Chapter 19
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Averie burst out laughing. “Don’t listen? Mr. Spencer, I don’t think you really get what’s going on here.”
“Mr. Spencer?” Charles looked at her, disappointment flooding his eyes.
Averie’s voice turned cold. “Don’t try the emotional card now. I used to feel some kind of gratitude since you and your wife raised me, but I didn’t expect you to show up and shamelessly ask me for money today. So don’t blame me for being heartless.”
Hearing that, Mateo finally snapped out of his grief over the wrecked car. He looked at her in disbelief. “Wait–what? You’re saying your foster dad actually came all the way here to ask you for money?”
Averie instantly put on a pitiful face. She replied, “Yeah. I couldn’t believe it either. On a day like this, and he tried to make my whole family lose face.”
The look Mateo gave Charles was full of contempt and disgust.
Solana clenched her fists so tightly it hurt. She couldn’t win against them today. She had to hold it in.
Averie glanced at Charles again, now totally smug. She said coldly, “Oh, and by the way, my dad is Mr. Webb, the CEO of Roberton Properties. You’ve heard of Roberton Properties, right?”
The disappointment and pain in Charles’s eyes slowly faded. It was like something finally clicked in his mind. The girl standing in front of him wasn’t his daughter–and didn’t want to be.
And the one who had just risked her life to save him–that was his daughter.
Charles let out a dry laugh and calmly took a step forward.
Averie didn’t know if she was imagining it, but in that moment, Charles suddenly had a whole different aura.
That calm, composed look in his eyes, mixed with a hint of disdain, was something Averie had never seen from him before.
But the moment passed quickly, and Averie sneered again. ‘He’s lost it. Definitely just my imagination. Probably just his last bit of pride flaring up before he gives up completely.‘
Charles looked Averie, voice chilly. “Of course I know Roberton Properties. But I’m guessing you don’t know who I am. I’m actually-”
“Dad!” Solana quickly tugged on his arm. She thought, ‘Everyone here already knows who he is–a low–level clerk living out in the countryside.
‘There’s really no need to “brag” right now. If he says it, they’ll only humiliate him more.‘
Averie almost burst out laughing. “Why’d you stop? Don’t tell me you were about to say you raised me for eighteen years, and I should be kissing your feet out of gratitude?”
Charles took a long stride forward and slapped Averie across the face. “I can’t believe I raised someone like you!”
Averie clutched her cheek, stunned. “You hit me? Mateo! Mateo!”
Mateo stormed over, furious. “Who the hell do you think you are, hitting the Webb family’s daughter?”
Charles took another step forward, but Solana quickly rushed in front of him and blocked him, facing Mateo. “Touch my dad, and I swear I’ll fight you with everything I’ve got.”
Mateo froze. He was used to Solana always being the timid one, always trying to please him. Always tagging along behind him like a little shadow that wouldn’t go away.
But now… Solana was completely different. Cold. Calm. Not even a trace of fear in her eyes. Mateo didn’t know when it happened, but she’d changed.
Averie, still rattled, yanked out her phone. “Just wait till my dad gets here. You’re all going to jail. Solana, that car you wrecked? You’ll never afford to pay it off in this lifetime!”
But Charles didn’t hear a single word she was saying. His eyes stayed locked on Solana, her thin shoulders held high and steady.
Charles thought, ‘She said if they dared to hurt me, she’d risk everything to fight them.
‘But she’s just a kid. She’s supposed to be the one being protected.‘
A wave of emotion surged in Charles’s chest–an ache that mixed pride and heartbreak. The girl he’d raised like his own had turned on him in a heartbeat. But this girl, the one he hadn’t even met until today…
Charles clenched his fists slowly. ‘Everything I’ve once wanted to give Averie–the love, the support, the future.
‘Since she doesn’t want it, then I’ll give it all to this girl–my real daughter. Everything. No holding back.‘
