in bed. The man’s breathing was heavy; he had a sturdy physique, and his manners were rough.
Nicole was so in pain that there were a few times when she had wanted to push the man away. However, upon thinking of her mother, who was in the hospital, she forced herself to fight back the urge to resist him. She gritted her teeth, letting him have his way with her again and again…
After a long, long time, the man finally fell into a deep sleep. Enduring the discomfort, Nicole staggered out of bed, put on her clothes, and left.
Wearing exquisite makeup, Queenie Anderson walked to the room door at a leisurely pace. “How did it go, sis? Did you service Young Master Joseph well?” Blatant smugness showed in her eyes when she saw Nicole’s sorry figure. So what if Nicole is pretty and excels in her studies? In the end, she only deserves to substitute for me, doesn’t she?
Nicole’s voice was cracked and gravelly as she gritted her teeth while lifting her stubborn and pretty little face up. “Don’t forget what you’ve promised me, Queenie.”
“The 200,000 has been transferred to your account,” Queenie replied while tossing Nicole’s cell phone back to the owner. Then, in a mean voice full of disdain and mockery, she added, “I won’t forget about that, of course. That’s the money you’ve prostituted yourself for, after all.”
Her venomous words stabbed Nicole in the heart like a dagger, but Nicole couldn’t be bothered that much. After taking back her phone, she rushed to the hospital.
After Nicole completely disappeared from her sight, Queenie let out a cold snort and opened the door to the suite with a wiggle.
Joseph Mann was the Mann Family’s youngest son. Despite his unsavory reputation, his father, Robert Mann, was very fond of him, for Joseph was born when Robert was in his older years. Joseph was plied with drinks tonight, so he wouldn’t know about the switch. When he sees the blood in bed, he’ll definitely take responsibility for what has happened! If it weren’t for Joseph only preferring virgins, I wouldn’t have given up the opportunity to Nicole, that b*tch! Queenie thought to herself.
However, as soon as she undressed and got into bed, the man in bed suddenly awakened. At once, he seized her throat with his strong, large hand, exuding a terrifyingly murderous aura through his every pore. “Who are you?” His voice was husky, with a slight trace of lust from him having just slept with someone, but his demeanor was unusually commanding.
A dumbfounded Queenie looked up, only to find unexpectedly that the man on top of her wasn’t Joseph. He was Colton Gardner, the person currently at the helm of the Gardner Family – a family for whom the Mann Family was far from being a match…
…
Five years later, Nicole, dressed in a long and slick trench coat, walked in high heels among the crowd at Goldwick Airport, drawing the attention of many with her beautiful face and smoking hot figure.
Upon returning to the familiar city, Nicole couldn’t help falling into a trance. Although she had gotten 200,000 that year, by the time she arrived at the hospital, her mother had passed away. According to the doctor, the hospital had called her many times when her mother was in her dying moments, but all the phone calls had been cut off.
Nicole nearly had a breakdown when she heard that, for when the hospital was calling her, she was in Joseph’s bed, and her phone was in Queenie’s hands! In other words, it was Queenie who had robbed her mother of her last chance of survival!
At first, Nicole had wanted to end her life after making the arrangements for her mother’s funeral. However, she was held back by the baby in her womb then…
Suddenly, a boy’s clear voice snapped her out of her abstraction. “Hurry up, Mom! I’m bursting!”
Nicole’s spirits lifted the instant she lowered her head and saw her son’s tender little face, which was red from him struggling to hold his pee. “Now you’re bursting, huh? I told you to use the washroom on the plane, but you kept saying no.”
“Mom!” Hayden Anderson pouted his lips with a hint of grievance.
“Alright, the airport’s washroom is over there. Let me take you there,” Nicole replied, quickening her pace involuntarily, leading her son through the crowd before they finally reached the washroom. “Can you manage alone?” she asked, crouching down a little. When they returned from abroad, her son insisted that they take everything with them, so it was really inconvenient for her to follow her son into the washroom while carrying many things with her.
