Zachary withdrew his arms lamely. Although he seemed very nonplussed on the surface, as though he couldn’t care less about the kids’ behavior, he felt very disappointed indeed.
Turning to Ruby, he said, “I’ll entrust the kids to you then.”
“Of course, of course! I’ll take very good care of them. Don’t worry, Mr. Nacht!” Ruby and the other higher-ups exclaimed at once, nodding vigorously.
Zachary took one last look at the kids before leaving.
As he walked away, Jamie stared after him. He opened his mouth to say goodbye, but seeing as Robbie wasn’t saying anything, he decided to keep quiet too.
“Goodbye, Uncle Zack!”
In the end, it was Ellie who opened her mouth first. She sounded a little cautious despite her adorable voice—nonetheless, she still managed to melt Zachary’s heart.
He turned around to look at her, his lips curving into a smile. “Goodbye!”
“Goodbye, Uncle Zack…” Jamie finally summoned up the courage to wave to him.
Zachary returned his wave. He then turned to look at Robbie, who had remained silent up till now.
Robbie seemed a little aloof. He looked down at the ground instead of Zachary, but waved politely anyway.
Feeling slightly better, Zachary turned to leave at last.
At the very least, he could confirm that the children did not detest him. This meant that he had succeeded in his first step!
“Mr. Nacht, I’ll send you off,” Ruby said, leading the way back to the drop-off point.
“Alright, children, we’ll continue distributing the presents,” the teachers called, gesturing at the students to settle down. “These are from Robbie, Jamie, and Ellie. What should you say to them?”
The students look at each other, rather confused. Finally, one of them raised his hand and said, “Thank you to Robbie, Jamie, and Ellie’s Daddy for these presents…”
Zachary stopped dead in his tracks. He turned around to look at the children, only to find that they were all looking at him, too.
Ellie twiddled her fat little thumbs awkwardly, bowing her head to look at the floor.
Robbie opened and shut his mouth as though he wanted to say something, but chose to remain silent in the end.
However, Jamie returned their smile gamely and chirped, “No problem! Hope all of you like them.”
“Thank you!” The students let out another whoop of happiness before returning to their presents excitedly.
Zachary smirked, feeling a sudden wave of relief wash over him. Children were rather simple creatures. If you were kind to them, they would be nice to you as well…
…
Charlotte was resting at home when she heard a sudden commotion of cars outside the house.
She flipped out of bed and walked over to the floor-length windows, where she saw a convoy right outside the gates. Under the watchful eyes of the bodyguards, a group of workers was delivering a bunch of items into the house.
Charlotte squinted and realized that most of the items were medical supplies.
She felt a little confused, but she didn’t ask any questions.
“Move quietly!” Mrs. Rawlston hissed urgently. “Ms. Windt is resting upstairs.”
The workers nodded immediately, afraid that they might wake Ms. Nacht up if they moved too loudly.
At that moment, there was a knock on Charlotte’s bedroom door.
“Come in!” she called.
A maid pushed open the door and stepped into the room with a new phone in hand. “Ms. Windt, this is the new phone that Mr. Nacht has bought for you. The SD card has already been replaced, and your phone number is the same as before.”
“Thank you.” Charlotte took the phone from her. After the maid left, she closed the door and turned on the phone immediately.
This was her third phone in the span of two months. Something always seemed to happen to her phone—it either fell onto the ground and shattered into pieces, or went missing all of a sudden.
However, Zachary always replaced her phone quietly after those incidents.
It had been a few days since she last contacted Mrs. Berry and Olivia. They were probably worried sick by now. As soon as she managed to turn on the phone, Charlotte gave Mrs. Berry a call. For some reason, however, nobody picked up.
She called Olivia instead. Thankfully, Olivia picked up the call immediately. “Charlotte!”
“Olivia, are you alright?” Charlotte asked, feeling rather guilty. “The last time you came to my house, something happened to you. When I sent you to the hospital, something bad happened again…”
“Please, I’m the one who should be worried, alright?” Olivia exclaimed. “The property management office said you had gone missing. I nearly called the police!”
“Don’t worry, I’m fine,” Charlotte said comfortingly. “And what about you?”
“I’m fine. I was just startled to death the other day, but I woke up from my coma soon enough. As for you…oh, by the way, your boyfriend’s subordinate—Ben, was it?—came to look for me.”
