Book 1: She Becomes Glamorous After the Engagement Annulment

Chapter 37

Chapter 109: Don’t You Want To Be My Daddy?

When Cherry saw the words “I’m not your father”, she secretly covered her mouth and giggled, but soon she found herself unable to laugh anymore.

She had used the voice-to-text converter and sent him a message: “Don’t you want to be my Daddy?”

But when she tried sending the message, she saw a big exclamation mark in front of it!

At the same time, a message prompt also appeared: “This person is unavailable on Messenger.”

A dumbfounded Cherry’s big round eyes widened.

She turned to Nora who had just taken a bath. The young woman had already put away her phone and was resting quietly on the bed with her eyes closed. Upon seeing that she was about to go to sleep, Cherry anxiously pushed her and asked, “Mommy, can you take a look at this for me? Why isn’t Daddy receiving my messages?”

Nora lazily opened her eyes. After glancing at the phone, she replied in amusement, “Oh, he’s blocked you.”

Cherry, “??”

As someone who had always been everyone’s favorite person in all her social circles, Cherry would like to say that she had never ever suffered such injustice before in all her five years of life!

She pouted and asked sadly, “Why did he block me? I’m so cute!”

Nora yawned and replied mercilessly, “It’s because you called him Daddy.”

“…”

Cherry felt even more like crying and she threw the cell phone aside.

The heartbroken little Cherry closed her eyes and gradually fell asleep while thinking “Stupid Daddy. I will never like you ever again”.

Unfortunately, there were also some who found themselves unable to sleep that night.

Tina tossed and turned repeatedly on the bed, her mind preoccupied with thoughts of what had happened in the villa.

Justin hadn’t even looked at her when he noticed her. Not only did he have a cold look on his face, but his attitude was also distant, just like how he usually was at work.

However, the look in his eyes obviously changed the moment he saw that woman.

On top of that, he had even said something about a ‘little guest’…

In her opinion, they looked more like a family of four on a blind date.

But why?

Nora already had a daughter. How could a woman like her be worthy of a man like Justin?

The more she thought about it, the more she couldn’t sleep. Thus, she picked up her cell phone and opened f*******:, intending to distract herself by surfing through the trending topics.

What was that ranked third in the list of trending topics?

Tina tapped on it casually and started to read the post about sweetcherry.

After realizing that it was about an unknown live-streamer, she took a couple of random looks at the post. She was about to go back to the list when she suddenly noticed the photo in the post. Was that… Pete?

Tina had never thought much of Pete. In her opinion, he was just a pitiful little boy without a mother. Once she married Mr. Hunt, they would definitely have children of their own.

She would raise him and then just send him away after he grew up.

Even so, she had to admit that Pete had completely inherited his father’s looks.

Given his impeccably exquisite facial features, he was the prettiest child she had ever seen during the last few years.

He was probably wearing a wig in the photo, so he had two little braids which made him look like a girl. There was no way she would mistake him for anyone else, though.

Tina felt as if she had just discovered a whole new world.

She studied the post carefully, upon which she finally understood what was going on with sweetcherry.

She was actually a five-year-old gaming live-streamer.

Even their ages matched!

A gaming live-streamer, though… So, as it turned out, the reason why the Hunt's little mister didn’t go to school, and why there had been rumors some time back that his grades were deteriorating was that he had become addicted to games!

Based on Tina’s understanding of Justin, she was very sure that he had absolutely no idea about Pete’s live-streams.

Justin would never allow his children to do such things.

Therefore, Pete must be doing this behind Mr. Hunt’s back… No wonder he was pretending to be a girl. This way, the probability of him being discovered would indeed be smaller.

Tina’s eyes lit up and she suddenly smiled.

Everything had originally been fine after she drove away Nora and her little bastard.

It was all because Pete had suddenly run out of his room. On top of that, he had even insisted on calling Nora Mommy and being in cahoots with her.

That woman sure was smart to win over the kid first though. With his help, she could then go on and try to win over the adult… Tsk, how scheming.

Ah well. It was her fault for playing too much by the rules, being too haughty, and finding it beneath her to win over a child…

Tina felt much better now. She put away her phone and fell asleep.

It was Sunday the next day.

Tina went straight to the Hunt's villa after she woke up.

