Author: BTMBeta

“If you’re unhappy, just tell us. Don’t keep it in your heart. No matter what happens in the end, we’re still family.”

At the start of all this, Johanna wanted to take the initiative to comfort Lila. But after thinking it over for a while, she thought it would be better to let Lila digest the matter by herself. Lila was no longer a child anymore. She should be able to deal with it by herself. Lila nodded while tears streamed down her face at the same time. She embraced Johanna tightly and said, “Mom, I don’t want to leave you. Even though I now know I have my biological parents, I haven’t seen them for over twenty years. We don’t know each other and I don’t want them back. I’ve always regarded you as my biological parents. I’m crying because I really don’t want to leave you.”

Beal got up and walked over to her. He patted Lila on the back and tried to comfort her.

“Your mother and I never want you to leave us either. If you want to stay, then just continue to live with us. You’re still our daughter no matter what.”

He believed in his heart that Lila’s biological parents were not good people. If she really went back to them, she wouldn’t be able to live a good life in that kind of family.

Lila peered up at them happily. She sniffled and turned to look at Natalie with tears all over her face.

“Then we’ll be sisters from now on, Natalie.” Natalie smiled and said, “Yes.”

“That’s really great.” Johanna was happy to hear that now they were going to be one big happy family. She held

Natalie’s hand and said affectionately to her, “Lila was born a little earlier than you were. That means she’ll be your elder sister from now on.”

After pausing for a few seconds, Natalie opened her mouth to say, “All right.”

Lila smiled and promised Johanna, “Okay, Mom, I’ll go on to take good care of Natalie in the future.”

At first, Natalie thought that this was going to be a happy ending for them, but out of the corner of her eye, she found that the way Lila looked at her didn’t seem to be as friendly as what she showed on the surface. However,

Natalie didn’t say anything in front of Johanna. The last thing she wanted to do was make her sad.

Peal pushed his round-frame glasses back on his nose and had a gentle smile on his face. He placed his arm around Dhanna’s shoulder and said, “Well, it looks like our family is finally reunited.” ohanna turned to look at him, with tears glistening in her eyes. Finally, their family was complete now.

Natalie had just returned to the White family home. Johanna didn’t want her to go back to Seacisco so soon so she vehemently insisted that Natalie stay in Barnes.

“I’m going back to the company for work tomorrow. If you’re bored, you can go shopping with Lila. She has many friends in

Barnes. This is the supplementary card of my credit card. You can buy whatever you’d like.”

Before Johanna made her way to the company, she gave a card to Natalie to use as she pleased.

“Thank you but no, I can’t accept this. You have bought me innumerable things.”

Natalie felt embarrassed to accept such a grand gesture.

Johanna pressed the card into Natalie’s hand and hugged her again, feeling reluctant to leave.

“You’re being too polite with me. Well, I really have to go now. I’ll give you two the time to bond with each other today.”

Lila was positively green with the jealousy that consumed every fiber of her being. She had been longing for a supplementary card for as long as she could remember. However, no matter what methods she tried to employ, Johanna didn’t agree to it.

Now Natalie had made little to no effort yet she was gifted the card. How could Lila not envy her? Lila had a catch-up date with her best friends to enjoy afternoon tea. She had no desire whatsoever to take Natalie along with her. However, since Johanna had asked her specifically to do so, she had no choice but to let Natalie tag along

The place they patronized was a restaurant in a five-star hotel. The desserts of this hotel were well-known, which made it a popular place for many wealthy ladies to spend their leisure time.

“Lila! You’re finally here! Do you know how long have we been waiting for you?”

As soon as Lila and Natalie entered the restaurant, a woman in a sexy slip dress with leopard print pattern stood up and waved to beckon them over. Lila quickly walked over and kissed the woman on the cheeks. She smiled and asked, “What made you stay abroad so long?”

When the woman was about to speak, she saw Natalie standing behind Lila. She raised her eyebrows and smiled,

“Who is this? Why don’t you introduce her to us?”

Lila took a glance at Natalie. She walked behind her and introduced her to her best friends, “This is my sister,

Natalie White. You must have heard of her in the newspapers.”

Of course, these women knew full well who Natalie was. They had read the news about her in the newspaper over and over again. Lila led Natalie to their seats to sit down.

The young ladies made conversations with Natalie from time to time about some mind-numbingly boring topics.

From these conversations, Natalie could tell that these young ladies were all from rich families and had no ambition to strive to make progress. They lived a comfortable life and were waiting for their parents to arrange husbands for them in the future.