“Yeah. Don’t worry, Mom. I’ll be out in a minute,” Hayden replied while swiftly trotting into the washroom. It seemed that he couldn’t hold it in much longer.
Nicole was lugging her suitcase and waiting outside when her cell phone suddenly rang in her pocket. At the sight of the caller ID, she frowned slightly. Why does this phone number seem familiar to me? But I always save the phone numbers of those I have work-related dealings with on my phone’s contact list… Nonetheless, she answered the phone call.
An apologetic female voice immediately sounded through the phone. “I’m sorry, Ms. Lisa…”
The woman’s voice carried a note of respect, and it sounded familiar, but Nicole couldn’t remember knowing any person with such a voice. “You are?” she asked, puzzled. Over the past five years, she had been furthering her studies in fashion design. Eventually, she was spotted by a talent scout, so she joined F&M Apparel as the Chief Designer under the code name ‘Lisa’.
At first, Nicole had wanted to take Hayden to visit her mother’s grave on her homecoming trip this time. As it happened, F&M Apparel’s branch in the country was in talks with Gardner Corporation, a leading enterprise in the country, for a partnership, so her boss asked her to help with the negotiations…
Meanwhile, Queenie lowered her voice on the other end of the line to make it sound softer. “Ms. Lisa, I’m your assistant in the country. I’m supposed to pick you up this time, but I have something important to deal with at the moment, so I’m really tied up…”
Queenie spoke to Lisa respectfully without knowing who the latter really was.
Five years ago, Queenie hatched up a plot in an attempt to trick Joseph into marrying her for the sake of her own interests. However, in a strange combination of circumstances, she ended up hooking Colton instead. To compensate her for what had happened, Colton gave her the title of “the future Young Madam Gardner,” but his manner toward her had always been lukewarm. This time, she volunteered to be Lisa’s assistant, wanting to do well to impress Colton since Gardner Corporation placed great emphasis on the partnership.
She was supposed to pick Lisa up herself today, but she learned all of a sudden that Colton would be returning from his business trip ahead of schedule on the same flight as Lisa. To her, no one could be more important than Colton, so she could only flake on Lisa.
Nicole noticed that the woman on the other end of the line had begun to hum and haw, as though the latter really had something urgent to deal with. “I got it. Just go ahead with your stuff first. I can hail a cab back myself.” Only then did she recall her boss telling her before her trip home that an assistant had been assigned to her to help her familiarize herself with the company’s work in the country. It’s said that this assistant is the future Young Madam Gardner, but I never thought she’d be so polite…
“Thank you so much, Ms. Lisa.” Queenie hung up with a sigh of relief.
This was the first time Lisa returned to her home country to take over the company’s business in the country, and rumor had it that she was a woman in her forties. At first, Queenie had thought that she would be difficult to deal with, but she didn’t expect Lisa to be so easygoing.
…
Nicole continued standing outside the washroom after putting away her phone. She waited for over ten minutes, but Hayden had yet to come out. It’s been such a long time. Could something have happened? She stared at the men’s room sign, hesitating whether she should go in to take a look.
Just then, Hayden ran out on his little legs and threw himself at her trouser legs, crying. “Mom…”
Nicole immediately looked down at her son, only to find that his eyes were red.
Nicole had no idea who Hayden inherited his looks from, but he looked really adorable. His black hair rested softly on his head, and his little face was round and plump. With his delicate and good-looking features, he would definitely become a handsome guy when he grew up. At this very moment, though, he looked very aggrieved. His bright and clear eyes were tinged with red, and his lips were slightly pouted. Worried, she crouched down and asked, “What’s wrong, Hayden?”
“Mom, there was a man inside who bullied me.”
A man bullied my son? Upon listening to Hayden’s words, Nicole instantly saw red. Does this guy have no sense of shame? How could he bully a little boy? She comforted her son while standing ferociously outside the men’s room, ready to argue it out with the man when he came out later.
A short while later, a man came out of the men’s room. Being tall and lean, he was dressed immaculately in a well-ironed black suit that outlined his perfectly proportioned figure, especially his broad shoulders, slim waist, and criminally long legs.