She was an attending doctor in Hospital Finest, so she often went over to the Hunt's as a doctor when someone was feeling unwell. In particular, after it was said that she had saved the elderly Mrs. Hunt’s life, she went in and out of the Hunt's as if it was her home.

She also did the same for Justin’s villa.

This was one of the reasons why she was able to go to the villa the day before.

She drove to the villa’s entrance. However, the gantry barrier at the entrance didn’t automatically lift even after she waited for a while. Surprised, Tina rolled down the car window. Right away, she saw the security guard asking sternly, “Do you have an appointment, Ms. York?”

Tina, “?”

She was dumbfounded for a moment. Then, she pointed to herself and said, “Do I even need to make an appointment? It’s not like you’re new here. Did you forget who I am?”

However, the security guard replied just as sternly as ever, “No, but Mr. Hunt has specifically left us instructions saying that you’re not allowed to go in and out at will anymore.”

Tina, “!!”

An indescribable sense of embarrassment arose in her and she clenched her fists tightly.

Even her eyes had reddened in anger. “Is this a misunderstanding?”

The security guard replied, “Mr. Hunt personally gave us the instructions. Isn’t your full name Tina York?”

“…”

Tina took a deep breath. Then, she said, “I’ll give Mr. Hunt a call right away. There may be some kind of misunderstanding.”

After saying that, she picked up her cell phone and dialed Justin’s private number.

Justin had two mobile numbers. One was for work while the other was his private number.

During the period when Mrs. Hunt had been hospitalized, she was her attending doctor, so Justin had given her his private phone number. She had always been able to get through previously.

However, when she dialed his number this time, she instead heard the intercept message: ‘Hello, the number you have dialed is not in service.’

Not in service? What nonsense! She just wasn’t on his list of contacts anymore, that was all!

Tina clenched her fists tightly. She stopped the car at the side and struck the steering wheel angrily.

No, Mr. Hunt would never do this to her! That woman must have said something to him!

She suddenly thought of something and called Pete.

In no time, someone picked up. Pete’s young but serious voice came from the other end: “Hello, who is this?”

Tina forced a smile and said, “Hi Pete, I’m Aunt Tina.”

“You must have called the wrong number. I don’t know any Aunt Tina… beep… beep… beep…”

The other party had hung up.

The expression on Tina’s face became even more awful!

As expected, Pete was still just as unappreciative of her kindness as ever.

She took a deep breath and let out an icy laugh.

Fine. She was originally intending to talk to him nicely and coax him to help her, but judging from his attitude, it looked like he was determined to help Nora.

In that case, he didn’t have any right to blame her even if she told Justin about his live-streams!

Chapter 110: She Shouldn’t Stop Father And Daughter From Acknowledging Each Other

Tina couldn’t enter the villa anymore. Neither could she get through to Justin’s phone. It was the weekend, so he wouldn’t be going to the office, either.

As such, she could only wait for him at the gates!

At the same time at the Anderson's.

By the time Nora woke up, Cherry was already out playing with Melissa. She stretched and went to wash up. After that, she went downstairs leisurely.

After a simple lunch, Melissa and Cherry returned.

Someone else also came back together with them—it was actually Sheena. She hadn’t seen her in a long time. She had a sullen and hostile look on her face at the moment.

She hadn’t even taken a seat when she immediately asked Melissa, “What’s wrong with you? Why did you reject the Lowe's real estate investment opportunity?”

Knowing that Sheena was here, Simon, who was home that day, left the study on the upper floor and went down. He was a little taken aback when he heard her question, so he asked, “What investment opportunity are you talking about?”

Sheena looked at Melissa and said with displeasure, “I’ll let her tell you about it instead!”

Melissa sighed and told Simon what had happened.

Nora took a seat on the one-seater sofa while she was recounting the events. She couldn’t help but purse her lips.

Come to think of it, it really was pretty surprising for Aunt Melissa to marry into the Andersons.

Given how she had a sister-in-law like Miranda back home and an aggressive sister-in-law like Sheena here, Nora really didn’t know how she even survived all these years.

While she was secretly dissing them, Melissa also gave them a simple summary of what had happened.

