Chapter 86 Understandable and Betrayal
“Shut up! Shut up!” Harriet stopped him furiously. “Sebastian, I’m nearly fifty years old, and I’m your elder! You cannot slander me like that!”
Sebastian smiled. “Alright, I’ll change it up a bit then. Once upon a time, there was a successful young man who was loved by his wife’s sister. But his sister-in-law had to hide that love deeply within her, for her sister and her brother-in-law were madly in love with each other.”
“Sebastian, enough! Shut up!” Harriet would kill to tear Sebastian’s tongue out right at that moment.
“Hmm?” Sebastian looked at her curiously. “What is it, Miss Branson? Have you fallen in love with Old Master Wendel when your own sister was still alive? If you haven’t, why are you reacting so violently then?”
Michael looked at Harriet coldly, and anger was crawling up his face. There was a difference between her taking care of them after their mother’s death and marrying their father after spending a lot of time with him and falling in love with him, and coveting him and secretly getting close to him while their mother was still alive. The former was understandable, but the latter was betrayal.
“That’s nonsense! I would never do that!” Harriet hated herself for poking her nose where it shouldn’t belong. She could have lived her life in peace and taken her secret to the grave, but she just had to land herself in a world of trouble. If she could turn back time to a few hours ago, she would tell the guard to keep a close eye on the main gate and never let anyone in. Of course, she wouldn’t come out either.
Sebastian smiled, and he continued, “Now that the sister-in-law has caught feelings for her sister’s husband, she started disliking her sister. But she probably didn’t have the idea to kill her sister and replace her in the first place. She was still unmarried, but her brother-in-law already had three children. She didn’t want to become a stepmother. However, she eventually found out that she was afflicted with infertility, so she started making plans to take her sister’s husband for herself.” He smirked at Harriet. “She couldn’t have her own children, but her sister had three, and to her, those kids were her stepchildren. Why should she be someone else’s stepmother when her own sister’s kids could be under her care, right? And she loved her sister’s husband as well. It would be easier to make her own nephews see her as their mother.”
“That’s nonsense! Nonsense!” Harriet couldn’t hold it back anymore, and she pounced at Sebastian. “That’s a lie! You’re slandering me! I’ll kill you!”
Quinton appeared beside her and twisted her arm behind her before she could even get close. She screeched in pain and bent over, eventually losing her balance and falling to the ground.
Sebastian didn’t stop. “And finally, she did the deed. While her pregnant sister was in her room all alone, she tried to get her sister to fall. When her sister did, she started to bleed, but instead of calling the ambulance to help her sister, she covered her sister’s mouth and kept her from calling for help.”
“That’s nonsense! Nonsense!” She struggled to break free, tears streaming down her cheeks. “She fell down herself. I had nothing to do with it!”
Sebastian looked down at her. “She thought nobody would find out about her secret. She thought all would be fine with her sister’s death, but fate wasn’t so kind to her. A maid called Cindy noticed her crimes, and that maid blackmailed her with this dirty secret of hers. She had no choice but to give her a lot of money to keep her mouth shut. Eventually, the woman managed to marry the man of her dreams. Or in this case, the widower of her dreams. She established herself in her brother-in-law’s home, but Cindy’s greed evolved. Cindy kept asking the woman for money. Worried that her contacts with Cindy would be found out, the woman came up with a plan. She said she liked Cindy and thought of Cindy as a capable woman, which was why she opened a clubhouse with Cindy. Since then, she kept sending money to her through the clubhouse in order to shut Cindy up.”
“I didn’t do it… I didn’t do it… I didn’t do it.” Harriet kept shaking her head, shouting, “Rob, Michael! Believe me! I didn’t do anything! He’s getting back at me because I tried to defend Angie! Believe me! I never did anything he said! I never have!”
“It’s easy to verify the truth.” Sebastian looked refreshed after finishing that story, and he sounded relaxed. “Get someone to bring Cindy here and ask her. Or they can look into that clubhouse’s accounts to find the answer.” He smiled, looking at Harriet. “Cindy’s clubhouse is in the red. Your investments have yielded no returns, and she used your money to buy estates all over the world. Her husband and son’s cars are better than the Wendel brothers’.” He chuckled. “And you say you never did that? If you never did anything, why are you so nice to Cindy then? Is she your best friend? Or do you just want to share your wealth with her?”
“S-She helped me before,” Harriet answered fearfully. “I-I almost got into a car crash, and she saved me. She’s my savior. Money’s not as important as life. She saved my life, and it’s normal that I pay her no matter the amount.”
“She saved your life?” Sebastian arched his eyebrow. “When and where? Do you have any witnesses?”
Harriet had no answer to that. The fewer that knew about the deal between her and Cindy, the better. There were no ‘witnesses’ at all. Even when Robert brought it up, she only told him that she almost got into a car crash and was saved by a girl who worked as the family’s servant. She told him she wanted to open a shop with her and repay her.
The Wendels were rich, and Robert was generous when it came to her. She had money, and Robert didn’t really care about small stuff like that. He only asked her a few questions and let her do whatever she wanted after she told him she wasn’t hurt in the accident. Ever since then, she seldom brought Cindy up in front of him. She thought he would forget this incident as time went by, and she and Cindy would take this secret to their graves.
But she never thought it would be exposed just because she wanted to make Crystal’s life miserable out of jealousy. She kept opening her mouth, and finally, she came up with an excuse. “That’s just you trying to attack me. There’s no secret between me and Cindy. He’s just trying to come up with an imaginary crime. He wants me dead!” she wailed.
