Titus didn’t answer that. Instead, he asked darkly, “Where’s Tina?”
“She’s in her room,” Julia answered.
Titus squinted for a moment, then he went upstairs.
His inexplicable anger was making Julia’s heart pound with fear. Did Tina do something to get on his nerves? Worried about her daughter, Julia quickly followed him upstairs.
Titus started banging on the door once he was outside Tina’s room.
The door was opened a moment later, revealing Tina behind it. She was in her pajamas, looking sleepy. “What is it, Dad?” The fact that she was looking sleepy only served to fuel his anger. I was humiliated at an important meeting, while you’re just sleeping? The more he thought about it, the angrier he was. In the end, he couldn’t hold it back anymore, and he slapped Tina as hard as he could.
Slap! Tina fell to the ground from the impact of the slap, entirely dumbstruck. But more importantly, she didn’t know why her father was slapping her.
Julia came over just in time to see that. She screamed in horror and went up to hold Tina. “Tina!”
Tina was holding her face with one hand, staring at her furious father in confusion.
Julia was flabbergasted as well, but she was also infuriated. “Are you mad, Titus? Why’d you slap your daughter?” “Why did I slap her, you ask?Do you have any idea what this girl did?” Titus was pointing at Tina with a trembling finger.
Tina finally got up with her mother’s help. “What? What did I do, Dad?” She stared at her father tearfully.
“Yeah, what did she do?” Julia touched Tina’s face, and she started to cry. “Does it hurt, Tina?” Her face was already red, obviously because Titus didn’t hold back.
“Yes, it does.” Tina bit her lip, tears streaming down her cheeks.
“Good!” Titus snorted. “When you told me I’m getting the deal, I thought you slept your way into the company. Turns out I got the deal because you switched my proposal with
someone else’s.”
All at once, Tina averted her gaze guiltily.
Julia was surprised too, but she shrugged Tina s actions off quickly. “So what? That s no big deal. Did you have to slap her?”
“It wouldn’t have been a big deal, except she didn’t do a clean job. Sure, Tom was distracted, but there was a surveillance camera in the room. You got caught red handed, Tina.” Titus looked at her coldly.
Tina froze up. “1-1 didn’t know there was a surveillance camera in there.”
“Too late for excuses. Do you have any idea how embarrassed I was when Sonia pointed out that the proposal isn’t mine? There were more than twenty presidents in the room. Do you know how bad this is going to be for my rep?” Titus growled.
Tina stared down in fearful silence.
Julia patted Titus’ back. “It can’t be that bad, can it, honey?”
“Why can’t it be? Now everyone knows I have a daughter who tried to cheat her way through the competition. My reputation’s scarred. The whole town’s gonna laugh at me.”
Then, he pointed at Julia. “You’re gonna get dragged into this as well. The next time you go on an outing with your friends, they’re gonna treat you like a joke.”
That finally made Julia nervous. “T-They won’t, right?”
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