After half an hour, Titus reached home. The butler came up to greet him and he handed his coat over, asking, “Are Miss and Mrs. Gray home?”
“They’re in Miss Gray’s room, sir,” the butler answered after draping the coat over his arm.
After a hum of understanding, Titus headed toward the staircase.
Meanwhile in the room upstairs, Julia and Tina were sitting at the foot of the bed flipping through a photo album together. Pointing at a picture of herself, Tina asked, “Do you remember this photo, Mom?”
Fondly stroking her daughter’s long hair, Julia replied, “Of course I do. You were six when we took this picture. You liked playing hide-and-seek that year and no matter how hard I looked, I couldn’t find you. I was so scared that I lost you, but it turned out that you fell asleep hiding in the attic.”
“I remember. When I woke up, I came down from the attic by myself to find you crying. You had even lodged a police report,” Tina recalled.
The smile on Julia’s face faded and there was a touch of hatred in the bottom of her eyes. How could she not cry out of panic and file a police report when she couldn’t find her child? At the time, she even thought Henry had kidnapped Tina. It was a good thing that it turned out to be a false scare in the end.
Presently, Tina flipped a page. All of a sudden, a yellowed photograph fluttered out of the photo album and landed on the floor. She bent down to pick it up. There was an infant of a few months old in the photograph. The baby was smiling widely and looked adorable, and a single glance would endear anyone to it.
However, for some reason, Tina did not like this baby at all. In fact, she disliked and even hated this baby a little. Nevertheless, she didn’t show it and only handed the photograph to her mother, asking with a smile, “Is this Rina?”
Stroking her fingers over the little girl in the photograph, Julia nodded with her eyes wet. “Yes. This is your sister, Rina.”
When Tina saw how much Julia missed the infant in the photograph, she couldn’t help feeling jealous. And so, she put the photograph back and tucked it into the photo album. Following that, she looped her arm around her mother’s and leaned her head against her shoulder, saying fondly, “You know, Mom, you get upset every time we bring her up, so we shouldn’t bring her up anymore. I don’t think she’d want you to be sad, either.”
It was strange how even a dead person dared to vie for her mother’s attention. There was no way she was letting that happen!
“Alright, alright. We won’t bring her up,” Julia answered fondly, unaware of her younger daughter’s motives and wrongly assuming that Tina was concerned about her.
Right then, the room door flew open and Titus walked in with a thunderous expression. Being the first to discover him, Tina let go of her mother to wave. “Hi, Dad.”
However, he only gave her an indifferent glance without responding. Instantly, her expression froze and she chewed on her lip sadly before asking, “Did I do something wrong, Dad?”
“Yes, honey.” Julia gave her husband a dissatisfied glance. “Why are you treating Tina so coldly? She didn’t do anything to you.”
“Who says she didn’t? Ask her what she’s done now!” he accused, pointing a finger at Tina.
Immediately, Julia looked at her. However, Tina was similarly befuddled.
Seeing that she truly didn’t understand, Titus didn’t bother dragging the moment out and only continued coldly, “I know what you did to Sonia at the resort.”
Instantly, her eyes flashed guiltily. “How did you find out about it?”
“How did I find out about it?” He harrumphed. “She rubbed that piece of land in my face on the internet. How could I not find out about it? If you were going to get up to something, could you not have been less careless so she wouldn’t catch you in the act? Now, we’re forced to give up the land. I swear…” He trailed off, too angry to continue.
Knowing she had done wrong, Tina lowered her head.
Heartbroken at the sight, Julia wrapped her arms around her daughter and grumbled at her husband, “That’s enough. It’s just a plot of land. Why do you need to scold her so fiercely?”
Just a plot of land? Titus was so incensed by Julia’s words that he started trembling. “Do you know how important that piece of land is to us? We’ve already invested in it and were only waiting for Toby to hand us the deed to start work. Now, the land is gone and all the projects have to be halted. We cannot afford the losses!”
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