CHAPTER 30: CHAPTER 30: LIKING SOMEONE MEANS HAVING NO DIGNITY

"Conrad Sterling, just say what you want quickly. I’ve been out too long, and Pop will worry."

Anna Thornton followed the man out of the hospital room and watched him take out a cigarette, only to remember it’s inconvenient to smoke in a hospital. He stuffed the cigarette back into the box.

"Did you bring those reporters today?" Conrad Sterling asked her, "Trying to force me again into acknowledging you?"

Hearing this, Anna couldn’t help but laugh lightly, "President Sterling, you came with such a big entourage and security, if you can’t even find out who the mastermind is, then these years you’ve spent in Aethelgard have been wasted."

"..."

"If you already know it’s her who leaked to the reporters, bringing them here to trouble me, yet you still want to blame me, then the past thirty years of your life have been lived in vain."

"Wasn’t Marilyn forced to do this by you?"

"Damn!" Anna always thought she was quite unreasonable, but she didn’t expect someone could match her.

"Yeah, she came to the hospital today to give me a warning, yet I argued back vigorously. Her dignity couldn’t handle it, so she deliberately leaked information to the media to make trouble for a three-year-old child. She’s still the innocent and pure ’white lotus’, while I’m the ’green tea witch’, right?"

Anna was a bit annoyed, she reached for a woman’s cigarette from her pocket, held it in her lips, ready to light it.

Suddenly, Conrad Sterling reached out and took the cigarette away.

"You know smoking in a hospital is wrong, right? And you’re setting this example for your child?"

Conrad Sterling remembered when he first met Anna Thornton four years ago, despite her circumstances, the spoiled temperament of the young lady hadn’t left her.

How has she developed such a bad habit now? She even cursed just now!

"Anyway, in your eyes, I’m the one without morals and shame, right? Marilyn Ford is the high and honorable princess, everything she does is right and compelled by circumstances, while everything I do is wrong. President Sterling, protecting her shouldn’t mean you abandon rationality, right?"

Conrad retorted, "Do I need to be rational to protect my woman?"

"Heh, I just asked her, she outright refused to admit being your girlfriend."

"Anna! Thornton!"

"Seriously, Conrad Sterling, you don’t need to see me as some monster. Although I’ve come for your bone marrow and your money, wouldn’t more options be better? There should already be conflicts between you and Marilyn Ford, I can see she minds Pop’s existence a lot. So, what will you do? Just send us away for her? With Miss Ford’s proud nature, she might not even compromise."

"Only women truly understand a woman’s mind. Oftentimes, people only cherish things when they’re lost. I think you should first be with me. I guarantee she’ll regret in the future, and then you’ll have control. Once Pop recovers, we divorce, and you can reunite with Miss Ford—wouldn’t that be perfect?"

Anna thought her proposal was very feasible, but Conrad Sterling’s face turned somber as he listened.

"What do you take me for, Anna Thornton? Someone to be tossed between two women at your whim?"

"Anyway, you’ve been toyed by Marilyn Ford for so long, what’s one more person?"

Conrad Sterling: "."

"President Sterling, liking someone means there’s no dignity involved. Even if you won’t let me say it, it’s still the truth."

Seeing the man’s face grow more unpleasant, Anna quickly escaped before he could explode.

"And, I also have no dignity!" she said, looking at the man before returning to the room, "Who made me a mother?"

Anna’s words caught Conrad Sterling off guard, and he failed to hold her back in time.

That little woman sometimes deliberately teased him, ambitious like a sly little fox.

And yet sometimes...

Anyway, she always had a knack for being bothersome every time they met.

...

Anna returned to accompany Pop, and Mary went to get medicine and change the water, taking multiple trips in and out of the room under various pretenses.

"Anna, I noticed President Sterling standing in the corridor outside. He won’t leave or come in to see the child—what does he mean?"

"He probably doesn’t even know what he means, this man is so stubborn, don’t bother with him."

"But Marilyn Ford deliberately leaked to the reporters today, and that’s just it?"

"What else can we do if it’s not? Conrad Sterling said earlier that Marilyn Ford is his woman, so he will protect her no matter what, without considering reason. In his eyes..." Anna laughed at herself, "Ha, what do we even count for?"

Ethan happened to hear this sentence as he was delivering dinner to them.

He intended to pretend he hadn’t heard, but he couldn’t help but say more when he entered, "Miss Thornton, actually President Sterling was already at the airport when he received your call today. He was planning a business trip to Europe to inspect a major project, but canceled the trip immediately when he heard you were in trouble."

"You’re talking about... Conrad Sterling?" Anna wasn’t convinced.

"Of course, you saw earlier today outside the hospital, President Sterling got out of the driver’s seat himself. He thought I drove too slow, so he pushed me to the passenger seat and drove himself, running through several red lights because he was worried about you and the young miss."

Ethan’s gotten wiser now; Conrad Sterling warned him against calling Pop by her nickname.

The title "young miss" made Anna rather delighted.

At the same time, President Sterling didn’t correct him.

"Ethan, you telling me this is wanting me to do what? Are you trying to encourage me to keep pushing harder, to squeeze Marilyn Ford who’s occupying without contributing?" Anna asked him.

Ethan smiled awkwardly, "Miss Thornton, I was merely stating facts. Please don’t set me up, I’m just an assistant. But rest assured, everyone in the Sterling Group has to sign confidentiality agreements, knowing what should and shouldn’t be said."

And Anna just used what kind of metaphor?

Good heavens, if Conrad Sterling heard of himself being compared to a toilet, the consequences would be unimaginable...

Oddly enough, when President Sterling is with Miss Thornton, even his emotions are more vibrant.

Mostly, he’s infuriated, but there’s so many levels and expressions of anger.

Ethan always felt, President Sterling doesn’t genuinely dislike Miss Thornton as much as he shows.

There’s so many past examples, the moment others revealed any intention to seduce Conrad, or got themselves in trouble with Marilyn Ford, they were swiftly packed and sent out of Aethelgard.

So far, only Anna Thornton remains unscathed here, even receiving special protection in a Sterling-affiliated hospital, implying certain something unspoken.

Moreover, Ethan just saw President Sterling secretly going downstairs to ask the doctor responsible for the young miss about her condition.

Even if he doesn’t come to the hospital these days, he calls often to urge results for the marrow match, hardly indifferent to the child’s wellbeing.

That evening, Conrad Sterling stayed at the hospital until nearly eleven o’clock at night, Pop and Mary had gone to sleep.

Though he never opened the hospital room door, Anna knew he was there all along.

Once the man had left, Anna dialed a phone number.

"If you want to know what really happened between Conrad Sterling and me four years ago, then come out and meet with me."

"Yes, right now!"