As soon as she did, Sheena, who was a career woman focused solely on making money, couldn’t help but say, “News of how the Lowes are short of funds for their real estate investment has already spread throughout the circle! A lot of people immediately rushed over to invest, but the Lowe's rejected them all. It’s not like they work with just any Tom, d**k, or Harry! Since they’ve chosen the Wood's, why couldn’t you just let your sister-in-law criticize you a little and suffer a little? That way, you’d have been able to help the Anderson's make some money! Simon, a good opportunity has slipped away just like that. Aren’t you going to say anything about it, Simon?”

Simon had been frowning since just now. When he heard what she said, he immediately turned to Melissa and looked at her face. He said, “Miranda actually hit you right in our house? She’s too much! How is your cheek? Does it still hurt? Let me have a look…”

Sheena, “?”

Melissa, who seemed like she already knew that he would react like this, smiled and shook her head. “I’m fine. It’s already been two days.”

Despite that, Simon was still worried. He insisted that Melissa remove her makeup because he suspected that she was covering it up with foundation, causing Melissa to be caught between laughter and tears.

The two of them, who were nearly fifty years old, flirted with each other, taking Nora by surprise.

For some reason, even though she had felt just a moment ago that her aunt didn’t deserve to be treated like that, in this instant, she suddenly understood that as long as there was love, there was no such thing as whether one deserved to be treated a certain way or not.

She had always felt that Justin’s identity would bring danger to the children.

However, she had never once considered whether Cherry would be happier if she reunited with her father and gained her father’s love.

She suddenly thought of how Cherry had reacted after Justin blocked her on f*******: the day before. Even though she had only complained a little, she was actually still feeling rather down even now.

Was it a bit too much of her to prevent them from acknowledging each other?

“That’s enough, the two of you! Do you really think that love can fill your stomachs? Simon, your heart is aching so much just because someone gave your wife a slap, but do you know how much insult and humiliation I had to suffer back then for the sake of Harmonia Pharmacy?”

Sheena suddenly banged the table, causing the other three people’s attention to return to her.

Simon clenched his jaw.

To be honest, he had already realized that his second sister must have been through a lot all these years when he saw how Deputy Dean Lucas had pawed her at the conference the other time.

Simon felt even guiltier toward Sheena. He said, “It’s been tough on you, Sheena.”

Sheena’s expression mellowed a little. She replied, “I’m willing to do it for the sake of the family. Simon, do you still remember how glorious the Andersons were when we were young? Even the Hunt's and the Smith's had to treat us with courtesy. But what about now?”

She took a deep breath and went on. “They even have the guts to not invite us to a medical conference now! Why is that? It’s all because we don’t have any money! Such a good opportunity has been placed in front of us now, but why isn’t any of you cherishing it?”

She looked straight at Melissa and said, “I know you’re from a scholarly family. It was indeed unfair for you to marry Simon under those circumstances back then, but Miranda is your sister-in-law. What’s the big deal about letting her hit you? If it means that it’ll allow the Anderson's to expand into the real estate industry, I’ll smile and let her hit me a hundred times if that’s what she wants! You guys are really just so…

How could you let go of such a great investment opportunity?!”

Melissa, however, didn’t agree with her. She straightened her back and slowly said, “Sheena, in my opinion, it doesn’t matter how much money we have. It’s fine as long as we have enough. That’s not what we should be relying on to revive the Anderson's, either. Rather, it’s our own skills and expertise that we should be using! Why do we have to grovel and submit to others? We mustn’t lose our pride and backbone!”

Simon nodded. “I agree with Melissa.”

A furious Sheena stood up abruptly. As though she had expected better from him, she said, “Are you really sure you don’t care about money? Won’t you be jealous when the Sonnet's strike gold? Won’t you mind?”

Both Melissa and Simon replied, “No, I won’t.”

Sheena took a deep breath and looked at Nora. “Even if you don’t care about money, don’t you care about your reputation?! Nora, how dare you hit your elders and even be so arrogant as to claim that you’re going to help your aunt make money?!

“Do you know that a lot of people have been asking me about you and your marital status after you stole the show at the dance party? But Miranda is now telling everyone about how unbearable, arrogant, and ignorant you are! Originally, quite a few decent families had their eye on you, but now they’ve all disappeared! Do all of you not care about this, either?”

