Jenson Forrest looked over coldly. "Zinnia Lawrence is my wife. Is the Sutton Family trying to go against the Forrest Family and , Jenson Forrest?"
His voice was chilly and indifferent, yet the threat and pressure within it were enough to terrify anyone. Mandy Lowe shuddered, her face turning ghastly.
Crystal Sutton looked at her with an expression of grievance and restraint. "Mom, maybe it really was my imagination. My sister wouldn’t do such a malicious thing. Let’s just leave it at that. You can apologize to the guests for ; Jenson can stay with ."
Mandy Lowe had no choice but to leave. Crystal Sutton reached down, trying to take Jenson Forrest’s hand, but the man pulled his sleeve back.
"I’m going to change clothes," he said.
He was still drenched, so Crystal Sutton could only relent. "Okay, Jenson, go quickly. Don’t catch a cold."
When he stepped out, the driver, Uncle Cohen, was waiting at the door with a fresh set of clothes from the car.
"Where’s Mrs. Forrest?" Jenson Forrest asked, frowning, not taking the clothes.
Uncle Cohen was taken aback. "Mrs. Forrest? She’s probably taking a shower and changing sowhere."
Only then did Jenson Forrest take the clothes. He was led by a servant to a guest room to change. After, Uncle Cohen went downstairs and found a servant to ask about Zinnia Lawrence, but the servant said she had already left.
Slightly surprised, Uncle Cohen hurried to his car and drove out of the Sutton residence, just in ti to see Zinnia hailing a taxi and getting in. He didn’t pursue her and simply drove back.
「The next morning」
Zinnia Lawrence didn’t see Jenson Forrest until she was leaving her building. She spotted his familiar car parked under a tree not far away. He was standing beside it, smoking. When he saw her, he crushed the cigarette butt, threw it into a nearby trash can, and strode over.
Zinnia pretended not to see him and walked right past.
Jenson Forrest frowned. "You didn’t get sick last night, did you?"
The weather was cold, and Crystal Sutton had developed a fever the previous night. Since she was pregnant and couldn’t take dication, a servant had attended to her all night, preventing Jenson from leaving. He had tried calling Zinnia, but she had blocked his number, making it impossible for him to even ask how she was.
Zinnia had run a slight fever, but she had a strong constitution. She had brewed herself so brown sugar ginger tea and felt much better by morning.
She turned to face him, her tone dripping with sarcasm. "Young Master Forrest is only showing concern now? Don’t you think it’s a bit late? Oh, right, I rember now. You were so busy last night taking care of your little sweetheart, how could you possibly have ti to bother with ? Luckily, I’m just a weed. I’m not as delicate and precious as so others. My only virtue is my resilience! I’m perfectly fine, so you don’t need to trouble your ’old’ self!"
With that, Zinnia turned to leave. He was the one who didn’t want her anymore; she certainly didn’t need his fake concern now.
But Jenson Forrest suddenly grabbed her shoulder. "Zinnia! Must you speak to like this? You pushed Crystal into the water, made a mistake, and let others clean up your ss. Now you think you’re in the right?"
"I didn’t push her!" Zinnia twisted angrily in his grasp.
Jenson’s voice was grim. "Crystal can’t swim. Would she have jumped in on her own?"
Zinnia felt as if her heart was being squeezed so tightly she couldn’t breathe. She no longer had the desire to argue. She knew he wouldn’t believe her. She just knew.
"Whatever," she said wearily. "Since you think I’m malicious enough to have pushed her, there’s no need to pretend you care about . Let go."
Forcing herself to keep her emotions in check, she pushed him away and walked forward, step by step.
Jenson Forrest rubbed the space between his eyebrows and strode after her, grabbing her again.
"Unblock my number!" he ordered in a deep voice. He’d had enough of the worry he felt last night, of being unable to reach her.
He was so persistent that Zinnia, not wanting to argue with him any longer, quietly took out her phone and added his number back.
"Can I leave now?" she asked, her entire being radiating rebellion and defiance.
Jenson Forrest had a headache. He hadn’t slept all night and had been waiting here since before dawn. He didn’t want to keep arguing with her and had lost the patience to comfort or care for her.
He slowly released his hand.
「Four or five days passed」
Zinnia Lawrence didn’t see Jenson Forrest again. Although she had unblocked his number, he hadn’t contacted her. It seed they had tacitly entered a cold war.
That day, after finishing her performance at the rmaid-thed restaurant, Zinnia erged from the water soaking wet. She went to the dressing room to shower and change. Just as she was about to leave, the manager ca over with a smile.
"Miss Lawrence, an old client, Mr. Donovan, would like to invite you for a drink. He’s a friend of the owner, so if you could do him the favor..."
Zinnia frowned, her voice cold. "My duties don’t include accompanying clients for drinks."
She started to walk away. As the manager hesitated, a figure blocked her path. He was a man of about twenty-five or twenty-six, impeccably dressed in a suit. He was decent-looking, but he wore an expression that scread "I’m handso," and his every gesture was a display of pretentious elegance that was a complete turn-off.
