Chapter 1897
No matter how much a mother despises her son’s idiocy, she can’t exactly throw him in the trash.
That was precisely the mentality Karla was operating on.
“You didn’t actually sleep with her, did you?”
She was genuinely terrified her son might have lost his mind.
Owen scrambled to defend himself. “Of course not! I’m not an idiot!”
Karla scoffed loudly. “You think you’re not an idiot? Do you realize you are
objectively the dumbest person in this entire family?”
Owen’s eyes went wide, and he instinctively looked to his older brother and Claire for backup.
One was staring fiercely at the ceiling, and the other was intensely studying the floor. Neither would make eye contact!
Owen felt a dark cloud settle over his head. Did Dane and Claire seriously agree that he was the dumbest sibling?
“You let a woman drag you around, allowed her to continuously throw herself at you, and nearly got trapped. That makes you an idiot.”
Karla could see her son was still refusing to accept defeat.
“With your lack of survival instincts, if you ever went into the entertainment industry, you’d be framed and canceled within five minutes.”
Owen: *…Utterly crushed!*
Right at that moment, Phil finally walked through the front door.
“Looks like I picked a bad time to come home.”
More accurately, he was extremely late.
“Phil, you’re finally back. Have you eaten yet?”
Ophelia rushed over to greet her son.
“Not yet.” Phil glanced at the dining table. Everyone had clearly finished their meals.
However, because the Churchill family possessed impeccable table manners, the leftover spread still looked presentable and neat.
“Mary, please bring Phil a hot plate of food. The poor boy hasn’t eaten a thing all day,” Ophelia shouted toward the kitchen.
Norris pulled out the chair next to him, gesturing for his younger brother to sit.
As his food was served, Phil ate while casually listening to the family’s ongoing roast of Owen.
“Owen didn’t just get targeted because he’s gullible. He got targeted because the woman was utterly shameless and had nothing to lose.”
“When you run into psychos like that, you really need to keep your guard up.”
Karla completely agreed with Phil’s assessment and smacked Owen hard on the back of the head. “Are you listening to this!”
“Phil works at the top of The Churchill Group. The amount of traps set for him on a daily basis far exceeds anything you deal with.”
“When you have some free time, go beg your brother for some survival tips.”
Owen secretly shot Phil a deeply skeptical glare.
“You don’t actually deal with women constantly throwing themselves at you, do you?”
With Claire sitting right there, Phil had no desire to elaborate on the sordid details of corporate seduction.
“I told you, you’re just an idiot.”
Owen couldn’t be bothered to argue
with him. Instead, he spun around and targeted Dane. “Mr. Green, you took over Vertex International when
you were barely a teenag
you
must have seen way worse, right?”
Suddenly, the crosshairs were locked squarely on Dane. Everyone at the table knew
exactly what Owen was trying to do.
The massive dining room went
bet
quiet. Half the table was still eating, while the other half grabbed their metaphorical popcorn. Even Claire was watching intently.
Dane was incredibly powerful and fiercely attractive from a very young age. There
was absolutely zero chance women hadn’t thrown themselves at him.
He had navigated every honey trap and blackmail scheme in the book. He was a hardened veteran of the game.
“As long as you have basic self-control, you won’t get played.” Dane summarized his entire strategy in a single, devastating sentence.
Ugh!
Owen felt completely robbed of a good show.
He genuinely felt bad for Claire. Marrying a guy this painfully disciplined was going to be incredibly boring.
“I already have the PR department monitoring the situation. The online traction will die down shortly.”
Phil hadn’t immediately crushed the
story because he wanted to let the
internet dig up Jocelyn’s dirty
laundry first. He trusted Owen
wasn’t stupid enough to actually get
caught in a real scandal.
“Thanks, man. But there’s a minor detail you guys probably don’t know yet. That baby in Jocelyn’s stomach? There’s a very high chance it belongs to Larkin.”
Seeing that the family was still thirsty for gossip, Owen casually lobbed a massive grenade onto the table.
He was desperately trying to redirect the friendly fire.
“Wait, which Larkin?”
Ophelia and Karla exchanged a bewildered glance.
Was it one of the husbands from their side of the family?
If it was, Owen wouldn’t have phrased it like that—
Unless, he meant the Larkin married to Regina!
“Owen, are you telling me this girl is sleeping with Regina’s husband?”