Love’s Cunning Ruse

Chapter 151

In the bathroom, Daphne stared at the pack of tampons with a look of utter despair. Her face turned red. She felt helpless and ended up banging her head against the wall a couple of times, clutching the pads.

She never thought she’d find herself in such a painfully awkward situation.

With nowhere to vent her frustration, Daphne dialed Julie’s number in agony, “Julie, I can’t take it anymore, come find me in two hours.”

There was a pause on the other end, then Julie replied, “Can it wait until the day after tomorrow? I might not make it back in two hours.”

Daphne was at a loss for words.

“Whats up?” Julie asked with concern on the other end of the line.

“I got my period…”

Julie immediately sympathized, “Even though I don’t get bad cramps, I also get upset when it comes.”

“It’s not because of that!” Daphne passionately recounted the events that had just transpired, including Lionel kindly dropping her off at the company’s front door.

However, Julie honed in on one key point, “Lionel called you babe, and gently helped you, what does that mean?”

As an adult, this wasn’t hard to understand.

Daphne’s face turned red, she hadn’t paid attention to the meaning of Lionel’s words. After Julie’s explanation, Daphne was speechless. Ccontent © exclusive by Nô/vel(D)ra/ma.Org.

Why was Lionel being such a gentleman, and choosing her to be his “babe”?

Julie remarked, “Didn’t expect Mr. Lionel to be so sweet! Daphne, you’re in for a treat.”

Daphne replied, “wait for me, I’ll come find you in two hours.”

Julie hesitated for a moment before answering, “Then come find me at Noblewood Retreat, I might be staying here for a bit.”

Daphne caught on immediately, “So, you’re actually moving in with Mr. Hernandez?”

Julie quickly assured Daphne, “It’s not what you’re thinking.”

Though Daphne wasn’t particularly clever, she understood that the relationship between Julie and Kieran wasn’t something that could be explained in a sentence. So they just joked around a bit and hung up. Daphne continued to support Julie as always and told her that she had her back.

After hanging up, Julie still felt warm from Daphne’s words.

Finally, Daphne asked Julie why she was holding a press conference with Kieran, and whether she had forgiven him.

In fact, Julie hadn’t expected to hold a press conference with Kieran either.

Not until later when she was facing off with Kieran and received a call from Julien.

At that moment, Kieran held the hand she had gripping his tie and told her, “Let’s make it public, announce that we’re married.”

Hearing this, Julie smirked, but it wasn’t out of joy, it was a bitter smile.

She looked at Kieran with a mocking gaze and asked, “Why?”

She bluntly asked, “Why do you get to hide the marriage when you want to, and make it public when you want to? Why do you get to love me when you want to, and have me chase you when you pretend not to like me? You want to reconcile and I have to comply, who am I to you? Even if I am an actress, I don’t need to play along with this drama, right?”

“You’re so high and mighty, never considering others’ feelings. You’re smart, emotionally intelligent, because you’re capable, because you have your troubles, so it’s always my fault. You said we should keep our marriage hidden, and I had to listen to you. You said we should remarry, and I had to go along with it, right? Kieran, tell me, why?”

Julie released Kieran’s tie and gave him a big push!

To avoid hurting Julie, Kieran staggered back a couple of steps.

Just as the atmosphere between Julie and Kieran was tense, there was suddenly the calm voice of Julien from the balcony outside the window.

“I’ll tell you why.”

Hearing Julien’s familiar voice, Julie was surprised and turned to look in the direction of the balcony.

This was the second floor, and Julien just suddenly appeared on the balcony… Maybe it was because Julie was used to Julien’s unexpected actions, so she wasn’t scared by Julien’s sudden appearance.

Julien knocked on the balcony door twice, and said to Julie through the glass, “Open the door.”

Julie was still stunned and didn’t react.

Julien frowned in displeasure, took out two lock picking tools from his pocket, quickly unlocked the door, walked up to Julie, and said, “Because a person’s good luck is limited, and your good luck ran out the moment you met him.”

Julien looked at Julie and pointed at Kieran.

Julie was dumbfounded.

Kieran glanced at Julien, “Ms. Julien, this is breaking and entering.”