Nicole looked all the way up from the man’s slim waist, only to be taken aback when she laid eyes on his face.
The man had chiseled and exquisite features, with a tall nose and a pair of slightly compressed thin lips that had a sharp edge to them. The most captivating of his features were his eyes, the inky pupils of which were very deep despite the hint of callousness about them, like a pair of black holes that could suck people in.
However, what astounded Nicole wasn’t the man’s dazzling features, but his looks. He looked just like the adult version of her son!
One could tell at a glance that the man wasn’t to be messed with, for he had a commanding presence. Still, Nicole straightened her back nonetheless and took a step forward, blocking his path. “Hey, you! Were you the one who bullied my son?” Since the man was very tall, she only reached the height of his shoulders despite standing on high heels, which somehow made her feel somewhat weaker.
Upon hearing Nicole’s voice, Colton turned to look at her. The woman had dazzling features, but her palm-sized face had fury written all over it. Holding her small chin high, she looked wild and intractable. However, Colton was slightly lost in thought when he caught a whiff of the barely noticeable scent on her. This scent… It feels somewhat familiar…
Suddenly, a child’s sobbing voice snapped him out of his thoughts. “Mom, it was him!”
A flicker of scorn flashed across Colton’s eyes, which were as deep and fathomless as a frozen pond, when he saw the boy clinging onto Nicole’s trouser leg. Women nowadays are getting craftier than one another in terms of tricks in order to get close to me. To think that this woman is able to find a kid who looks so much like me! If it weren’t for me being certain about Queenie being the only woman I’ve ever touched, I would’ve suspected him of being my son…
“Apologize to my son, mister!” Nicole demanded, holding her head high while trying hard not to appear timid. “Don’t you feel ashamed of bullying such a little kid as an adult man?”
Colton’s eyes narrowed slightly; his voice was deep and mellow, like a barrel of well-matured wine. “Didn’t he tell you what he had done?”
Naturally, Nicole sided with her son. “Tell me then – what did my son do to make you bully him like that?”
Colton let out a cold snort before lifting his foot. “Do you understand now?”
Nicole looked all the way down the man’s incredibly long legs until she spotted a damp patch on the hem of his trouser leg. Could this be… A bad feeling arose in her gut. As she lifted her son up from her feet, her throat felt somewhat dry. “What did you do?”
Hayden replied aggrievedly, “Nothing. I just peed on him by accident, so he wanted to hit me.”
Nicole’s initially towering rage immediately vanished, and she rubbed her nose in embarrassment. Will it be too late for me to start apologizing now? Why didn’t this little rascal tell me sooner about it after doing something wrong? “I’m sorry,” she said apologetically with a complete reversal in attitude while looking down at the man’s trouser legs. The man’s clothes were unbranded, but she could tell from the fabric alone that they must be very expensive. “I’ll compensate you for the…”
Colton loathed such disgusting and obsequious ways of chatting someone up. He interrupted Nicole coldly, saying, “Just manage your child so that he won’t call any man whom he came across ‘Dad.’ Such a way of chatting someone up is really old-fashioned. And besides…” He paused for a moment before continuing in a voice as cold as a deep pond that had existed for 1,000 years, “There’s no way you can compensate for my clothes.” With that, he strode off.
Chatting someone up? There’s no way I can compensate for his clothes? Nicole trembled all over with rage. Just what kind of a man is he? Well, I admit that this guy is incomparably good-looking, but he isn’t so charming to the extent where women would throw themselves at him on sight, is he? Although her son was the one in the wrong in this matter, she couldn’t help but despise the man for his cocky way of speaking and haughty manner. What a bad-mannered, uncouth upstart! What a waste of such good looks!
“Mom.” Hayden looked up with a hurt look in his eyes.
Seeing how her son looked, Nicole couldn’t find it in herself to scold him. She pinched his tender cheek, asking, “Did you call him ‘Dad’ just now?”
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