A Replacement Bride

Chapter 350

It wasn't like Katherine was unaware of Bella's feelings for Joaquin. She hadn't thought much of this before, but now that she heard this from Bella, a bout of displeasure washed over her for some reason. In an instant, the smile on her lips faded, and a frosty look came over her beautiful eyes. "Oh, is that so? Well then, I'll look forward to it," she replied. With that, she rolled up the car window, stepped on the gas, and drove away.

She still felt kind of annoyed when she returned to the hospital. After entering the ward, she tossed the car keys directly to Joaquin, saying, "I just got rear-ended. Here are the car keys; go take the car for repairs."

The instant Joaquin heard this, his eyes froze at once, and a nervous expression overtook his countenance. "What happened? Did you get hurt?"

Katherine looked askance at him and retorted coldly, "Can't you see it for yourself?"

Her words sounded sarcastic, but Joaquin didn't notice it immediately as he was worried about her. Only after he carefully looked her up and down did his expression ease a little. "Good thing that you're fine. Who rear-ended you? Why didn't you ask them to compensate for that?"

Katherine replied icily, "I didn't ask for compensation because I feared you might feel sorry for her."

Joaquin was puzzled by her words. "Who should I feel sorry for?"

Katherine didn't hide it from him either. She answered frankly, "It was that pampered little cousin of yours who rear-ended me. As her cousin-in-law, I can't bully her, no?"

Realizing whom she was referring to, Joaquin was surprised. "You mean Bella?"

"That's right," Katherine said slowly while peeling an orange for Noah. "She's thinking about you all the time, and she just declared to me that she wanted to commit incest with you."

"Cough, cough…" Keith, who was curled up and dozing on the couch, couldn't help but choke on his saliva when he heard this. Katherine darted a sideways glance at him, upon which he immediately sat up and said, "Well, uh, I've got to take a trip to the restroom." With that, he swiftly left the room. Sigh, what a shame that I can't watch the drama.

Only then did Joaquin realize that Katherine was being unhappy. Surprised and delighted by her behavior, he immediately raised his brows and explained, "It wouldn't be considered incest. She and I aren't blood relatives, after all."

"Oh." Katherine nodded. "That's pretty nice. I wish you both happiness in advance, then."

Joaquin didn't know whether to frown or laugh at her words. "What nonsense are you talking about? I'm just explaining myself. She and I are totally unrelated, and I'm avoiding her as much as possible."

Katherine tore off a segment of the orange and put it in her mouth before giving the rest to Noah. She curled her lips, saying, "Oh. I guess I can skimp on the wedding gift, then." NôvelDrama.Org owns all content.

At this moment, Joaquin came up and bent forward slightly while staring at her with bright, black eyes. "Kathy, are you being jealous?"

Katherine was baffled by his question. "Why am I being jealous?"

"What do you think?" Joaquin tickled her chin with his hand as if teasing a kitten. "It seems that you do care about me. Otherwise, why would you react as such?"

Katherine was stunned; only when the man had said so did she realize that her response was indeed a little different from before. She hadn't been so annoyed in the past when faced with those who loved

Joaquin. That being said, she was shy of admitting it, of course. Subsequently, she flung the orange peels at the man, saying, "Why would I care about you? I'm only in a bad mood because my car got crashed into! What nonsense are you talking about?!" Overwhelmed by embarrassment, she got up and left the room.

Joaquin wasn't at all displeased at having orange peels thrown at him. Instead, he lowered his eyes and chuckled, his shoulders heaving up and down.

Noah, who'd been looking on from the sidelines, blinked her big, black eyes. She ate the orange while giving her father a thumbs-up, saying, "You're so amazing, Daddy! This is the first time I've seen Mom being jealous!"

Upon hearing her words, Joaquin laughed even more heartily.

Katherine also never expected she would actually be jealous one day. However, her ladylike shyness was soon cut short by a phone call from Kelvin, who said to her, "Miss Katherine, the Morans have started to sell off their shares, funds, and several real estate properties."

Katherine wasn't surprised to hear this. She ordered him, "Try to buy them up at the lowest price."

Kelvin replied, "Roger that, Miss Katherine. As for those commercial partners—"

Knowing what he wanted to ask, Katherine instructed right away, "It's time to hold out an olive branch to them. Since the Morans are meeting their doom, they have to know the reason for their demise."

Kelvin took the orders and went ahead to carry them out.

…

It was another brightly lit night at the Moran Residence in Kyoland.

Thanks to the drastic turn of events, Xander became gravely ill and was confined to bed, leaving Mason to support the whole Moran Family alone.

Despite racking his brain the entire night, Mason couldn't figure out how things had come to such a point. All of this had happened so fast. In just a few days, the Moran Corporation had gone from flourishing at its height to being reduced to a declining enterprise forced to sell off its assets!

As the saying went, a wealthy family would still be richer than a poor family even if it were to become less rich than before. This time, however, the losses suffered by the Moran Corporation were so huge that the Morans were stripped of almost all of their fortune, and it was still unknown whether the remaining bit of their wealth would be sufficient to get the company through this.

That night, he repeatedly contacted the three other noble families in an attempt to ask them to lend the Morans a helping hand, but he got not a single response from them. Snobbery was common in human nature, but it wasn't until it was his turn to fall victim to it that it finally struck a chill in his heart.

In the early morning, William finally returned home.

Mason had been sitting in the living room all night. Upon hearing the noise, he looked back and was instantly infuriated by the sight of William.

An ashtray was hurled to the ground before it broke into pieces with a loud Crash! Right after that, Mason's sonorous voice roared angrily, "You b*stard! I thought you wouldn't come back again! Look at the trouble you've caused!"

William had only heard of what had happened to the Moran Corporation in the hospital, which was why he hurried home in the early morning. At this moment, he frowned with a look of displeasure. "Calm down first, Dad. What happened? Why are so many projects forcibly halted all of a sudden?"

"How dare you ask about this? I have to beat you to death today, you unfilial son!" Mason was boiling with rage. He turned around, picked up the leather belt he'd prepared, and charged at William, intending to give him a good whipping.

Hearing the commotion, Melise quickly came out and stopped him. "You can't beat him! He's our son! He's just recovered. What if he gets badly injured again?"

Seeing how she stood in front of William to protect him as tears streamed down her face, Mason gnashed his teeth in anger. "This is no time for you to keep spoiling him!"

Melise wept and sobbed while refusing to step aside. "Can't you talk nicely instead? Will the Moran Corporation get better if you beat up our son?"

William held her and asked, "Stop crying, Mom. What actually happened? Why am I the only one out of the loop?"

Trembling all over with rage, Mason hurled the leather belt at him with all his might. "What else do you know other than to gamble?! It was all because of your gambling that you had the gall to make such a huge mistake as to misappropriate construction funds! That's why our family is reduced to who we are today!" He had been in poor health over the last few days, so the yelling quickly became too much for him. Placing one hand on the couch for support, he sat down and closed his eyes while propping up his forehead with his other hand.

Worried about his health, Melise hurriedly poured him a glass of water and told William briefly what had happened over the past few days.

However, instead of reflecting on his mistakes, William started thinking after listening to her story. "Every company would come across such troubles eventually, no? These projects have always been doing well. Why would they be found out to be problematic all of a sudden?"