Filed to story: A Second Chance with My Billionaire Love
Abby was a bona fide foodie, so she had high expectations for the food she ate. To her, good food not only had to be tasty, but it also had to be prepared with love, something that servants could not do.
“Mommy always cooks delicious food,” she said. “So does Daddy Q! He makes tasty food as well! Sometimes they would cook together, and we’d all sit at the table and eat all the food! That was the happiest time for all of us! It’s a pity that you don’t know how to cook, Uncle Handsome because that means you’ll never experience that kind of happiness!”
Halston did not expect to hear such heart-wrenching words from Abby. He shook his head helplessly and said, “When you put it that way, it sounds like I’m the most wretched man in the world!”
“It doesn’t matter if you don’t know how to cook,” said Adie as he was creaming butter with the electric mixer. He then suggested, “You can start learning! Q did the same. He was completely useless in the kitchen, but he learned and practiced until he became a master cook! In a short time, he managed to impress all of us!”
Although Adie hated his evil daddy very much, he still subconsciously wished to “reform” Halston Guajardo, thinking that it would really cheer his mommy up if he could transform this broken and erratic “machine” into a brand-new useful one.
Halston raised his eyebrows slightly and stared at the children with curiosity, commenting, “It looks like both of you like this Mr. Q very much! You’ve been talking about him all evening! What is that man to you… or should I say, what is he to your mommy?”
“Of course we like him!” Adie replied with his head held high, his expression full of pride. “Q is an awesome guy who treats our mommy very well! In any case, he’s a million times better than those men who hurt women. Right now, he’s our daddy, and he’s our mommy’s husband. He takes care of all of us every day, and every time we’re with him, we’re all very happy!”
Adie wanted to praise Q as much as possible so that his evil daddy would feel ashamed of himself and realize what a horrible person he had been!
Halston’s eyes revealed a complicated mix of emotions. There was a cryptic smile on his lips as he asked, “So, are you all going to live with this Mr. Q for the rest of your lives? What if one day, you discover that this man isn’t as good of a guy you thought he was? What if he turns out to be a bad guy? Would you still be willing to live with him?”
“Impossible!” Abby pouted her pink lips, then earnestly added, “Daddy Q is a good man! He’s the greatest man in the world! No one treats us better than him, so there’s no way that he’d turn out to be a bad guy…”
“But what if?” Halston pressed on, for the first time speaking in a serious tone with the children, hoping to get a definite answer from them.
“If Daddy Q turns out to be a bad guy, then we’ll… then we’ll…”
Abby grabbed the hem of her clothes. Her eyes were reddening as she was on the verge of tears. She really liked Daddy Q, so she simply could not entertain the thought that he might be a bad guy, much less consider that he might leave them one day. As soon as she thought about it, her eyes and her nose stung, and she felt like crying.
“It doesn’t matter if Q turns out to be bad,” Adie reasoned in a mature and rational tone, wise beyond his years. “We’ll just give him another chance and try to change his bad habits so he’ll transform into a good guy. Mommy, Abby, and I will never give up on him, and he will never give up on us either, so you don’t need to worry about us!”
Halston fell silent for a few seconds. He then smiled wanly and vaguely replied, “In that case, that must Mr. Q must be the luckiest man in the world.”
And just like that, the twins successfully baked a cake for Halston, which they then presented before him.
“Uncle Handsome,” Abby called with a sweet smile. “This is your first time visiting our house, so we specially made this cake for you to welcome you here. You must eat the whole cake! You don’t want to waste our efforts, do you?”
“No problem,” Halston promised. “I have a bit of a sweet tooth anyway.”
He then took a spoonful of the cake along with the icing and put it in his mouth. It was sweet, fluffy, and creamy—every bit as heavenly as a cake made by a professional bakery. He continued to eat mouthful after mouthful, finding himself enjoying more with every bite.
But then, the more he ate, the heavier his eyelids felt, until eventually, his whole body slumped onto the couch…
…
After leaving Azure Group, Flossie headed towards Celestial Pavillion by following the address given to her by Rubio Pascal. The place was one of the most exclusive restaurants in Beach City, where the food and the reputation were both first-class.
“Good evening,” a waiter greeted Flossie when she arrived. It seemed that her arrival had been anticipated when he added, “May I ask if you are Ms. Flossie Ellsworth? A gentleman has been waiting for you for a long time. Please follow me.”
“Yes,” Flossie nodded, “I am Flossie Ellsworth.”
She then followed the waiter as he enthusiastically led her to the most luxurious private lounge in the restaurant. She spent the whole journey wondering who this “legendary god” could be. Who would be so badass that even Rubio Pascal would be impressed? And why did this person specifically ask to see her?
“Here it is, Ms. Ellsworth.”
The waiter pushed open the tall magnificent door, revealing the well-built figure of a man who was standing with his back facing the door in front of the window where bright lights were streaming in. As soon as he heard her arrival, he turned around, holding a glass of red wine in one hand.
“We finally meet again,” he said with a smile on his lips.