Johanna looked into Lila’s eyes meaningfully. “I could see that Natalie was quite nice to you. Did you happen to misunderstand her?”

Lila felt wronged right then. “I have no idea what happened. My best friends and I went shopping together with her.We treated her very considerately. I don’t know why that happened.” Johanna knew Lila very well. Though she was a little spoiled, with regard to morals, Johanna thought she and Beal had taught her a great deal.

“Well, it’s getting late, why not go upstairs and have a rest first? I’ll deal with this matter.” Johanna didn’t bother asking any more questions. She decided she would talk to Natalie first.

The next morning, when Natalie woke up, the servants were preparing breakfast in the kitchen. In Seacisco, she had the habit of getting up early in the morning.

Johanna returned to the house from a morning run outside. Sweat was pouring off her body. The habit of morning exercise gave her a perfect figure even though she was nearly fifty years old.

“Good morning, Mrs. White.” When Natalie saw Johanna walk in, she nodded at her. Even though Johanna and Beal were her biological parents, Natalie still felt a little awkward around them and could not make herself call them Mom and Dad for now.

“Mom” and “Dad” were both unfamiliar and awkward phrases to her still. When she lived with the Quinn family, she seldom called George and Lauren Dad and Mom. Wiping the sweat off her forehead, Johanna was startled.

“I’m not your boss, why are you still calling me “Mrs. White”?”

She then glanced over at the empty table, covered her stomach with her hands, and winked at Natalie.

“Breakfast has yet to be served. Why don’t we go to the kitchen to check? You haven’t had the chance to try my cooking, right?

Natalie chuckled helplessly. “Sebastian, you’re so childish.” She explained, “I’ve been so busy at the banquet. People have been taking my photo all day long. I really didn’t have the time, honey.”

Being called “honey” instantly dispelled the gloom in Sebastian’s heart. He sighed and secretly scolded himself for being so soft.

“Okay. I forgive you. When are you coming back? I miss you.”

Natalie blushed slightly, feeling warm in her heart. “I left yesterday. It’s only been a day, Sebastian.”

Before Sebastian could say anything, Natalie heard her name being called. “Natalie? What’re you doing here? The party’s far from over.”

Johanna noticed that Natalie wasn’t in the hall so she went out to look for her. Natalie quickly said goodbye to Sebastian and then hung up the phone. Johanna dragged her back to the party. Because both Johanna and Beal felt guilty for the lost time, they wanted to make it up to Natalie in one go. They spent every waking minute with Natalie, buying her all kinds of things. Johanna in particular was very excited. She would take Natalie out to go shopping, and always end up buying all the things she laid her eyes on.

Their shopping spree was all very exhausting for Natalie. Natalie’s parents were so immersed in the excitement of getting their real daughter back that they completely forgot about Lila, who had locked herself in her room sulkily.

Lila leaned against the door, trying to listen in. Hearing the raucous laughter downstairs, she grew even angrier. She threw herself on the bed and tears fell out of her eyes again. In the past two days, there had already been a lot of news about Natalie.

Some news outlets even compared her with Natalie.

There was gossip saying that she was not as beautiful as Natalie. Some even accused her of stealing Natalie’s life.

“Why me?” More tears streamed down Lila’s face. She threw her phone onto the ground, her eyes wide open and furious. She wanted nothing else but to grab hold of Natalie’s neck and strangle her.

A few days ago, she was still the only daughter of the rich and powerful White family in Barnes, but now she suddenly had turned into some sort of imposter. Lila couldn’t wrap her mind around it. She was extremely unwilling to accept it. She even began to believe that what Johanna and Beal did was extremely unfair to her.

They announced to the world that Natalie was their biological daughter. Obviously, this was a huge insult to her.

Lila’s phone then rang.It happened to be a call from one of her best friends.

“What’s going on? Who’s that Natalie girl? Why did you suddenly become your family’s adopted daughter?” Lila had a splitting headache and shouted angrily at the phone, “Stop yammering about Natalie! Just hearing her name makes me very angry!”

“So the matter’s true. Where are you right now? Are you at the White’s house, or your biological parents’ home?” It seemed like her best friend only cared about Lila’s status.

Lila almost became crazy. She learned straight from Johanna that her biological parents were just ordinary people. She had been treated well by the White couple for so many years. It was impossible for her to go back to her real parents and live a hard life!

“Don’t worry about it. My dad and mom said that I’m very much still their daughter.” Lila smiled awkwardly and lied through her teeth. She knew clearly that even if she stayed in the White family shamelessly, she would only be an adopted daughter. She was no longer the legitimate daughter of the White family and staying due to that would be very embarrassing indeed.

