CHAPTER 51: CHAPTER 51: DO YOU REALLY NEED ME TO CARRY YOU OUT?

Actually—

In the children’s room, Anna Thornton was sitting on the floor sharing a box of baby cookies with Pop.

Anna Thornton picked up a star-shaped cookie to feed Pop, then grabbed a handful and stuffed them into her own mouth.

The little one was eating cookies, yawning, still thinking about the braised pork on the dinner table: "Mommy, I want to eat meat..."

"Hold on, Mommy promises you’ll get to eat meat. I don’t believe that pighead would really let his own daughter go hungry."

Anna Thornton took out her phone to check the time, scrolling through Weibo, and found that her usually three-digit Weibo comments had suddenly increased a lot.

It turned out that Florian Hollis had followed her and posted a Weibo @Anna Thornton—Today’s snacks from the new girl at the office were really delicious.

The attached photo was a picture of a macaron afternoon tea.

Many of Florian Hollis’s fans followed that Weibo post to her, but the new comments under her Weibo were not very friendly.

Anna Thornton only glanced at it and after politely following back, she skipped over it.

Just as she put down her phone, she heard a knocking at the door again.

Unlike Granny Chandler’s gentle persuasion, this knock was filled with temper.

"Anna Thornton, open the door right now."

Hearing Conrad’s voice, Anna Thornton quickly gestured ’shh’ to Pop, and the mother-daughter duo hid the cookies together.

"Anna Thornton, I’m giving you three seconds."

Despite the threat outside, there was still no response inside the room.

Three seconds passed, the door wasn’t opened, and Conrad said to Granny Chandler, "Go get the key."

The children’s room door was opened by the servant, Conrad walked in, seeing a large and a small back, sitting in a pit filled with little duck balls.

Anna Thornton and Pop both turned their backs to him, and Conrad couldn’t possibly lose his temper with the child.

So he called to Anna Thornton: "Get up!"

"What for?" The woman didn’t even turn her head to look at him, "You coming to check if we’ve starved?"

"Rest assured, before you starve, I’ll definitely report it to the police, let them see how you abuse women and children."

This woman threw a tantrum and refused to eat, Conrad didn’t say anything to her, and now she’s accusing him first? Saying he abuses people?

"No one is stopping you from eating, you have legs, or should I carry you out?" Conrad asked her.

"That works!"

"Then I’ll definitely throw you off the second floor."

Threatened like that, Anna Thornton finally turned around.

To prove she had legs, she stood up, clambered out of the pit, walked up to Conrad, and held out her hand: "Where’s the pacifier?"

Conrad held his hands behind his back, ignoring her.

"Hurry up, give me Pop’s pacifier. She’s about to sleep, she just yawned several times."

As she spoke, Anna Thornton directly reached behind Conrad to grab it.

Because of their size difference, her head was close to his chest, her arms seemed to wrap around Conrad’s waist.

A fragrance of fresh mint emanated from her hair, surrounding Conrad’s nose.

President Sterling’s anger subsided slightly at this moment.

After retrieving Pop’s pacifier from Conrad’s hand, Anna Thornton withdrew without hesitation, busying herself with sterilizing the pacifier and coaxing the child, completely ignoring the man.

Conrad watched as she put Pop to bed and began singing the lullaby she had sung that first night to lull the child to sleep.

"Won’t you eat first?" Conrad couldn’t help asking.

"Pop’s already eaten."

"When?"

"Over two hours ago."

This standoff of theirs had lasted three hours, during which Conrad hadn’t heard any sound of doors opening or someone going downstairs.

He thought Pop had been starving all along, but the child had actually already eaten in the room.

Anna Thornton received a call from Granny Chandler on the way back, saying Pop refused to eat, so she bought some appetizing baby food along the way.

How could she truly let the child go hungry out of spite?

Actually, the only person hungry was Anna Thornton herself.

No, also Conrad didn’t have dinner either.

So after coaxing the little one to sleep, Anna Thornton stretched lazily: "Let’s go, President Sterling, I’ll go downstairs with you to eat."

Conrad: "Nobody’s begging you, you can keep sulking if you want."