"Miss Lawrence, is it? I really enjoy your performance. Do the honor of joining for a al, and this will be yours." He dangled a set of BMW keys from his fingertips, his eyes raking over her from head to toe.
Zinnia was wearing a simple white T-shirt and jeans, not showing any skin, but the plain clothes took on a different, more sophisticated charm on her. An image of her in the water flashed through his mind: the magnificent, pale-gold fishtail; skin as flawless as frost; the way she’d glided through the water like a true deep-sea rmaid princess—enchanting, pure, and seductive all at once. Had he not seen it with his own eyes, it would be hard to imagine that beneath the loose white T-shirt was such a captivating body. And those long legs, wrapped in a fishtail, thrashed through the water with such flexible grace... He could only imagine how ecstatically powerful they would feel wrapped around a man’s waist.
"Get lost!" Zinnia’s face turned cold at his blatant stare.
The manager frowned. "How can you speak to Young Master Donovan like that..."
Kane Donovan, however, just smiled. Maintaining a gentlemanly deanor, he stepped aside and waved off the manager to show he wasn’t bothered.
As Zinnia walked away, Kane watched her figure disappear before reluctantly turning his gaze. He patted the manager’s shoulder. "I like them spicy. It makes getting a taste all the more satisfying. Send her part-ti schedule."
Even after Zinnia left the rmaid-thed restaurant, she could still feel the sticky, nauseating sensation of being watched. She felt disgusted and agitated. This part-ti job probably won’t last much longer.
But misfortune never cos alone. Just then, Gloria Grant called. Zinnia answered to the sound of her sharp, crying shouts.
"You brat, where did you run off to? Your brother and I are about to be kicked out of the hospital! If you don’t co soon, your brother and I will just die together!"
Zinnia urgently hailed a taxi. Once inside, she called Yara Fairchild. After hearing about the trouble with Mason, Yara offered a few words of comfort and said she was also heading to the hospital.
They happened to run into each other at the hospital entrance.
Outside Mason Lawrence’s ward, it was indeed chaos. Gloria Grant was in a tussle with two nurses. Upon seeing Zinnia, Gloria ran over and grabbed her.
"Zinnia, why is the hospital kicking us out? Isn’t this hospital controlled by the Forrest Group? Let tell you, I am the biological mother-in-law of your honorary director!" she shouted at the nurses before pushing Zinnia. "Brat, what are you standing there for? Hurry up and call Jenson!"
Gloria’s voice was loud, drawing strange looks from everyone. They were probably wondering what corner this Mrs. Forrest had crawled out from. Zinnia felt utterly mortified. Yara stepped forward and pulled Gloria away.
"What kind of mother are you! Besides asking Zinnia for money and going to the Forrests for money, have you ever done a single decent thing? Mason Lawrence has been lying here for a year, and Zinnia has been shouldering everything. How many tis have you even co to look after him? Don’t you feel guilty?!"
Gloria stumbled back two steps and pointed a finger at Yara’s nose. "I’m talking to my daughter! What business is it of yours?!"
"Do you even treat Zinnia as your daughter? When she was being beaten by York Lawrence, where were you? When she was starving, going through trash cans barefoot just to survive, where were you? The mont you saw she was taken in by the Forrest Family, you suddenly wanted to see her every month, showing up at her door for money. You’ve let everyone point fingers at her and call her a parasite. How do you have the nerve to call yourself her mother? And now that there’s trouble, you suddenly rember her?"
Yara was trembling with rage. She rembered the first ti she t Zinnia. The little girl had fallen from being a rich young lady to a neglected waif. She’d burned her hand just trying to boil water, and there was no food in the house because Gloria couldn’t be bothered. In the dead of winter, a drunken York Lawrence had thrown her out in thin clothes, forcing her to rummage through the neighborhood trash cans. When Yara found her, Zinnia was like a beautiful, drenched Persian cat, its precious fur ruined, looking terrified and helpless.
Yara couldn’t understand it. Gloria had never been a great mother, but in the past, she had at least defended Crystal Sutton and fought with York Lawrence for her. Could it be because Zinnia was only brought ho when she was six that there was no affection? That she could neglect her own flesh and blood?
Gloria’s face turned green from the confrontation. She looked at Zinnia with an embarrassed expression. "Zinnia, Mom is just so worried about your brother. I’m sure you’re worried too, right? Hurry and ask Jenson what’s going on."
Mason Lawrence’s survival depended on the hospital’s equipnt. Zinnia still needed to send her brother abroad for treatnt; she couldn’t let anything happen to him just as hope was on the horizon. She had wanted to ask Alaric Hawthorne to smooth things over, but a nurse told her that Alaric had left for a dical aid event and wouldn’t be back for about half a month.
Rembering how Jenson had ntioned replacing Alaric, Zinnia beca even more certain he was behind this.
She took out her phone and dialed Jenson Forrest, her fingertips ice cold. Jenson knew perfectly well that Mason was the only blood relative she had left, yet he was using her brother’s life to manipulate her. Was he trying to coerce her into coming back? Or was this to get revenge for Crystal Sutton?
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