Chapter 248: Chapter 248: Joanna Sherman’s Excellence Is Just a Facade
Cedric Grant quickly shook his head. "No, no, none of them. Her last name is Sherman!"
’These people must not come surfing very often,’ Cedric Grant thought. ’Otherwise, how could they not know Joanna Sherman?’
In the last surfing competition, Joanna Sherman left a lot of international pros in the dust. She was truly incredible.
If she competed every time, Juliet Judd and Sylvia Jacobs wouldn’t even stand a chance.
At this thought, he stood a little taller with pride.
He found himself much more interested in the competition.
Several well-built men emerged from the men’s changing room behind Cedric Grant. They were shirtless, wearing only tight compression swim pants and carrying surfboards under their arms.
The men chatted as they walked. "So, which pros are here tonight?"
"The runner-up, Juliet Judd."
"Too bad Sylvia Jacobs didn’t show."
"Oh, and Joanna Sherman, the one who beat you guys last time, is here too. Better watch out."
When he heard them mention Joanna Sherman’s name, Cedric Grant’s ears perked up instantly.
But the man beside him snorted with laughter. "Are you kidding? Her skills are strictly amateur. We just pretended to lose because we saw she was surrounded by the three most powerful young scions in the city. We didn’t want to embarrass her, so we let her save face."
"She might not be any good at surfing, but she’s a real pro when it comes to handling men. Vincent Grant, Jenson Forrest, and Justin Hughes—those three are the biggest names in this city."
"I heard she’s had a deep connection with them since way back. No matter how badly we wanted to win, we couldn’t disrespect those three, could we?"
Cedric Grant was speechless.
He stared blankly at their retreating backs, the warmth that had just filled his heart turning to ice, bit by bit.
But that wasn’t all. More ugly truths were about to be revealed.
"It’s the same with horse racing. The Eldest Miss Sherman took Vincent Grant’s prize horse and barely managed a first-place finish, but she ended up running the poor animal into the ground."
"A horse is a racer’s life. For her to be so reckless, it’s obvious she doesn’t understand the first thing about horse racing."
"It’s a good thing she doesn’t race often. Otherwise, there wouldn’t be enough good horses in the world for her to ruin!"
"Pretending to know what you’re doing when you don’t—that’s the most dangerous thing of all!"
Listening to every single word, Cedric Grant began to tremble uncontrollably.
’So all this time, the all-powerful Auntie Joanna in my heart was just a fake?’
’She can’t build rockets, she can’t surf, and she can’t race horses...’
"Hey, little guy, you’re still here." The man who had gone inside earlier called out as he emerged and saw him.
"So who’s this ’auntie’ you were talking about? How about an introduction?"
Just then, Cedric Grant spotted Joanna Sherman walking out from a distance. He quickly hid to the side and shook his head. "Sh-She’s gone!"
Terrified that Joanna Sherman would call out to him, he hurried away with Stella Grant in his arms.
Cedric Grant returned to Vincent Grant’s side.
Vincent Grant was sitting in a very secluded spot today, his view half-obstructed by palm trees.
He clutched his phone, his lips pursed in silence, lost in thought.
Cedric Grant handed Stella Grant back to her caregiver, then sat down across from Vincent.
He pulled a tablet from his backpack and slowly unlocked it.
Once again, he started watching Sophia Shaw’s livestream.
Tears streamed down his face as he watched.
He had already seen his father’s public apology. ’So Mom was really, really incredible all along.’
’But how could he have been so completely unaware?’
It wasn’t that he didn’t know.
His mom told him about every single one of her press conferences. In the beginning, he had thought his mom was the coolest person alive.
But then Auntie Joanna returned, and he was immediately captivated by her aura. He felt that an Auntie Joanna who could launch rockets was far more amazing than his mom.
He had willfully ignored all of his mother’s incredible accomplishments!
His mom didn’t go around bragging about her talents like Auntie Joanna did, yet her Rocket Planet series was the best of its kind.
The meals she cooked were the most delicious, too.
She was the best at building rockets and launching satellites.
’All along, Mom was the one he should have been admiring.’
Cedric Grant was finally, painfully aware of how terribly he had neglected Sophia Shaw.
The more he thought about it, the more guilt-ridden he felt.
The more miserable he became.
After crying silently for a long time, Cedric thought of something else. He wiped his tears and nudged Vincent. "Dad, Mom said that on the day we went with Auntie Joanna to adopt Stella, she was in the hospital. She was very, very sick. Do you know what she was sick with?"
"Sick?" Vincent snapped out of his daze, but his gaze was blank.
He vaguely recalled seeing a long list of missed calls from her on his phone many days later.
That day, he had been busy helping Joanna Sherman with the adoption and had left his phone with Jack Holloway.
Jack had a habit of only alerting him to important calls.
He had called Sophia back later to ask, but as he recalled, she hadn’t given him an answer.
He thought, perhaps, that he had been the one to change the subject.
"You don’t know either, Dad?" Cedric asked softly, his voice full of disappointment.
’Mom was sick, but I didn’t know, and Dad didn’t know either. How heartbroken she must have been.’
He wondered what kind of illness his mother had.
"Dad, can you go ask her?"
Cedric Grant tried his best to remember. The next time he saw his mom was after Auntie Joanna’s rocket launch, right before school started.
His mom hadn’t seemed too different back then, other than being a little thinner.
’It probably wasn’t a serious illness, right?’
’But she clearly said she was very, very sick.’
’Could it have been a really, really bad cold?’
Cedric remembered feeling like he was about to die when he had a bad cold once. It had been absolutely miserable.
"Mm," Vincent replied softly.
As the topic was raised, a faint sense of unease began to stir in his heart.
If Sophia had really been sick, knowing her personality, the fact she had called so many times meant it couldn’t have been a minor illness.
She...
He suddenly remembered that she had brought up divorce with him twice after that.
Her tone had been cold and resolute.
He hadn’t paid it much mind back then, but now he suddenly realized something was terribly wrong.
WHOOSH. A cold sweat broke out and trickled down his spine.
Vincent shot up and rushed out, not even hearing Cedric calling after him.
"Cedric."
Joanna Sherman walked back dejectedly and called out to Cedric, who was still standing blankly on the sand.
"Did you... happen to see the race just now?"
Cedric shook his head guiltily. "No... my teacher just assigned some important homework, and I got busy and forgot."
Hearing this, Joanna Sherman breathed a secret sigh of relief.
She had just lost miserably, finishing dozens of meters behind even the last-place competitor.
Joanna wasn’t afraid of the humiliation; she was afraid that her halo would fade and she would no longer be able to captivate Cedric.
Little did she know, Cedric already knew the result even without watching the race.
"Auntie Joanna, are we going home now?"
Cedric didn’t want to spend another minute on this beach.
’I’m never going to learn to surf,’ he thought.
"Okay." Joanna glanced around and only then realized that Vincent was gone.
"Where’s your father?"
Cedric shook his head.
Joanna tried calling Vincent’s phone, but there was no answer.
She had no choice but to call Joel Hale’s cell. "Joel, do you know where President Grant is?"
Joel Hale replied, "President Grant just left for the base. He probably has something important to discuss with Mr. Shaw."
Joanna’s heart sank.
’Vincent just got back from the base this morning! If there was something truly important, they would have discussed it then. There’s no reason for him to go back now!’