According to the sounds downstairs these days, she figured out that Beal and Johanna treated Natalie very well.

Her best friend tried telling her words of comfort over the phone.

‘That’s really great. Your parents must be tolerant of you.”

Are they? If they were really tolerant, they wouldn’t have taken Natalie back and let Natalie take away everything that was truly hers.

Thinking about this, Lila felt that it was extremely unfair to her. She resented that God was unfair toward her. At first, He gave her the identity of the daughter of a rich family that everyone envied, but suddenly took it all back.

She hung up the phone with a downcast expression on her face and cried for several days in her room. She cried at night deliberately. The noise of the party downstairs in the daytime was so loud that even if she cried aloud, nobody would be able to hear her.

However, though she had been crying for a few days straight, no one came to see her except the servants who came to deliver her something to eat every day. Lila had a feeling that if she did nothing but cry, she would be forgotten by Beal and Johanna pretty soon. She finally calmed herself down and began to think about her next plan of action.

Lila would never go back to live a hard life with her biological parents. That was why she decided to stay with the

White family. After all, she had a close relationship with Beal and Johanna for over 20 years, which Natalie didn’t have. Furthermore, she had been well educated since she was a child, so she must be much better at her demeanor than Natalie. She could still win Beal and Johanna’s love back. It would only be a matter of time before they saw the light.

After mulling everything over in her head, Lila finally left her room.

This was the first time she had taken the initiative to go out of her room in the last few days. She headed down the stairs and could make out her parents watching a TV drama in the living room with Natalie. Lila could see that Johanna was moved to tears by the scene in the TV drama. She was wiping her face as she held Natalie.

‘It’s obvious that the heroine in this drama is so pitiful.”

Natalie comforted her with a warm smile on her face.

‘This is just a TV show. It’s all fake. This kind of thing never happens in real life.”

Beal peeled the oranges for them as he said, “Your mother happens to be a very sentimental woman. Whenever she sees a baby being taken away from their parents in a drama, she’ll go on to cry hysterically.”

Johanna placed a piece of orange into her mouth and glared daggers at Beal.

“Stop blowing my cover in front of our daughter.”

The family was sharing a moment of intimacy right then. Lila felt that she was intruding on their moment. She endured the bitterness in her heart and went over calmly to them. Her eyes were red and swollen and her face was wet with tears.

“Mom, Dad, what TV drama are you watching? Your discussion of itis so intense.” Hearing the sound of her voice, Beal and

Johanna turned their heads around. Seeing the pitiful look on Lila’s face, they began to pity her.

Johanna quickly pulled out two pieces of tissue from the table, got up, and made her way over to comfort Lila.

The woman’s eyes and brows were somewhat similar to that of Natalie’s. They both looked smart and charming, but there was a hint of arrogance in the woman’s eyes. Johanna frowned immediately when she saw the girl.

‘Lila! You have to put on a coat whenever you leave the house! It’s January now—the coldest time of the year!” Lila pouted and threw herself into Johanna’s arms, acting very much like a spoiled child.

“Mom, I just wanted to see you sooner. The servant told me you were finally back, so I came as fast as I could. What have you and Dad been up to these days? I didn’t see you at the office.”

She peeked at Natalie and asked curiously, “Who’s that? You never bring strangers home.”

Johanna placed her hands on Lila’s shoulders and pushed her away firmly. With a hardened expression, she said, “Let’s talk inside. Dad and I have to tell you something important.”

Lila frowned. She obviously picked up on Johanna’s indifference to her. Something was definitely off.She took a sidelong glance at Natalie before nodding and following her mother inside the house.

“What?! Impossible! Is this a prank? Mom, Dad, you can stop teasing me now.”

Upon hearing the whole story, Lila immediately sprang out of her seat indignantly.

She couldn’t accept the cruel truth. In the span of mere minutes, she had become a child who was brought home by mistake instead of the esteemed daughter of the Whites she was a moment eallier.

Johanna picked up the cup of tea on the table and took a sip. She was afraid that Lila would blame herself if she told her that her parents had switched the babies out on purpose, so she just said that it was all a big mistake.

“Tell me you’re joking!” Lila’s eyes suddenly brimmed with tears.

Her carefree life was about come to an end.

Beal and Johanna felt bad when they saw that Lila was about to cry.

Pretending to be relaxed, Beal walked up to Lila and patted her shoulder comfortingly.

‘Lila, we only told you this because we think you deserve to know the truth. We won’t interfere with your choice. If you want to remain our daughter, you can stay as our adopted daughter. Natalie was lost to us for too long. We have to take her back into our family.”

