Chapter 10
The villa stood empty and desolate.
The living room felt so curiously empty. It was as though no one had lived in this space before.
Harper, who came in after Selene, called out to Carter instinctively, “Daddy? Daddy!”
Yet, no one responded to her, no matter how long she shouted.
Harper started panicking. Her eyes were red as she grabbed Selene’s hand. “Daddy… Where’s Daddy?”
Selene was feeling increasingly anxious. She took out her phone and dialed Carter’s number. However, she could only hear a mechanical female voice when the line got through. “Sorry. The number you’ve dialed is unavailable.”
Harper broke down in tears. “I want Daddy!”
The whole city learned the news of Carter’s disappearance very quickly. However, the more dire issue was Selene and Adrian’s intimate photos being displayed on every billboard in the city for an entire day.
Selene spent a huge sum of money to take down those photos and clips. Nevertheless, those contents went viral on the internet with the “help” of the online community.
For a while, Miller Corporation’s stock prices plummeted. Their shareholders began to doubt Selene. They even considered asking her father, Frank Miller, who had handed over his position to Selene, to appoint a new CEO.
As for Harper, she was scorned and ridiculed by the other kids in her kindergarten. They said she and her mother were equally shameless. Instead of her own father, Harper was calling Selene’s lover her father instead.
The kids didn’t exactly know what those words meant since they had simply heard them from their parents. Still, the young Harper knew those words didn’t mean well.
Moreover, even her teacher didn’t hide her contempt and dislike for Harper.
Harper started fearing going to school. She would stay at home and cry all day. Meanwhile, Selene didn’t have the time to pay attention to her.
After Adrian was exposed as Selene’s lover, not only was he fired from his job, but the people staying in the same residential area as him would also throw trash at Adrian, telling him to get out of their sight.
With no place to go, Adrian had no choice but to turn to Selene.
However, Selene had no intention of letting Adrian into her house. She had hired men to check the source of the photos and video shown on the billboards and found out it was Adrian who
A
had secretly sent those things to Carter.
Unfamiliar anger burned within her.
When Selene had just formed this relationship with Adrian, she clearly warned him not to divulge anything about their relationship to Carter.
After all, she had always maintained the impression of a good wife in front of others. There was no way she would allow a fault like this to be attached to her image.
Perhaps she had grown overly attached to Adrian recently, and Selene even brought Harper along to meet him these days. That probably gave Adrian the wrong idea and prompted him to
act out of line.
However, Selene wouldn’t tolerate him overstepping his boundaries. When Adrian knelt outside her house and begged her to let him in, Selene instructed the bodyguards to throw him out right away.
Adrian panicked upon receiving that treatment. He produced Selene’s health report, which he had gotten by convincing her to get a health examination previously. The results indicated. that Selene was pregnant.
Selene’s expression darkened instantly. She immediately decided to get an abortion. Adrian, who had been Selene’s secret lover for so long, didn’t come unprepared.
Before Selene was transferred to the operation room, Regina Cox, Frank’s wife, came rushing
into the room with a bunch of reporters.
Adrian came from a poor family. His father was an alcoholic, and his mother ran away with another man. He grew up watching how others flourished and led better lives. Since then, he had been determined to live a wealthy life someday.
Selene was the perfect candidate among the list of people Adrian had picked out to help him
achieve that.
Selene had a daughter. Adrian had simply mentioned to her in passing how he had graduated with a degree in early childhood education.
Then, he let Harper try some of the snacks Carter wouldn’t allow her to eat and bought her toys that Carter wouldn’t buy for her. Harper quickly grew very fond of him, more than she
was of her own father.
Sadly, no matter how close they were, Harper would never be Adrian’s real daughter.
Therefore, there was one time Adrian secretly took off the contraceptive when he and Selene were in bed. Now, he had finally managed to secure his position as the Miller family’s son–in-
law.
Regina wasn’t Frank’s first wife. She managed to remove Frank’s first wife, who died because of all the stress and frustration caused by Regina, and married Frank.
Since she used to be Frank’s mistress, Regina understood what Adrian wa
thinking.
Regina had never liked Carter, who kept his distance from her, to begin with. Naturally, she didn’t like Harper that much either.
Since there was now another person who was eager to win her favor and give her a grandchild, Regina was, of course, more than happy to see Adrian become her new son–in–law.
Therefore, when she learned that Selene was getting an abortion, Regina immediately brought the reporters to the hospital with her. She knew Selene well and just how much she cared about the company.
So, Regina was planning to get Selene to acknowledge the existence of the child she was carrying in front of all the cameras.
Selene was so exasperated that her vision kept going dark. Carter was still nowhere to be found. Now, even Regina was trying to complicate things for her.
Everything went dark as Selene eventually lost consciousness.
In the end, it was Frank who had stepped up to solve the problem. After he made some arrangements, all negative, scandalous news about Miller Corporation disappeared entirely.
Regina was also sent abroad.
As for Adrian, he was left in Selene’s villa. Frank had no interest in dealing with Adrian since
Selene had created this mess herself.
With Selene still unconscious, Adrian and Harper were pretty much the only ones around in
the villa.
After moving into the villa, Adrian assumed that it would only be a matter of time before he became an actual member of the Miller family. He stopped hiding his true self and started acting conceitedly.
Harper still remembered him as the Adrian she knew. So, she cried fearfully when she saw his
true colors.
“Shut up! Why the heck are you crying? If your mom tries to get rid of my child, I’m going to make you suffer too!”
