The Returning EX (John and Sophia) novel Chapter 1701

Chapter 1701 Wait Out the Storm

Ian returned the phone to Aurora, seemingly calm as he said, “It’s fine; this whole thing will fizzle out on its own. Besides, I know how to deal with them.” He rose from bed and rolled his shoulders to ease his joints before he added, “You have to understand that they’re only shooting themselves in the foot. The old man is already peeved, what with Leah and her children’s antics during his hospitalization and all, but now that they have taken one step further to aggravate him, there’s a high chance that he would write them out of his will entirely.”

Cindy wasn’t aware of such details. She was only concerned about the backlash that he would potentially face following Simon’s false allegations and despite Ian’s attempt to downplay the incident, she still felt gloomy.

Aurora, on the other hand, took to the new topic instantly as she frowned and asked, “What, is the old man on your side now?”

As he pursed his lips, Ian slowly replied, “I guess you could say that. He’s done putting up with Leah, Simon and Sally, although I should clarify that he’s not fully supportive of me either.”

His words had clearly placated Aurora and she felt a bit of resentment leaving her. She would rather Ian be the one in Bryce’s favor, however slight that would be, even if it meant she couldn’t gloat in front of the old man.

Then, Ian checked the time and muttered in surprise, “I didn’t think I’d nap past dinner time.”

Cindy snapped out of her thoughts and quickly responded, “You must be hungry. I’ll immediately get started on supper.”

He turned to say something, but before he could verbalize his words, his phone on the nightstand rang, which startled him. After that, he crossed the room to grab the phone.

Upon seeing this, she stopped just as she was reaching the doorway.

It was a call from Sean and Ian answered it without any hesitation.

As it turned out, he had just seen the news circulating on the Internet and after reading all the nonsense that Simon fed to the media, he was understandably seething with rage. “I just saw the news. I’ve already warned Leah and her spawn to keep their mouths zipped instead of taking this chance to stir up more trouble, but apparently, they have decided to ignore me.”

Ian hummed in response. “I figured this would happen sooner or later.” Yulia had previously warned him that there would be more false narratives of him being leaked to the entertainment reporters and back then, he already had a vague idea of what to expect.

Now that Simon had resorted to feeding lies to the media, Ian couldn’t say that he never saw it coming, so he was completely unfazed by it.

On the contrary, he thought he would rather see how the entire situation played out. He had always been a patient man who liked knowing that he could strike once his opponents had dealt all their cards.

“It’s fine,” an unaffected Ian insisted. “I’d like to see how creative they can be, so let’s just be patient.”

If Ian was unfazed, then Sean shouldn’t be panicking. He was unrattled as he suggested, “In that case, you should delay your next visit to the hospital. I have already asked someone to snap pictures of you swinging by to visit the old man today. Maybe you could use the pictures the next time you want to give the media a field day.”

Even as he said this, Sean knew that his men weren’t the only ones with pictures of Ian’s visit. Leah had planted her spies in the hospital, which meant she would also likely have photographic evidence of the said pictures.

Sean assumed that she initially had her guard up against him, but she probably never expected Ian to show up at the hospital to visit Bryce earlier today.

Going on that basis, she could have been so riled up by Ian’s unannounced visit that she made the good-for-nothing Simon feed nonsense to the media.

Leah was hellbent on bringing Ian down that she forgot that ruining his reputation would equate to tarnishing Bryce as well. It was obvious that she lacked a strategic mind and the patience to formulate a foolproof plan; she ought to have known better than to try and one-up Bryce while he was still alive and breathing.

However, Sean kept his thoughts private and all he told Ian over the phone was, “All is well as long as you’re not affected by this. Let’s just wait it out and see what happens by then.” With that, he hung up.

Meanwhile, Cindy watched Ian with a worried gleam in her eyes as she asked, “Do you think you could turn things around in your favor this time?”

He kept the phone aside and replied confidently, “Of course.”

She eyed him for a second longer before nodding, somewhat relieved by the certainty in his voice.

Then, she turned to leave the room so that she could get started on dinner. Aurora was still gazing thoughtfully at the doorway when she whispered to Ian, “She’s really worried about you, isn’t she?”

Ian had noticed this as well, for Cindy had looked unsettled ever since she read the news.