Melissa wasn’t anxious about her matters, but she couldn’t help but become panic when she heard what she said. However, just as she was about to speak, she heard Nora’s cool and crisp voice. “If they are people who easily believe gossip and rumors that they hear from others, why should I care about them?”

Sheena, “??”

Melissa added, “Besides, it’s hard to say at the moment whether real estate will still be lucrative or not. Don’t worry, Sheena.”

Seeing how the three of them were all so calm, Sheena let out an angry bark of laughter. “Is there even anything I should be worried about? It’s not as if I’ll get even a single cent from the Anderson's? Also, are you saying that real estate isn’t lucrative? Do you think you’ll make money by giving Nora money to invest in stocks? What nonsense! There’s a limit to how much you can pamper a child!

“Fine, since none of you want to listen to me, then you can just wait for the Sonnet's to strike gold while all of you starve to death at home! It’s because all of you are content to stay like this that the Anderson's have become what they are today!”

She turned and left after saying that.

_

Sunlight shone through the windows into the car as the sun gradually rose, causing Tina to become drowsy.

She had already waited here for three hours. Just when she thought that Justin wouldn’t be heading out today, the gates to the villa complex opened and Justin’s impressive motorcade came out.

Tina’s eyes lit up at once and she stopped in front of them right away.

Chapter 111: Pete Is A Live-Streamer?

Justin had always been very careful whenever he went out, especially when he had Pete with him.

He had been kidnapped before when he was a child, so he placed great importance on making sure that his son was safe.

That was also why he had hired home tutors for Pete instead of sending him to school.

No information about Justin’s son could be found on the Internet at all. There weren’t even photos, let alone his name.

In fact, not many in New York had even seen Pete before. Justin wanted his son as well-protected as possible before he gained the ability to protect himself.

For example, he was currently just taking his son out for lunch, but he had brought as many as eight bodyguards with him.

The eight bodyguards were separated into two cars. One was in front of them while the other was behind them.

Tina got out of her car and stopped in front of the cars in her high heels. She said, “Mr. Hunt, I have something to tell you!”

The door of the middle vehicle’s passenger seat opened, upon which a leg clad in suit trousers came out.

Tina breathed a sigh of relief. Just as she thought it was Justin, she instead saw the tanned Lawrence getting out of the car.

He neatened his suit and walked over.Then, he grabbed Tina by the arm and pulled her out of the way to the side.

Tina shouted at the car, “Mr. Hunt!”

However, she only managed to shout two words before the two cars in front started and left. The third car stopped beside Lawrence.

Lawrence said to Tina, “Mr. Hunt hates people pestering him the most, Ms. York.”

Tina narrowed her eyes and shook off his arm. She straightened her back and said, “Mr. Zimmer, please relay a message to Mr. Hunt for me. I really have something to talk to him about. It’s about his son, so I have to speak to him in person.”

Lawrence said mockingly, “Ms. York, what is there that you have to say to Mr. Hunt in person? I’ve seen too many people with ill intentions trying to approach him under the guise of caring for his son. Can’t you put in a little more effort and use a different excuse?”

At this point, Lawrence pursed his lips and added, “Or you can just tell me and I’ll convey it to Mr. Hunt for you. There isn’t any difference!”

Tina, whose intentions had been exposed, immediately became furious. However, she knew that it was probably useless even if she insisted on seeing Justin, so she decided to give in. She said, “Mr. Zimmer, I discovered by chance last night that Pete is live-streaming games. Mr. Hunt has always been very strict with Pete. It doesn’t seem quite appropriate for him to do live-streams online, right?”

Lawrence scoffed and replied, “You sure are doing everything you can to get close to Mr. Hunt, Ms. York! Isn’t the credibility of your claim too low?”

“It’s impossible that Pete would play games! Moreover, he doesn’t talk much. There’s no way he would live-stream!”

Seeing that he didn’t believe her, Tina panicked and said, “It’s true. He’s already trending on social media!”

He was trending on social media?

Lawrence raised his eyebrows and said, “Oh, is that so? Show me, then.”

Tina, however, narrowed her eyes and said, “This concerns Pete, so I can only show it to Mr. Hunt, Mr. Zimmer. Let Mr. Hunt know about this; once we add each other on f*******:, I’ll send him the information. How does that sound?”

