Sensing that he had made a mistake, Boris hurriedly explained himself. “I always arrive at the school one hour early to pick up the children, but you were there yourself today. I wanted to send you home along with the children, but you told me that you wanted to bring the children elsewhere and asked me to go home.”
Boris’ face was as pale as a ghost when he paused for a while to figure out what had happened. “Could it be that you’ve just forgotten about picking them up, Mrs. Fuller? Maybe they’re in their rooms napping right now. Yes, that must be it! I’ll go check on them right now. Just give me a minute.”
Losing three children was no small matter, which was why the chauffeur got so nervous that he did not even wait for my response before dashing into the house.
At that point, Ashton and I exchanged looks, for we both figured that it was Nora who pretended to be me and took the children away.
Then, both our phones rang at the same time.
Ashton picked up his phone but remained silent until he hung up. Whoever it was that called him, I could tell that they did not bring good news.
“Who is it?”
“Nathaniel. He wants us to have dinner at his place,” replied Ashton as he stared into space.
I knew that man would make a move sooner or later, but he still caught me off guard.
After taking a deep breath, Ashton gestured at my phone. “This can’t be a coincidence. I think you should read your text message.”
Hurriedly, I unlocked my phone and did as Ashton said. The message I received read: Mommy, we’re at Uncle Nathaniel’s house. Come pick us up. Gregory.
Even though the message came from Gregory, it was not sent from his phone, so I assumed he figured out a different way to reach me.
We were not out of the woods yet then, but still, I was relieved to hear from Gregory.
“Go change. We’re going to save our son.”
“What about our daughter?”
“All of them! We’re going to save all of them.” Somehow, I was confident that I would get my children back, and I could not help but smirk at the thought of it.
Ashton, too, smirked at me and said nothing else.
As a parent, I thought it was quite normal to have a favorite among my children as long as I remembered to love all of them.
Ever since I found out about Nora, I worried that she would try to replace me someday and fool Gregory and Audrey into thinking that she was their mother.
All the woman needed to do was spend some time with my children and show them her motherly love, and she could have easily taken my place.
Gregory’s message was a candle in the dark to me. Whether he deliberately sent it to me or not, I was just glad that he trusted me enough to do that, and that was all that mattered to me.
It was not my first time arriving at Nathaniel’s villa, but I never went there for the same reason.
When a maid led us into the living room, Nora was trying to gain Audrey’s trust by offering the girl the cake Nathaniel bought at Black Angle. However, Audrey remained fiddling with her doll’s arm uneasily while sitting beside her brother.
Seeing how Audrey was reluctant to try the cake, I could not help but feel proud of my girl. Good girl!
“Hey, Audrey,” called out Ashton in his deep voice.
The second the little girl heard the familiar voice, she leaped to her feet and rushed over to her father. “Daddy!”
