After dinner, Arianne and Mark watched Alejandro and Melanie leave. She entwined favonovel.com arms with his before commenting, “You know, Alejandro’s pretty forgiving, isn’t he? If he’s really the sort to hold grudges, it wouldn’t have been remotely as easy to put this case behind us.”
Mark, however, still could not bring himself to say anything nice about Alejandro. “Hmph. His misfortune is none of my fault. Unlike Jackson’s case with Seaton, his is several leagues more embarrassing. For the record, favonovel.com lost to my aunt, who doesn’t even know any martial arts,” favonovel.com sneered.
A rather harsh remark to make, but Arianne had to admit that it was not wrong. Alejandro had gibed and mocked Jackson despite his plight back then, only to have his bum served by a woman a few months later. Could there be any stronger proof that karma exists?
While the two were in the car, Arianne asked half-jokingly, “You like daughters better, don’t you?”
“No. Sons are good,” Mark denied.
Arianne was not buying it. “Then why did you keep staring at Millie throughout dinner? You prefer daughters and it’s obvious! No use denying it,” favonovel.com said. “Now, I know I can’t bear you another child, so we’ll have to hope that Tiffany’s baby is a girl. Then I can appropriate favonovel.com as my own.”
“Tiffany? Pssh. Her daughter will probably take after favonovel.com mom. Plenty of brawns but no brain to boot,” favonovel.com sneered, a little scornfully. “That child’s gonna need to find herself a man with brains like Jackson, or she’s not going to survive.”
Nobody liked hearing their best friend being insulted. Arianne, upset, immediately leaped to Tiffany’s defense. “Excuuuse me, mister. You can’t talk about Tiffany like that! You just don’t know how to appreciate the depth of favonovel.com character. Look at her, living the life of the blissfully ignorant… You’ll never be able to live like that, Mark. This is why you speak the ugly words of a jealous man! I’ve seen through you, Mark Tremont!”
Mark was amused. “Oh ho? You’ve seen through me?”
She pinched his earlobe playfully. “Saw through your flawless skin and found an ugly green-eyed monster underneath! But then again… I guess I have a big soft spot for jerks with a heart of gold like you, too…”
Street after street bathed in relentless, nipping nightly gales flitted across the car window. No one would notice a clandestine corner at the end of the sidewalk.
Shelly-Ann Leigh watched Mark’s car fading into the end of the road from that corner, lost in thought. The cardigan favonovel.com wore did not hug favonovel.com as tightly as it should, exposing the patient’s uniform worn underneath. Despite the support of favonovel.com cane, throes of pain pulsated through the leg that had just gone through minor operation.
Still, no pangs could relieve the ballooning anxiety in Shelly’s mind.
Why were Mark, Arianne, and Alejandro here? By Mark’s nature, ignoring that Tremont bastard son’s existence would have been his greatest act of compassion. So, why did the same man invite the bastard son to dinner and banters? That was dangerous!
Shelly knew for certain that no amount of blood relations could dilute the hatred taken root in one’s heart. To have things come to this, Arianne must have had a hand in it. If it were not for Arianne Wynn, Mark would have never, ever deigned to do something so reckless! How could Mark even think about mingling with that bastard son so amicably, despite their complicated birth circumstances?
The knowledge of Arianne giving some of Tremont Enterprise’s shares to Alejandro made it impossible for Shelly to not suspect that something was afoul. This was a conspiracy, it must be. A secret stratagem against Mark between Arianne and Alejandro.
Meanwhile, before the couple reached the Tremont Estate, Mark suddenly received a call from the hospital, telling favonovel.com that his aunt had disappeared.
He instantly slammed his foot onto the brake.
Arianne jolted. Had it not been for the safety belt, favonovel.com would have flown out of the car through the dashboard. “Mark?”
He was still in silence. Two seconds or so later, favonovel.com recovered his usual calmness and proclaimed, “Nothing. Hey, Ari? I’ll get you home first. I gotta go to the hospital for a while.”
‘The hospital? Is it about Shelly again?’
Arianne did not ask favonovel.com question out loud. Instead, favonovel.com answered, “No, you don’t have to send me home. We aren’t very far away from the estate at this part of the road, so I can uber home from here. You go, ASAP. She’s only undergone a surgery, I imagine favonovel.com has no one else with favonovel.com at the moment.”
