Chapter 156 Disgust
If this was before she had seen Cameron in prison, then Crystal might have considered pretending as if she was still on close terms with Angie just to make sure the Colts would treat the girl well enough.
But as things were, Crystal was filled with nothing more than hatred for Cameron, and by extension, she was disgusted with Angie too.
Angie had decided to show up in front of her at the most inappropriate of times.
She could only blame herself for being incapable of protecting her own daughter all those years ago. This had allowed Angie to take her real daughter’s place and spend a good twenty-something years living in the lap of luxury in the Wendels’ household.
Crystal did not want to see Angie at all. It only reminded her of how she had given Angie a life of privilege while her real daughter was suffering in another home for the same amount of time.
The more she thought about this, the more her heart twisted, and she was filled with indescribable agony.
She felt nothing more than hatred and disgust for Angie, so much so that she couldn’t even bring herself to feign sympathy or fondness for the girl.
“Don’t ever call us Mom and Dad again,” Crystal bit out icily as she eyed Angie impassively. “Maddie is our daughter, and you are Xander and Cameron’s. Neither I nor the Wendels have anything to do with you anymore.”
“Mom…” Angie stared at Crystal pleadingly. She wanted to beg for her favor and sympathy, but she could not bring herself to do it. She was worried that if she did, Amelia would find out she meant nothing to Michael and Crystal.
However, Amelia had already realized this.
When Angie first returned to the Colt Residence, she had made it sound as though Michael and Crystal still loved her. However, they had to send her away because they wanted to placate their real daughter, whose animosity toward her had been unbearable and there was no resolving things amicably.
Upon hearing this, Amelia had her doubts. If her daughter had been the one who was switched by Cameron, she would hate that woman and the girl who replaced her daughter for over two decades.
At that point of time, she did wonder if Crystal was different.
There had been people whose children were switched at birth and they ended up loving the child they had raised more than they did their biological offspring. Amelia didn’t want to discount Crystal as someone capable of doing just that.
Indeed, there had been cases where animal fosters had come to love the stray mutt they rescued off the streets. It wouldn’t be too far a stretch to suppose that Michael and Crystal had residual love for someone as young and pretty as Angie.
After all, they had raised her for over two decades, and they might truly be attached to her. If Amelia was shown to have mistreated Angie during her stay with the Colts, then she would be in a world of trouble if Michael and Crystal ever confronted her for it.
Her fear toward Michael and Crystal far exceeded her hatred for Angie, so she put up with the girl’s unwanted presence in her home.
She and Xander had a daughter and son of their own. While Xander was by no means a man of any fortitude, he was a pushover who listened to her, and she always got the final say in their household.
In the past, her life had been something of a cabaret, and she had no complaints whatsoever. However, a complete stranger who had absolutely no relation to her whatsoever was living in her home right now.
What irked Amelia the most was that Angie’s existence was a sore reminder of the fact that she was not Xander’s first wife. Angie was proof of Xander’s first marriage, and Amelia was his second.
Before Angie came, everything the Colts possessed belonged to Amelia and her children. Xander had managed to keep the family business from crumbling and going bankrupt with his brother and father’s help, and it was only after that that he could make ends meet and feed his family.
Now, a part of the money that Xander had made with the help of his brother and father would be used to feed Angie and pay for her upkeep instead.
The four of them were supposed to be the only ones in the Colt Family, but now, they had an extra person among them. It was getting on Amelia’s nerves; she wanted nothing more than to make Angie disappear, but she thought about Michael and Crystal and how a future collaboration with them could be at stake, so she tolerated Angie.
Besides, her father and brother had emphasized that she ought to be nicer to Angie so that they could use her as a tool to associate themselves with Michael and Crystal.
If all went well, then her father and brother would praise her for a job well done and give her considerable benefits. Their offer had tugged on her heartstrings, and she immediately began to look on the brighter side of things.
Michael and Crystal had raised Angie for over twenty years, so Amelia was sure that there would be residual sentiments between them. In that case, things would be made easier for Amelia, who only needed to use Angie to try and form a connection between her family and the Wendels.
That was precisely why she had been so willing to pay for someone to look into and spy on Michael and Crystal’s every move. When she found out that they would be dropping by the prison to see Cameron earlier today, she had rushed over to the vicinity with Angie, and there was no hiding her anticipation as she made it look as though they had run into the couple by coincidence.
She was sure that no matter what happened, Michael and Crystal would look back on the last twenty-something years they had spent raising Angie. Even if they had been the ones to send her packing, it wouldn’t change the fact that they still cared for her.
Angie had also fed into the narrative when she told the Colts about how much Michael and Crystal had doted on her and loved her. This only reaffirmed Amelia in her belief that the Wendel couple would agree to working together with her family if Angie was the one who asked them to.
Alas, she did not expect for reality to turn out so differently than what she had imagined.
Presently, Michael was standing next to Crystal, and he was looking at Angie without even a hint of compassion on his face.
Crystal, too, seemed unfazed on the surface, but there was no hiding the icy gleam and the disgusted look in her eyes as she regarded Angie.
At once, Amelia felt her stomach twist into a knot, but she did not want to give up just yet.
In Dusktown, the social hierarchy was clearly and painstakingly demarcated by each family’s elitist capabilities.
The Colts were, needless to say, on the lower rungs of the social ladder.
As for the Evanstons, who were Amelia’s family, they could be considered as third-rate among the upper-class echelons.
Even after all these years, her father and brother could not push their family into new heights no matter how hard they worked, and it seemed as if they were fated to be stuck as a third-rate family in the elite class.
There had been several attempts on her father and brother’s part to find some other family who could help propel them into the ranks of the first- and second-rate families in the elite circle, but the difference between all these levels were far larger than semantics could convey.
There were some social events and parties that only the first-rate families had exclusive privilege to attend, just as they had the exclusive right to enter certain places of luxury; there were still places where second-rate families could gain access to, but not without serious effort.
However, for third-rate families, they were only good enough to attend non-exclusive events.
The Colts wanted to climb the social ladder, and they wished to be gazed upon with admiration and envy too. The Wendels, for example, were one such family who could bounce them into the dazzling world of first-rate families. Amelia desperately wanted to seize this opportunity to help the Evanstons make friendly ties with the prolific Wendels.
Granted, Michael and Crystal were not treating Angie with the same reaction Amelia had hoped they would, but she still thought she could give this a shot.
As such, she stepped forward and looked at Crystal as she said warmly, “Mrs. Wendel, Angie has truly missed you all. She would talk about you and your husband all the time, and whenever she came across your favorite food during family dinner at our place, she would tell me how much you loved it. Not a day has gone by where she did not mention either of you, and now that we’ve run into each other here today by chance, why don’t we all go out for a nice meal together? It would do Angie some good to spend time with you both, seeing as she hasn’t had a meal with you for a while now. She has missed all of you.”