“You used me before, I haven’t settled that with you yet. Now I need to borrow your woman, you can leave now or fight me and then leave. Your choice.” Julien looked at Kieran.

Julie finally snapped back and asked Julien, “He used you?”

“Who do you think will win?” Julien suddenly smiled at Julie, asking her enthusiastically.

As for the current situation, Julie didn’t want to guess. But knowing the personalities of the two, she turned her head to look at Kieran and said, “We’ve said all there is to say between us, let’s leave it at that!”

After saying this, Julie took Julien’s hand and headed directly for the door.

Outside the door, a group of people led by Tina, who saw clearly that Julie and Kieran had gone in together, couldn’t figure out how they came out as three people.

And…

Mrs. Abraham was actually being led away by a woman with a fierce look on her face, who looked even more handsome than a man…

To Julie’s surprise, this time Kieran didn’t stop her from leaving with Julien, but let Julien take her away,”

Julien immediately pulled Julie into the car.

In Julie’s memory, Julien always seemed like a guy who loved making a big fuss. So, when Julien showed up in front of her out of the blue, Julie had this gut feeling.

“I’m here to spill some truths,” Julien said, getting straight to the point.

Julie looked at Julien in shock, “What truths?”

“Listen to this first, then we’ll talk.” Julien shoved a mini recorder in Julie’s ear and hit the play button.

Julie was puzzled and innocently looked back at Julien.

“Listen!”

Julien was as icy as ever.

The recording was a conversation between Kieran and Julien. It took place while Julie was chatting with Daphne in the hospital room, with Kieran and Julien talking outside.

After the recording, Julien finally started talking, “Julie, Kieran cherishes you, and I respect him. The Lucian situation is more complicated than you think. You, being the most important woman in Kieran’s life, should know better than anyone that Lucian is Kieran’s most important relative.”

Julien rarely stuck up for others, Julie knew that.

“From what we know, Lucian is still alive, but we don’t know why he changed so drastically after the plane crash, even raping Bertha. But you should know that Bertha chose to have Lucian’s child. She

just made a wrong choice at the time,” Julien continued.

Julie knew what Julien meant by “wrong choice”. It was why Kieran and Bertha had an agreement.

Bertha thought that if the baby was Lucian’s, he would insist on her getting an abortion. The only way for her to keep the baby was to make everyone believe it was Kieran’s. Despite Lucian’s personality change after the crash, his affection for Kieran remained the same.

Bertha was right, Lucian never harmed the baby.

Kieran, not knowing the truth at the time, chose to protect Bertha out of brotherly love, to preserve Lucian’s only offspring.

The whole thing was a setup by Bertha, but Julien said, “Bertha made a wrong choice.”

Julie looked at Julien, waiting for what she would say next.

Julien said, “After the plane crash, Lucian seems to believe that Bertha was in love with Kieran, and he deliberately framed Kieran by drugging him. That’s why Lucian raped Bertha. More importantly, Lucian somehow found out that the baby in your womb wasn’t Kieran’s. Given that you once threatened Kieran with marriage, Lucian decided to get rid of the baby.”

Julien tried to downplay the shocking event.

“At the time, we knew nothing about Lucian, and I believe Kieran was in the same boat. We didn’t know what Lucian was capable of, or how far he would go for Kieran. So Kieran’s only option was to protect you by hurting you, even if it meant you hating him. If I were in

his shoes, I probably wouldn’t have the courage to bear the intense hatred from someone I deeply love, let alone having Daphne constantly badmouth me.”

Julie just listened to Julien’s rational analysis, her mind getting more and more confused.

Finally, Julien asked Julie, “Just answer me this, given your unwavering love for Kieran back then, if a bullet was heading his way, would you step in front of it?”

The answer to this question was easy.

Julie’s affection for Kieran in the past was indeed a deep, unconditional kind of love. Not to mention a bullet, even if she were to be shot full of holes, she would probably still go for it without a second thought…

Although Julie didn’t answer Julien’s question, the answer was pretty obvious.

So Julien continued to say to Julie, “Between having you possibly sacrifice your life for him, and having you alive but hating him, Kieran chose the latter. It’s a very courageous choice.”