Victoria couldn’t say anything back.
He sounded convincing, but they still had to keep their initial promise.
She couldn’t even bear to think about what was going to happen if they were to be found out.
“I think I should leave you guys alone, you guys must have something to say to each other as in-laws.
I’ve cleaned the room in the west wing, you guys can stay there tonight. Call me when you need me, I’ll be in the front yard.” He then left and as he walked past Loredana, he put his hand on her shoulder, exerting some force as he said, “Just ask her about anything that you want to know.”
He looked back and looked at his sister, “Your daughter-in-law is great. She learns fast and is good looking. I’d seen her children, they looked like Cormac. Although you cannot reveal your identity, there is nothing to feel regretful about.”
Kevin sighed and was feeling helpless about the past.
Loredana obtained a lot of information from their conversation, but she still didn’t know the whole story.
At this moment, she had a lot of questions for Victoria.
But she was interrupted by Victoria the moment she opened her mouth. Victoria looked exhausted. She looked like she was about to pass out due to the sudden change in the situation.
“Let me rest a bit.”
Victoria was wobbly as if she lost energy in her feet. She couldn’t stand properly.
Loredana walked over and helped her, “I’ll help you to the room in the west wing.”
Kevin did mention that the room was all cleaned up. Victoria might be able to get some rest there.
Victoria was really tired, she held onto Loredana’ arm. They walked out of the lobby and headed to the room.
As Loredana opened the door, she was taken aback, The room looked like a modern girl’s room. The walls were painted in pink and light colours and there was a white princess bed. The curtains had ribbons on them and there was a round-shaped girly looking dressing table in the room. The cupboard was filled with dolls.
Every corner of the room was decorated fondly.
It was clean, but Loredana could tell that no one had lived here for a long time.
Victoria was also taken aback the moment she stepped into the room. She felt melancholic, “This was my room that my father fixed up for me. He wanted to remind me, to never forget about the Forbis family and how well he treated me.”
Not only that, but he was also telling her to continue to pass on the family’s craft no matter how risky it was.
As it was passed on for generations.
She was from the Forbis family.
And it was her duty.
Loredana helped Victoria to the bed and put a pillow behind her so that she could lie back comfortably.
Victoria held Loredana’ hand, signaling her to sit down.
Loredana abided and sat on the bed.
Victoria looked at Loredana as she held her hand, “You must have a lot of questions for me.”
Loredana nodded without hesitation, she first made a guess, “Are you Cormac’s biological mother?”
This was her assumption from listening to Victoria’s and Kevin’s conversation, but she wasn’t entirely sure.
Victoria looked at her and paused for a long while as if she was fighting with herself in her head. In the end, she nodded and gave Loredana a firm answer, “Yes.”
Loredana took a deep breath. What happened in the past, that Victoria couldn’t even tell her son that she was his mother?
What happened that they couldn’t acknowledge each other?
As a mother, she knew how a mother felt about her children.
She knew that Victoria probably suffered a lot.
“Can you tell me what happened?” Loredana looked at the jade bracelet on her hand. She planned to tell Victoria about how she met Charles, “When I was in danger, a man named Charles White rescued me.
He saved me because he recognized the bracelet and thought that I was your daughter. He said he did that because his adoptive father told him to. His father is Nathan White, I’m guessing that you should know him as well.”
The purpose of Loredana asking this question was to find out from Victoria’s answer whether Charles was lying or not.
Upon hearing Loredana’s words, Victoria’s face, which had just brought back the roses, instantly turned pale again. She stared at Loredana and felt like she had fallen into an ice cave, chilling from the top of her head to the tips of her toes.
She actually knew Nathan?
“Are you uncomfortable talking about it?”
Loredana sensed her hesitation.
She hurriedly denied it, “No.”
Kevin had forced her to a dead end, and she had no other choice.
“How did you get into danger?” Victoria asked with concern.
“You don’t have to worry about this. Cormac has helped me out and I’m fine now. I want to know about you, was it also a conspiracy for me to be brought here by Kevin to learn the craft of tea silk making?”
Loredana felt that a huge conspiracy was looming behind her, but she couldn’t peer into it.
Victoria closed her eyes and also made up her mind in this short period of time.
What was done was done, and there was nothing she could do to change it.
However, she was afraid it would cause big trouble for Loredana. Her cold, uncontrollably trembling hand clasped Loredana’s hand, “You’re a good girl.”
Her eyes reddened slightly, and her voice changed its intonation. “I can tell you everything, but you have to promise me one thing.”
Since she was Cormac’s real mother, then of course she wanted her son to be good. Now she had given birth to two children for Cormac, so she must also like her, or at least not hate her. Moreover, she gave her the Forbis family’s ancestral jade bracelets, so she definitely wouldn’t hurt her.
Loredana nodded and said, “I promise you, go ahead, what is it?”
“You must keep everything I tell you a secret, and you can’t say anything to anyone, including Cormac.”
Loredana’s eyelids drooped slightly as she had expected such a request. If she wasn’t afraid of Cormac knowing about this, how could she try every possible way to conceal it?
She just didn’t understand what kind of past was there that she couldn’t even recognize her own son?
