Nicole suddenly materialized next to them.
Evan had seen right through her intentions. With nothing left to defend herself, Maya bowed her head and started slurping up the noodles.
Nicole said, “Mr. Seet, thank you for making spaghetti for Maya. If there’s anything you want for dinner, I’ll be happy to make it for you as a gesture of my appreciation.”
Evan thought for a while before asking Juan and Kyle for their opinions.
“Mommy, I want to have beef stew.”
“Me too, Mommy.”
After thinking it through for a while, Nicole decided to indulge the children’s requests. She announced that they would be having beef stew for dinner.
Turning to Evan, she said, “There are no more ingredients in the house. We’ll have to run down to the grocery store for them.”
Evan stood up. “I’ll go. I think I saw some vegetables in the fridge. You can wash them up first.”
“Alright.” Nicole approved of his suggestion very much.
Overjoyed, Juan and Kyle applauded loudly.
“Mommy, we’ll help you!”
Nicole refused gently. “It’s okay. Run along and play now, Mommy will finish washing these vegetables very soon.”
“Okay! If you need help, just holler for us! We’ll go and play now.”
“Alright.”
The two boys ran happily to the toy room.
As Evan put on his shoes, Maya quickly put down her chopsticks and hopped off the chair. Toddling towards him on her stubby legs, she exclaimed, “Uncle Evan, can you bring me along with you?”
Evan paused and looked at her. “Why do you want to come?”
Maya bit her lip and whispered something into his ear. Evan looked at her in shock. “Is that true?”
Maya nodded her head furiously. “Yes. Uncle Evan, if you buy me one of those huge cartoon lollipops, I’ll tell you an even bigger secret.”
“Okay, let’s go!”
Thinking that Maya was merely having the munchies, Evan decided to bring her along. It was quite unlikely that she really had a big secret to tell him.
When they exited the grocery store, Maya gazed at the huge cartoon lollipop that Evan had bought her, her eyes shining with happiness.
At her kindergarten, one of the girls had bragged about how her father had bought her lots of lollipops. Hearing this, Maya had felt so hungry that she started to salivate.
For one, she was hungry for a lollipop.
More importantly, however, she was hungry for a father.
Now, she had a lollipop in her hands, and it had been given to her by her Daddy.
Her eyes shone like stars as she wrapped her fat fingers tightly around the lollipop.
In the car, she suddenly turned to Evan with a mysterious look on her face. “Uncle Evan, I’ll tell you a secret, but you can’t tell Juan, Kyle or Nina that I told you this.”
Evan smiled lightly. This secret seemed to have something to do with the other three children.
He nodded solemnly. “Alright, tell me. I promise not to tell them.”
Hearing this, Maya finally let her guard down and told Evan the secret she had been keeping for so long.
“Uncle Evan, Juan, Kyle, and Nina stole some money from your bank account a while ago.”
“What?” Evan turned to look at Maya with an incredulous look on his face.
“It’s true! They stole a huge sum from you—enough to buy a villa for Mommy. Mommy had no clue about it, so they lied and told her that they borrowed the money from someone.”
Hearing this, Evan felt even more astonished.
He had been so sure that Nicole was the one who stole that five hundred million from his bank account. How else would it have disappeared all of a sudden?
In the end, it had turned out to be his two sons!
Those kids were getting out of hand. How could they scheme against their own father?
No wonder Nicole had asked him in a drunken stupor the other night if he had actually seen her steal the money from his account!
He had accused her falsely, after all.
As he thought back on his attitude towards her that day, Evan suddenly felt ashamed of himself. He had gone overboard.
Should he apologize to her, or make it up to her somehow?
“Uncle Evan, you can’t tell them that I told you. Otherwise, they will never play with me again. Even with my Maya Punch, I can’t defeat all three of them.”
Evan nodded. “Yes, I promise you I won’t tell them.”
Maya breathed a sigh of relief at his words.
Daddy had been so nice to her. She couldn’t bring herself to deceive him like that.
Besides, Ms. Patty told her often that little children shouldn’t lie. Maya wanted to be a good girl.
They finally arrived back at home.
As Evan carried the bags of ingredients into the house, Maya danced around the room, waving her lollipop in glee.
Hearing the commotion in the living room, Juan and Kyle ran out from the toy room.
