Chapter 1They Said I Didn’t Belong

When the true heir returned, I was already married with twins. Yet everyone despised me, showering all their love on him.

"You were never meant to be the Hawthorne heir—just a fraud."

"We don’t want you! We want Uncle Jerry—strong, not weak like you!"

"Son, you’ve stolen Jerry’s place long enough. Give it back."

So I divorced Eleanor Vance and left even my children behind.

Later, I ran an orphanage, raising dozens who became brilliant successes—CEOs, surgeons, luminaries. They begged to care for me in old age, but I stayed, sweeping leaves at the gate.

Then my daughter Scarlett appeared, nose wrinkled in disgust.

"Look at you—pathetic. No wonder it stinks here."

"Grandma only sent me because of Art’s engagement. Otherwise, you’d never see us again."

...

* * *

Scarlett Vance stared at me, her eyes fixed on my face as if searching for a flicker of remorse or regret.

But I disappointed her. Far from weeping and begging for forgiveness, I merely raised an eyebrow in confusion.

"The CEO of Stone Corporation's daughter is getting married? How could I not know?"

The daughter of the Stone Corporation's CEO was Seraphina Stone, wasn't she? She and I had just had tea yesterday; she didn't seem like a woman on the verge of getting married. Moreover, for such a significant life event, how could she possibly not inform me, her father?

I looked at Scarlett, genuine concern creasing my brow. "Is your brother being conned?"

My concern, however, was misinterpreted by Scarlett as suspicion.

She quickly sneered, "Don't bother pretending. I know you don't actually know the Stone Corporation heiress. You're only saying that because you've always been jealous of Dad, jealous that after you left us, our family of four has only thrived."

The "Dad" she referred to was clearly not me, but Jerry Hawthorne, the true heir.

"Grandma fell seriously ill this year and kept talking about you. She asked me to bring you back, and incidentally, for Art's engagement party." Scarlett's voice sharpened, her eyes flashing with a familiar indignation. "But only Mom and Dad will be allowed on stage. A man who abandoned his wife and children like you shouldn't even dream of it."

Her eyes were crimson, her chest heaving with barely suppressed fury.

I mused for a moment, the memories of my mother's kindness when I was a child vivid in my mind. Even after our estrangement, she had always secretly sent me money. Now that she was ill, it was only right that I returned to see her. Besides, I needed to personally get to the bottom of Seraphina Stone's supposed engagement.

Seeing me nod in agreement, a flicker of something, barely discernible, crossed Scarlett's face—disgust.

"Figures," she muttered. "All these years, and you're still the same vain, materialistic woman."

"But the more one chases something," she added, her voice laced with venom, "the less they'll ever get it."

I simply curved my lips into a slight smile. "That sentiment, Scarlett, I send right back to you, undiminished."

Scarlett choked, her face flushing crimson with anger. That puffed-up, seething expression, I realized, had never truly changed.

Back when the true heir returned, my wife, Eleanor, began spending frequent nights away from home. Coincidentally, our five-year-old daughter, Scarlett, developed a fever. Eleanor, however, stubbornly insisted I was using the child to gain favor, and locked us, father and children, inside the villa.

Feeling Scarlett's body grow hotter and hotter, I hardened my heart. I jumped from the third-floor balcony, scrambling to a neighbor's house to call an ambulance, saving Scarlett's life.

When Eleanor finally arrived, belatedly, I slapped her hard. But before the storm of my suppressed emotions could truly break, my daughter, just awake in her hospital bed, uttered her first words:

"Mommy, I wasn't sick. Daddy gave me a cold bath on purpose to make me feverish. He just wanted to use me to get you back from Uncle Jerry."

That day, Eleanor slapped me a dozen times, but the searing pain on my face was nothing compared to the agony in my heart. How could my daughter, whom I had raised and meticulously cared for, become like this?

Because of that incident, my parents disowned me. Jerry, feigning dejection before my parents, hypocritically rebuked me.

"Brother, if you hate me, I'll leave. But you shouldn't, you shouldn't hurt your own child. Scarlett is only five; she's at a crucial stage of development. If anything serious happened, wouldn't you, as her biological father, be heartbroken?"

It was precisely because I was her biological father that my heart felt so utterly cold, so completely devoid of hope.

Now, looking at the hostile Scarlett, I curved my lips into a gentle smile.

"Let's go. The sooner we leave, the sooner I can return to sweeping and tending to the orphanage."