Lawrence smiled and replied, “Okay, I will let him know.”

After saying that, he turned, got into the third car, and caught up to the cars at the front.

When he got into the car, a bodyguard asked, “Is what that woman said true, Mr. Zimmer?”

Lawrence sneered, “How can that be? Pete is a live-streamer? Are you kidding me?”

However, the moment he said that, it suddenly occurred to him that he seemed to have said something similar when he was in California the last time? He hadn’t relayed Ms. Smith’s message to Mr. Hunt, which resulted in him being sent to Burundi.

Lawrence shuddered.

He hurriedly said, “I’ll check if it’s true.”

He picked up his cell phone, opened the social media apps, and checked the trending topics. From the first to the last one, he looked through them all, but he didn’t see anything related to Pete.

Nevertheless, he didn’t dare to risk overlooking anything, so he called Hunt Corporation’s IT security department and asked, “Is the screening system that Mr. Hunt asked for done?”

The IT security department chief replied, “We’ve been working overtime since yesterday on it. I reckon we’ll finish it tonight.”

“Okay. Send it to me when it’s done.”

Lawrence hung up.

As an executive assistant, it was imperative that he learned to filter certain content by himself.

From now on, all of Ms. Smith’s messages must be relayed to Mr. Hunt.

But for everyone else, he had to verify the authenticity before relaying them to the boss.

Otherwise, was he supposed to subject his boss to Tina’s threat and have him add her as a friend on f*******:? He wouldn’t be a qualified executive assistant anymore if that happened!

By the time the car caught up to the other two cars, Justin and Pete were already in the restaurant.

Lawrence observed his boss carefully after he entered the private room.

Justin had had an awful expression on his face since the previous evening. He gave off a chilly aura all over, so no one dared to approach him. As such, Lawrence gave it some thought and decided to conduct a thorough investigation before telling him about it.

He had no desire to get into the line of fire while the tyrant was in a bad mood.

It was hard to say who the unlucky ones would be.

After lunch, they returned to the villa. Sure enough, when they were turning the corner, they saw in the rearview mirror a few people behaving sneakily.

Justin frowned and ordered, “Get rid of those flies.”

Lawrence replied, “Yes, sir.”

They had already received news about these people’s presence the moment they arrived at the villa complex. In fact, they already knew the moment they undertook the mission. After all, the security personnel around Justin was the best in the world.

In order to ensure Pete’s safety, the bodyguards around him were all retired special forces officers!

Justin had only kept them around in order to lure out the people hidden further behind. After all, apart from his uncle, there were also many others who seemed to be eyeing his boss for reasons that Lawrence didn’t understand.

Five minutes later.

Scarface, who had wounds all over him, was brought over to Justin in the living room of his villa.

Scarface was so aggrieved that he was about to cry. His face was swollen and he had even lost a tooth in the fight. His speech was unclear as he begged for mercy.

“Mr. Hunt, your female bodyguard has already taught us a lesson. We really don’t have the guts to kidnap your son anymore. We’ve been protecting him all this time! We even drove away three groups of people over the last two days!”

Justin, “?”

Taken aback, he asked, “My female bodyguard?”

“Yes, she was driving a jeep yesterday. The one who’s protecting your son.”

A jeep… Nora Smith?

Justin sat up straight. The cold look on his face mellowed a little.

Nora hadn’t given him any birthday gifts the day before, which made him feel as if he had been neglected, so he had been in a bad mood all day.

But as it turned out, she did care about him, right?

Otherwise, why would she quietly teach Scarface a lesson but not tell him anything?

As expected, she was indeed deeply in love with and devoted to him. Everyone else was dying to let the whole world know whenever they did something for him, yet she didn’t even mention anything about what she did.

The corners of Justin’s lips curled upward slightly and his mood, which had been gloomy all day, became much better. With a wave, he got his men to take Scarface away. Then, he suddenly thought of Cherry.

Was it a bad move for him to delete Cherry from his f*******:? In that case, maybe he should add her as a friend again?

He opened f*******:, intending to unblock her and add her back as a friend with the excuse that he had accidentally deleted her. But he instead saw that…