"I could not eat, just slimming down. But since you’ve taken the initiative to call a truce, I can’t very well not give face."

"..."

"Don’t worry, I’ll have a good talk with Pop when she wakes up tomorrow, she won’t hold a grudge about you taking her pacifier."

One day, Conrad would shut this little woman’s mouth!

When they went downstairs, Granny Chandler had prepared a large table of steaming dishes, featuring both Chinese and Western cuisine for them to choose from.

Anna Thornton was so hungry that her stomach was empty, she eagerly took a seat.

Conrad selected the refined French dishes for dinner and had just neatly organized his napkin when he heard Anna Thornton exclaim, "Wow, there’s even wonton!"

Looking up, he saw that the woman who had just been saying she needed to lose weight was stuffing wontons into her mouth, one after another.

"Granny Chandler, are these wontons stuffed with mushroom and pork?"

"Yes, they are."

"In my memory, the taste of wonton is from our hometown of Veridia. There used to be a little diner near my house that specialized in wontons, and the owner’s seafood-stuffed wontons were especially delicious, with thin skin and plenty of filling. Once cooked, you could see a whole shrimp through the skin. But old tastes are often left behind by the times, everyone loves going to Western restaurants and fancy Chinese places now; the owner’s business got worse and worse. I was afraid they’d close down, so I often brought classmates there on weekends. Even when I was abroad, I often thought about that taste."

As Anna Thornton spoke, she had already eaten half a bowl of wontons, clearly she was really hungry.

On the contrary, Conrad had only cut a small piece of steak.

Granny Chandler, with her keen eyesight, stepped forward and asked, "President Sterling, which bottle of red wine will you open today?"

Conrad, however, waved her off, signaling her to leave: "You leave it, let her take it."

Even though the Sterling Family had many servants, Conrad disliked having a lot of people hovering under his nose while he was eating or doing anything else.

So normally, when President Sterling was home, everyone tried their best to act as invisible.

At this moment in the dining room, it was just the three of them, aside from Granny Chandler, the "her" naturally referred to Anna Thornton.

"You’re calling me?"

Anna Thornton swallowed the wonton in her mouth, set down her spoon, and this time surprisingly obediently got up to ask him, "President Sterling, which bottle of red wine will you be opening tonight?"

"The one on the side, 1986!"

On hearing this, Anna Thornton went to the wine fridge, glanced at the other wine vintages beside it while retrieving the wine, and couldn’t help exclaiming, "Wow, what kind of divine wines are these?"

"Conrad Sterling, the wine here... even the cheapest bottle must be at least 300,000!"

Anna Thornton had an actor friend abroad whose side hobby was collecting wine, pouring almost all his income into it.

He had even invited Anna Thornton to his house to teach her about wine vintages and tasting methods, saying that actors couldn’t avoid social functions, and knowing wine was the first step to better integrate into high society.

What she didn’t know was that Anna Thornton had been able to identify wine by its aroma since she was seven.

Back when the Thornton Family was still thriving, they had a special underground storage for wine, all of which Dad Thornton collected for hosting distinguished guests.

But compared with Conrad Sterling’s collection, it was truly like comparing a small potato to a great banquet.

Indeed, the hobby of collecting wine really only suited the insanely wealthy.

Conrad wasn’t bothered by her starry-eyed exclamaions, while Granny Chandler, to avoid embarrassing Anna Thornton, gave her an out: "President Sterling has investments in his own vineyards in France, or some of these are gifts from others. They are meticulously chosen, the best vintages with the highest quality, their value is immeasurable, likely far exceeding 300,000 in market value."

"Oh..."

Anna Thornton exclaimed in awe, uncorking the bottle, and walked to Conrad Sterling’s side.

Seeing the man sitting there, elegantly waiting to be served, Anna Thornton resisted the urge to roll her eyes, and poured a small amount into his glass: "President Sterling, is this enough?"

Conrad glanced at the glass without looking at her, nodding in satisfaction at the service.

"Alright then!"

Anna Thornton set the bottle down for him, but after a moment of thought, picked it up again and poured some into her own glass as well.

She knew it wasn’t easy to get this man to lower his pride and make peace; now that each of them had softened once, Conrad should at least be feeling more at ease, right?