There were thousands of pains in this world, such as old age, sickness, death, love, hate and separation; however, the most heart-breaking and tragic was that I couldn’t acknowledge you even though you were right in front of my eyes.
Loredana was tempted to ask her what exactly was more important than recognizing her son?
But when the words came to the tip of her tongue, she swallowed them again. If there was no difficulty that she couldn’t mention, how would she like to be separated from her own children?
Loredana looked up at her and replied seriously, “Alright, I promise you.”
Victoria didn’t feel relieved, on the contrary, she felt increasingly heavy-hearted. She never intended to pull Loredana into the whirlpool of the past, but the current development was beyond her expectations.
Her involvement was bound to be detrimental to her.
Victoria pondered for a few seconds, but still couldn’t muster up the courage to open her mouth.
And Loredana wasn’t in a hurry and waited quietly.
About a few minutes later, Victoria slowly opened her mouth, “My last name is Forbis, and my full name is Victoria Forbis. But after I got married to Jayden, I didn’t dare to use my real name and just said my name is Victoria…I didn’t even dare to admit that Cormac is my birth because he can only have one identity, that is, he is the son of the daughter of the Harris family, Jolene Harris and Jayden. I was just their surrogate.
Back then, just after my 20th birthday, my dad passed away from a sudden heart attack and the factory my family operated…”
Speaking of which, she raised her eyes to look at Loredana, “The product my family dealt with was tea silk, but because of the special material, we didn’t stock up on a lot of finished products. However, my dad had taken a big order during his lifetime. Due to his sudden death, my brother took it over, but he failed to meet the delivery quantity within the deadline. The other party demanded compensation, and according to the contract, we had to pay five times the price if we couldn’t complete it on time. We could still afford this compensation, but the devastating blow to us was that the previously delivered product had quality problems and the buyer demanded compensation for the loss.
As you know, the cost of manufacturing was already a large sum of money, and if we added compensation to it, it would be a sky-high price.
We later learned that it was caused by our workers putting the materials in the wrong order when making the cloth. The successive accidents not only made the public question the quality of the tea silk we produced, but we also had to pay a large amount of compensation…”
In desperation, she turned to Nathan, her first love. Both of their families had met, and their wedding date had been set.
She was at her wits’ end and wanted to seek help from her boyfriend. However, she didn’t see Nathan when she came to the White family, but only Nathan’s mother, Mrs. White.
“Nathan has gone abroad on a business trip and won’t be back for a while.” Mrs. White sat in the living room, not as gentle and kind as usual, but showed a contemptuous expression to Victoria at this moment.
“Victoria, you haven’t married into the White family yet. Isn’t it too much to want our money?”
Mrs. White’s words caught Victoria off guard. In the past, Mrs. White liked her a lot and treated her well.
But since her dad passed away and her family got into trouble, her attitude towards her changed and she was no longer the same Mrs. White, who liked her and was amiable.
“I just want Nathan to help me once, and I’ll pay him back in the future.” Victoria stood in the courtyard.
It was midday in summer and the sun blazed down on her.
Victoria’s face was sunburned and her sweat rolled down like rain, but Mrs. White didn’t let her into the villa and said without mercy, “Pay back the money? How can you pay back the money? As far as I know, your family has already compensated a large sum of money, and the amount is even more staggering for this time. Without your father, what does your family have left? In fact, it isn’t impossible to help you, if you’re willing to pass on your craftmanship of making tea silk to me, I can also consider lending you this money.”
Victoria never expected that Mrs. White would want her family’s cloth-making technology.
At that moment, she realized that humans actually had two faces. They could change in an instant to catch you off guard, to make your heart ache like being cut with a knife, to show you what a fool you turned out to be. You treated them as your family, but they only wanted to take away what belonged to you.
“What if I don’t want to?” The Forbis family’s cloth-making technology had been passed down from ancestors and had never been passed on to outsiders. Only the blood relatives of the Forbis family were entitled to the true teachings.
How could she hand over her ancestors’ belongings to others? Besides, if she handed over the technique of making tea silk, would it still belong to the Forbis family?
She couldn’t let the technique of making tea silk be ruined in her generation.
Mrs. White snorted, “I tried to give you a favor, but you gave me shit. Your engagement with Nathan will also be terminated. From now on, you have nothing to do with him, and there is no longer any relationship between the Whites and the Forbis!”
Mrs. White’s ruthlessness let Victoria know that Mrs. White initially agreed to her being with Nathan only because she was interested in the Forbis family’s cloth-making technique. Now, since she refused to hand it over, and the Forbis family was facing a major crisis, she showed her true colours.
However, her feelings for Nathan were real.
“If you want to break off the engagement, you ask Nathan to talk to me in person.” Victoria didn’t cry, even though her heart was dripping blood at the moment. She stubbornly refused to shed a single tear in front of Mrs. White.
Mrs. White sneered, “Good, good, very good, you’re doing it the hard way now!”
Soon, Victoria received a blow from the White family to her.
New Book: Beginning with a Daring Encounter
Celsie was tired of being labeled as an introvert, workaholic, and dull virgin by her friends. Determined to prove them wrong, she made a bet that she would do something daring on her 25th birthday. Now that the day had arrived, it was time to fulfill her promise. On her daring to-do list, there was one task: a one-night stand with someone.
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