My Fiancé's Scandals Never End, So I Married His Uncle Instead Chapter 170: Substituting a Plum for a Peach

They hadn’t been in contact, but that didn’t an they were unaware of each other’s basic situations. Kian Sterling had forced that man abroad years ago, but he had left behind a number of connections in the country. Over the years, he’d caused Kian no small amount of trouble. Just after returning from Silverwood this ti, Kian had rooted out three moles who had been secretly passing core data from the Sterling Group to him.

Likewise, the siblings had a rough idea of his circumstances. He was a cold-hearted lecher who’d gone through countless lovers. He had more illegitimate children than you could count on two hands and lived an absurdly hedonistic life abroad.

Ordinarily, their mutual disgust ant they should never want to contact each other again.

"This can’t be anything good," Kian Sterling said, taking Celia Sterling’s phone. He was about to block the number that had just called when a text ssage popped up.

[Heard my precious daughter is about to celebrate her wedding to Silas Norwood of the Norwood Group. I wonder if Daddy would be welco to co back and have a drink at my Cece’s celebration?]

"He wants to co back for the wedding?" Celia Sterling’s expression soured. "He just wants to co back and cause trouble for you, doesn’t he, Kade! I heard his horde of mistresses and illegitimate children are a real handful. Have they bled him dry, so now he’s got his sights set on us?"

"The Sterling Group isn’t the sa company it was when he was in charge." Kian Sterling casually sent a ssage to Evan Rhodes, telling him to personally go to the cybersecurity departnt and have that man’s entire region blacklisted from Celia Sterling’s phone. "Cece, you don’t have to be afraid of anything. Your brother’s here."

"I heard the forr Chairman Sterling is active in the Norland region?" Silas Norwood said as he slowly refilled Celia’s soup bowl. "I have so connections over there. Do you need to put a travel restriction on him?"

"It’s better to channel than to block," Kian Sterling said. Since he had managed to keep the man confined to the Norland region for so many years, he naturally had his own power base there. "When I need you, I won’t hesitate to ask."

"We’re family now. There’s no need for such formalities," Silas Norwood replied, saying no more.

That night, Silas Norwood held Celia Sterling in his arms as they watched the moon outdoors.

"When I was younger, I was training under my father. I had a few dealings with Franklin Sterling. Anyone who could control the Sterling Group for that many years is not to be underestimated," Silas Norwood said, slowly running his fingers through Celia’s hair.

Celia Sterling felt a little embarrassed. "Tonight... you must think I’m a joke, Silas."

"What’s there to joke about? Every big family has its dirty laundry. Back in the day, I had my own long-running feuds with my older brothers, a few uncles, and my cousins."

Silas Norwood sighed softly, ’but he was curious about sothing else: His wife was a substitute, a plum swapped for a peach. Did Franklin Sterling know?’

Curious, he decided to test the waters. "Cece, were you close with him when you were little?"

Celia Sterling shook her head, looking lost. "I’ve forgotten almost everything before I was four or five. If I try to think hard about it, I can’t rember any ti I spent with my father. I heard he doted on and my brother a little when I was very young, but he soon got a mistress, and his heart wasn’t at ho anymore."

She racked her brain to rember. "My earliest mory of my father is of my mother holding . He ca in with a share transfer agreent, and my mother had press my thumbprint on it. She told , ’That’s Daddy.’"

That ti was so long ago, so distant that Celia Sterling wasn’t even sure if it was a real mory or sothing she had imagined.

Her little mind was muddled. For a period of ti, June Coleman would whisper in her ear all day long:

"Cece, rember, if anyone asks your na, you say you’re Celia Sterling..."

"Cece, I’m Mommy. Co on, say ’Mommy.’"

"Cece, this is your older brother, Kade. Quick, call him ’Brother.’"

Then she would show her a photograph. "Do you rember? This is Daddy. Call him ’Daddy.’"

Back then, she was clearly living in a huge villa, but aside from June Coleman and Kian Sterling, the only other person she saw was an old servant who had been with June Coleman for years. She saw no one else.

After living like that for what seed like over half a year, she finally t Franklin Sterling.

He was a complete stranger to her. The man ignored an attentive June Coleman, crouching down in front of her, looking slightly surprised.

"It’s been a while. Cece’s put on so weight. She looks a little different than before."

"A while? You haven’t seen your daughter in three years," June Coleman said in a gentle voice. "She’s filled out, so of course her face looks very different from when she was skinny."

Franklin Sterling didn’t think much of it. "True. The last ti I saw her, she was just over two. Children change so dramatically. I rember when Kian was this age, he looked different every day. In the blink of an eye, he went from a mischievous kid to a handso young man adored by half the girls in tropia."

He studied her carefully again. "Hmm, her eyes and brows still have a trace of how she looked three years ago. The mole between her eyebrows and the birthmark on her neck are still there. It’s our Cece, all right."

He reached out to hold her.

But she was pulled into another’s arms.

Kian Sterling held her and said coolly to Franklin Sterling, "Cece only lets hold her."

June Coleman sighed beside them. "It’s true. This child, Cece... she doesn’t want anyone else. She clings to Kian all day. She won’t even let hold her."

...

The mory fragnted there. A child’s mories are blurry and distorted. In Celia Sterling’s mind, she had only ever t Franklin Sterling that one ti. Later on, news spread that he was keeping a mistress and had an illegitimate son. That was followed by utter chaos in the Sterling Family: Kian Sterling was stripped of his position as heir, June Coleman and Franklin Sterling had an amicable divorce, and then the illegitimate son was brought into the family...

"I rember Ms. Coleman’s divorce," Celia Sterling said, tilting her head as she thought about it in Silas Norwood’s arms. "She was incredibly calm, as if she’d been expecting it all along. And she and the... ahem, the head of the Shepherd Family... they moved in together very quickly. It’s hard to say if they’d already been seeing each other in private long before that."

Silas Norwood was starting to understand. Franklin Sterling had never considered the possibility that his daughter had been replaced. He glanced at Celia Sterling’s smooth face and delicate neck. "I don’t see the mole and birthmark Cece ntioned..."

"I’m not sure either, but I rember the old housekeeper at the villa painting the birthmark on with so kind of dye. But Ms. Coleman said I rembered it wrong." Celia Sterling didn’t seem too bothered. "I looked it up online later, and it said that many birthmarks can fade or even disappear. It’s normal."

Silas Norwood humd softly in acknowledgnt.

The tiline beca crystal clear in his mind. He, too, had seen the illegitimate son who was brought into the family during the Sterling Family’s internal turmoil; the eldest was only a year younger than Kian Sterling. It was obvious Franklin Sterling had started his second family long ago, neglecting his wife and rarely coming ho. He had seen Celia when she was just over two, and the next ti was more than three years later. He had probably forgotten what his own daughter looked like entirely. Besides, young children look more or less the sa. With so deliberately faked distinguishing marks, the ’plum-for-a-peach’ switch was entirely plausible.

On top of that, Franklin Sterling’s mind was entirely focused on his mistress. He had plenty of children already and couldn’t be bothered to scrutinize whether a child he hadn’t seen in years had gotten chubbier or changed in appearance...

"Cece, all these years..." Thinking of how Celia Sterling had lived in such an ambiguous state for so long, Silas Norwood felt a pang in his heart. "It must have been hard for you."

"I have my brother, so I’m already so happy!" Celia Sterling said softly. "When my parents divorced, my mother insisted on taking with her. My father didn’t care, but my brother refused. He gave her the silent treatnt for days and even threatened to disown her as his mother just to keep by his side. After that, he raised with the utmost care, turning into the Eldest Miss Sterling that everyone in tropia envies today."