Lila gritted her teeth, looked at Beal angrily, and spat, “If you really cared about me, you wouldn’t have told me the truth.”

Without waiting for a response, she stumbled and turned around to storm off. Suddenly, her eyes met Natalie’s. This woman had stolen her parents.

After giving Natalie a hard look, Lila ran to her room. The minute she was gone, Beal and Johanna sighed. They knew that the truth would hurt Lila, but they had no choice. Natalie was a little worried about her new sister.

“We should go to her. What if she go to extremes?” “Don’t worry. Lila just needs time to accept the truth. Just leave her alone for now.” Johanna waved her hand dismissively. She knew Lila well. Their priority now was to announce to the public that Natalie was their long-lost biological daughter.

‘I’ve asked a maid to prepare your room. You can use this one for the time being.” Johanna personally escorted Natalie to her designated room.

The decoration was quaint and a little old-fashioned, but there were many plush dolls in it, which gave the room a strange and funny vibe. Looking at all the plushies, Johanna smiled awkwardly, “I didn’t know what you’d like, so I ended up buying all these dolls…”

In Johanna’s mind, Natalie was the baby she had lost all those years ago. They were practically strangers to each other now.

Natalie looked at the dolls and chuckled softly. “I’ve never had so many toys before. Thank you, Mrs. White.”

For now, she couldn’t bring herself to call Johanna “Mom’” yet. Seeing that Natalie didn’t seem to have a problem with the room,

Johanna breathed a sigh of relief and smiled happily.

“I won’t force you. Just take your time. Well, you just stay here and make yourself comfortable. Your father and I have discussed, and we have decided to hold a big party for the announcement as soon as possible.”

“There’s no rush…” Natalie said falteringly, trying to stop Johanna. She wasn’t used to her new status as the daughter of the White family, but Johanna and Beal couldn’t wait to tell the world.

Noticing the embarrassment on Natalie’s face, Johanna reached for her hand and said sincerely, “You are our daughter. You’ll have to get used to it one day. Your father and I were talking and… We were hoping to have your surname changed. Since the

Quinn family has nothing to do with you now, you don’t have to keep their surname anymore.”

Natalie nodded. She didn’t care about the Quinn family name anyway now that she married to Sebastian.

All of Barnes’s upper class was in an uproar the next morning. The White family had just announced that their daughter, who had been missing for over twenty years, was finally found. Johanna revealed Natalie’s identity to the public and changed the latter’s surname to White.

The White family invited all the celebrities and influential people in Barnes to their dinner party.

That night, they all gathered in the White Cloud Club.

The security of this banquet was strict, and Johanna specially ordered that no stray entertainment reporter was allowed inside.

Those kinds of reporters tended to cover nonsense. She didn’t want her daughter to be scrutinized on the Internet, so she took all the necessary precautions to avoid it.

It was the first time Natalie had attended such a grand party. And she was under the spotlight. Johanna introduced her to many esteemed guests.

Throughout the entire night, Natalie heard countless names.

“Is it tiring?” Seeing the exhausted look on Natalie’s face, Beal gave her a slice of cake, feeling sorry for her. Over the past few days, Johanna had taken up all of Natalie’s time. Beal felt a little sad that he hadn’t had a good talk with his daughter yet. Natalie subtly rubbed her aching ankles.

She was wearing a pair of 3-inch heels tonight. She forced a smile and said, “I am fine. Mr. White, your wife is awesome. She’s still so energetic even after chatting with all these rich people.”

Beal looked at the energetic Johanna in the distance and smiled.

“Let me tell you a secret. Your mother actually hates those rich ladies and often speaks ill of them. The only reason why she still talks to them is to keep up with the latest gossip.” Natalie couldn’t help but chuckle. Beal held a finger to his lips and winked at her.

“Don’t tell her I told you her little secret, or else she’ll kick me out of the bedroom tonight.”

Natalie nodded and promised him solemnly.She suddenly envied Lila. Growing up in such a loving family, she probably had a very happy childhood and youth.

Beal had only chatted with Natalie for a few minutes before he was surrounded again by many guests. Natalie didn’t want to disturb their talk, so she retreated to the yard. She took this opportunity to call Sebastian.

“Guess who’s calling?” Natalie said sweetly.

“Let me guess. It’s my wife, isn’t it? It’s been a whole day since you last talked to me. I thought you were too busy having a good time in Barnes and forgot all about me,” Sebastian said in a pouty voice.

He sounded almost resentful.