After taking a good look at the man’s handsome face, she was speechless. She was barely able to restrain herself from beating the man up right then and there.
“Are you out of your mind, Haze?! So the person who’s been tormenting me, pushing me around from behind the scene as if I’m an idiot, was you?!”
Initially, Haze had been like the cool and handsome protagonist in a drama, but now he turned out to be the abominable villain who deserved a good beating.
“Are you surprised to see me?” he asked with a sly smile. “Are you shocked? Don’t you think I look pretty cool appearing like that just now?”
“I think you need to get punched once or twice!” Flossie yelled through gritted teeth.
She thought of how she scrambled all over the place doing everything she could to get the Ellsworth Residence back, how she even lowered her pride and stooped as low as begging for the Rainbow Glaze from Halston Guajardo, and it turned out that Haze was behind all of this. It made her really want to… stab the man!
“I did give you a hint,” Haze argued with an innocent face, his arms stretched out helplessly. “I told you that you would need me someday. It was you who completely disregarded me. I’ve been waiting for you to come to me, asking for my help, but… you insisted on doing everything yourself.”
“Stop talking nonsense!” Flossie was not in the mood to chat with Haze. She just wanted to solve this tricky problem as soon as possible, so she asked him bluntly, “Just tell me now, what do I need to do to get you to transfer the rights to land to me?”
“If I tell you,” Haze smiled impishly, “are you going to do absolutely everything I want without question?”
If he had known that it took some “shameless” tricks to pursue a woman, he would not have been such a gentleman in the past and wasted so much of their time…
“Hmph, you crafty, conniving man!”
Flossie could not even guess what Haze was scheming right now, and she was no longer in the mood to skirt around the subject, so she told him point-blank, “Just tell me what you want. If it’s something that’s within my power, then I’ll try my best to do anything you like.”
“Marry me!” Haze half-joked with a faint smile.
“Don’t even dream about it!” Flossie refused without even thinking.
It was not the first time the guy made such a shamelessly preposterous proposal to her, and it was certainly not the first time she refused him. As time passed, such a gesture no longer affected her. The only thought that crossed her mind now was that Haze was deliberately looking for a chance to get beaten up.
“I just knew that you’d say no,” Haze clutched his chest as if Flossie’s answer had deeply wounded him.
“If you keep on acting crazy like that,” Flossie warned him coldly, her fists tightly clenched, “then I’m not going to hold back any longer. Tell me exactly what you want to do and get straight to the point this time!”
“Okay, okay! Jeez, I get it, you scary tigress…”
The playful look on Haze’s face then disappeared, only to be replaced by a serious one as he told her, “I want twenty percent of the shares of Azure Group.”
“What?!” Flossie roared so angrily that she almost lost her voice. Her delicate face turned vicious, and she ferociously added, “Twenty percent?! Do you know what owning twenty percent of the shares means? It means you’ll be the biggest shareholder, besides me! If you have the audacity to ask for that, then why don’t you just snatch the company away from me?!”
“Hey, don’t get too agitated. You’re so angry that you’re messing up your pretty face now. Come on, take a sip of the wine and calm down…”
Haze then calmly picked up a tall wine glass and poured Flossie a glass of wine before handing it to her. He smiled and continued, “I’m not planning to take it for free. You know that my family is so rich that we don’t know what to do with our money, and Azure Group just happens to be short of money… So if you agree, I’ll gladly pay a price five times higher than the current market value to acquire the twenty percent. I’ll never force you into something that will make you lose money.”
“Oh,” Flossie’s expression softened slightly once she heard what Haze had just said. “So you’re not just taking it for free! Why didn’t you tell me that earlier? I thought you wanted the twenty percent shares in exchange for the rights to the land!”
“Do I look like such a greedy pig to you?”
“Absolutely!” Flossie replied without hesitation.
At the very least, she knew that Haze’s family, the Baldwins, had amassed their immense wealth by force and extortion from the beginning, so as the sole heir to the family, it would not be a surprise that Haze would inherit their penchant for that kind of brutality.
Haze was speechless. He coughed gently and said, “Really, madam. You wound me. Don’t you have any trust in me at all?”
“So,” he continued, pressing Flossie for an answer. “Do you accept these terms? Are you willing to let me be the second largest shareholder of Azure Group?”
“It sounds like the Baldwin family is indeed very generous,” Flossie replied lucidly as she took a sip of the wine, “and I can’t think of a reason to refuse the offer, except… I know there’s no free lunch in this world. I feel like I’m biting off much more than I can chew here, so I’ll have to pass!”
Haze’s captivating eyes darkened a little as they flashed with a complex mix of emotions. He quickly returned to his look of cynicism as he joked, “What are you afraid of? I’m offering you a prime cut of meat on a platter! It’s right in front of you now, so why not just be bold and take a huge bite? If you can’t chew it all today, then leave it for tomorrow! If you still can’t chew it all tomorrow, then leave it for the day after that! I’m sure you’ll manage to chew everything eventually! Besides, isn’t that better than refusing it and starving to death?”