“You are such a brat…”
Joseph looked depressed, “Have you forgotten that you are my son. I am your father, and she is not
your natural mother.”
“Exactly.” Noah wrote down two words on the drawing board quickly.
Joseph felt that reasoning with children was basically going to drive him into a psychopath. So, he
didn’t bother to argue with Noah anymore, “Sit down, let’s go to great-grandpa’s house for dinner
tonight.”
“I don’t want to eat.”
“If you don’t want to eat, I’ll call your mother and tell her that you just break your promise to her that you
don’t want to eat anymore. I will ask her not to come this weekend. Then, you will be starving.”
Hearing her words, Noah immediately became anxious. His face flushed red with anger. Stomping his
legs, he said, “You…you’re so bad.”
“Okay, I’m bad.”
Joseph looked at him, “You can think I’m a bad guy, but please think clearly whether you want to eat or
not on the way to go to grandpa’s house.”
After finishing his words, he closed the back seat door. He got in the car and started the engine of the
car. Then, he drove to the Beckhams' Mansion.
Since Franklin took over the ST Group, he has become an idle man. He stayed at home every day
reading the newspaper. He also took over the housekeeper’s job to fetch Noah as if he tried his best to
be a good father.
However, Noah didn’t seem to appreciate his effort. The most frequent question he would ask every
day was when he and Hayden would reconcile. Noah thought that Hayden and Joseph were simply
arguing.
On the other side, Stella sat in the back seat and said angrily as if she was an adult, “Mummy, I thought
you broke up with Mr. Beckham. So, don’t be together with him all the time after you broke up with
him.”
Hayden laughed as she heard Stella’s words, “Why? I thought that last time you liked Mr. Beckham so
much.”
“That was last time. Mr. Beckham is getting married to someone else, right? Moreover, he’s not treating
you as good as daddy treating you, so you better not be with him. Mummy, if you don’t like daddy, you
can find someone else, don’t put all your eggs in one basket.
“Hey. Little kid, you even know the idiom “don’t put all your eggs in one basket”. Who taught you that?”
“Aiden, Aiden taught me that.”
“Aiden again?”
Hayden looked puzzled for a moment.
This boy called Aiden was a new transfer student in the class. Stella always mentioned his name lately,
and the frequency of mentioning his name was so high until it had far surpassed the frequency of Stella
mentioning Noah’s name.
As she was thinking about it, Stella was still looking serious, “Anyway, you shouldn’t get too close to Mr.
Beckham. It will block you from having love affairs with other men.”
“Did Aiden tell you that again?”
Stella nodded her head seriously.
“Well, Aiden knows everything.”
Hayden was a little depressed.
She had thought that the little girl had seen the world and was not easily fooled by others. However, it
had only been a short time since she had returned to China, and she had been fooled by the little boy
in her class.
She held back her laughter and asked her.
“But what should we do if your brother refuses to eat at home? I’ve promised Mr. Beckham to cook for
Noah at your great grandfather’s house every weekend.”
“Huh?”
Stella frowned. Her pink little face scrunched up in frustration. She displayed a look as if she didn’t
know what to do.
“If you don’t want to see Mr. Beckham, then you just don’t go there. I will send you to the office during
the weekend and you can stay with Mr. Burke and let him make clothes for your dolls.”
“I don’t want.”
Stella held her arms, “I want to go there.”
“Why, didn’t you say that you don’t want to see Mr. Beckham?” Hayden held the steering wheel. She
was puzzled and asked her again.
“I’m going to watch him. If he dares to bully mummy again, I’ll call daddy to come back and protect
you.”
The little girl looked domineering. Seeing her look which was reflected in the rear-view mirror, Hayden
froze for a moment. Then she smiled warmly.
“Okay.”
Adults always thought that children didn’t understand anything. But in fact, the ability for children to
sense others’ emotions was better than adults do. Even Hayden didn’t know when did Stella start to
have so much resentment towards Joseph.
Maybe it was because she told her that Noah was her blood brother. Even though she never mentioned
it earlier, maybe she had already figured out that Joseph was actually her natural father, or maybe it
was when she took her away from Old Master Beckham’s house several times, she saw Hayden who
looked sad and depressed and had an impression that Joseph was treating Hayden badly.
There were too many possibilities, but the changes were just too subtle for her to notice on time. When
she realized that Stella was very resistant to Joseph, it had passed a long time since Hayden and
Joseph had argued, misunderstood, and made peace with each other.
When Hayden brought Stella home, Benjamin had already been waiting at the door for a while.
When she saw Benjamin, Stella was so excited that she forgot her previous gloom and immediately
jumped into Benjamin’s arms, “Benjamin, you’re finally back.”
Benjamin hugged Stella up and guessed her weight, “You’re a lot heavier. Do you miss me?”
“Yes.”
The sweet little cute sound almost melted someone’s heart.
Looking at Benjamin’s luggage, Hayden pulled open the door, “Come in first. I’ll go to the supermarket
later to buy some ingredients and come back to cook.”
“No need. I can just eat anything. I’m too tired and I just want to take a nap on your sofa.”
“You are too big to sleep on the sofa. You can sleep in the guest room.
Hayden smiled and brought Benjamin inside.
Stella took the gift from Benjamin and happily went to her room to open it, while Hayden took the
noodles and cooked the noodles in the kitchen.
“Wait a minute, it’ll be ready soon.”
“Sure.”
Benjamin lay on the sofa and let out a slight snore in no time.
When Hayden came out from the kitchen with a bowl of noodles, she saw Benjamin who slept on the
sofa. She couldn’t bear to wake him up.
The warm yellow light shone on Benjamin’s boyish face. His messy fringes covered one of his eyes,
and she didn’t know how long it had been since he last cut his hair.
She felt a little guilty.
After he had hit Benjamin with her car, he had been recuperating. After he had regained some
memories, she asked him to help her investigate Noah’s matter. In fact, in the end, Benjamin was still a
child. He just looked a bit mature. She didn’t know how could she have been assured to let him go so
far on his own last time.
She thought that the debts that she owed him could never be paid.
Hayden sighed.
“Yes?” Benjamin was suddenly startled from sleep. He sat up from the sofa drowsily, “Are the noodles
ready?”
“Yes.” Hayden quickly pushed the bowl of noodles to his front.
The food that she cooked was noodles in soup with shredded pork and salted vegetables, with two
golden-fried eggs on top of the noodles.
Benjamin smiled very happily, “I’ve been wanting to eat this for a long time. I will help myself then.”
After finishing his words, he picked up the bowl and ate the noodles ravenously as if he didn’t care
about his image.
After a while, he finished the bowl of noodles.
“Is that enough? I’ll go and get you another bowl.”
“No need. No need.” Benjamin said as he wiped his mouth, “Hayden, I’m full. Let’s talk about the
important matter first.”
He left the chopstick on the bowl, making a crisp sound as if it heralded the beginning of a new chapter
in the story from this moment onwards.
Three years ago, there were two main nannies responsible for taking care of Noah. The first one was
called Teresa Mitchell, who was in charge of Noah’s diet. The other one was called Sabrina Hall, who
was in charge of Noah’s daily chores. The people in the Beckham family called them Teresa and
Sabrina.
62fb1bb41dcb31934bd49bda