Chapter 121: Children Are Blessings
"Dad, I believe Lola. She has taken responsibility for her choices and even raised her children properly. How could she mismanage these?"
Silence quickly followed Melissa’s first comment of the day. Lola, who had been smiling while reading the documents, narrowed her eyes, making them sharper.
Travis arched a brow while Caullen furrowed his. Chairman Lancaster frowned, finally turning his gaze toward Melissa.
"What are you talking about?" he asked.
Hearing this, shock spread across Melissa’s face. She covered her mouth, looking at everyone with wide eyes.
"Oh..." she whispered. "I thought Lola had already told everyone."
Slowly, she turned her head toward Lola and continued in an apologetic tone. "Sorry, Lola. I thought the chairman already knew, considering how close you are to him. I didn’t mean it! I’m really sorry!"
Melissa hung her head low, but the corners of her mouth curled up wickedly. She might’ve been quiet throughout, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t waiting for her moment to strike.
Jasmine glanced at her daughter and sighed. "Melissa..." she began, but instead of scolding her, she turned to the Lancasters with a look of guilt. "Chairman, that’s not... well, the cat is already out of the bag. We are sorry for hiding this from you. We just wanted to protect Lola."
Lawrence cleared his throat but said nothing. He shot Lola a look and mentally sneered. Although he had done his best to hide her pregnancy in the past, who would have thought that same secret could be used against her now?
The chairman was clearly displeased, staring at the family of three who claimed they had been protecting Lola by keeping this information from him. Travis and Caullen, on the other hand, knitted their brows.
The two of them had heard the rumor that Lola was pregnant in the past. However, Travis, in a critical position at that time, dismissed it as baseless. Even Caullen hadn’t believed the rumor, assuming Derek was making it up. Besides, Derek had been bold with Melissa, so these two men thought he was looking for justification to break off his original engagement with Lola.
Derek sighed. "See? It’s true, Grandpa! I told you already, but you just wouldn’t believe me! I saw her with her kids not long ago!"
Bitterness swelled in his chest. He had been warning the chairman that Lola was with another man, but all he received were scoldings and a cane strike. The chairman had kept telling him to stop gossiping, as it was embarrassing for a man to do such things.
"Lola, is this true?" the chairman asked, ignoring everything else. "Do you have a child?"
Lola didn’t move when Melissa brought this up, nor did she react immediately. The corners of her mouth curved upward as she glanced at the folder before her.
"Yes," she answered without hesitation.
Hearing her response, the Youngs bit their lips and secretly smirked. Melissa’s expression gleamed with joy before quickly shifting to regret.
"I’m sorry, Lola," Melissa whispered. "I didn’t... I didn’t mean to reveal your secret."
"It’s alright, Melissa. It’s not a secret anyway, just protecting my children’s privacy. After all, many are interested in hearing any news about a beauty like me." Lola smiled at her. "But since you mentioned it, I want to thank you for bringing this up!"
She straightened her back and raised the folder. "If I can raise my children to be well-behaved... if I can take care of living, breathing human beings, how can I not take care of these properties, which don’t even have a brain of their own?"
The smile on Melissa’s face stiffened, while Lola’s lips stretched into a confident grin. She turned to the chairman, hoping for a displeased reaction. Much to her dismay, the chairman looked at Lola with a soft gaze.
"How could you not tell me you already have children?" he sighed heavily. "Will you even let me meet them?"
Lola smiled at the chairman and nodded. "I’m sorry, Grandpa. I’ve been a little busy."
"Chairman, you’re not angry with Lola?" Jasmine blurted out, shocked by his reaction.
Derek frowned just as deeply. "Grandpa, how can you not be angry with her!? She deceived me! She had them while we were engaged!"
"And you’ve been fooling around with Melissa Young while you were engaged," Caullen leaned his arm against the table, cocking his head to the side. "Between the two situations... Lola is with a man she truly loves, and you, who are engaged to her, were more clingy to her half-sister. I wonder which is worse?"
Caullen smirked devilishly while Derek’s face flushed in anger. Melissa opened and closed her mouth, but all she could do was watch Caullen grin at her.
"Caullen, don’t be disrespectful," Travis hummed. But if he had truly wanted to stop Caullen, he would have done so before he even spoke. "I’m sorry about him, Mr. and Mrs. Young. I’ll surely talk to him later. But since it’s been brought up, I believe Lola has more credibility to handle this situation."
Chairman Lancaster nodded in agreement. "Lola, come with me later on our way home, alright?"
"Okay, Grandpa."
"I’ll ask someone to bring your car," Travis added, then shot Melissa a sharp look.
Melissa pursed her lips, clutching her hands on her lap until they trembled.
How can they just dismiss it like that? she wondered. This was not what she expected. They should’ve been furious that Lola had kept this secret all these years.
Her eyes drifted to Lola, only for her breath to hitch. There, Lola was looking at her, the corners of her mouth curled into a smirk.
That bitch!
But in the end, the Youngs could only swallow all the words they wanted to say while the chairman scolded them for keeping their offspring a secret.
"Children are blessings," the chairman remarked sternly. "No matter what, they shouldn’t live in secrecy."
Having said that, the chairman’s assistant and Travis assisted him, while Lawrence and Jasmine walked out with them. The chairman continued his lecture.
Walking alongside them was Lola. "Oh, Grandpa, I forgot something inside. I’ll be quick!"
The chairman and everyone glanced at her and nodded. Lola quickly ran back inside, and when she disappeared from their line of sight, the chairman glared at Lawrence.
"Lawrence Young, you’d better make sure Lola has nothing bad to say about you as a grandfather," he warned. "Or her children. Otherwise, you will not like what I will do."
Lawrence froze and paled on the spot, staring at the old man blankly.
I’m dead.