Chapter 144: Chapter 140: Elliot Sheridan Is Definitely a Good Man
The Sutton residence looked much the same as usual. The person at the gate saw Lynn Thorne returning.
He hurried over to open the gate. "Ma’am, you’re back!"
The man who opened the gate was in his forties, the sort of simple, honest man with little formal education.
"Fordham, I’m not the Suttons’ daughter-in-law anymore. You can just call me by my name from now on."
An awkward expression crossed Fordham’s face. He corrected himself, "Miss Thorne."
The former young mistress of the Sutton family... so much had changed in just a few short days.
Now, there was a new young mistress inside the Sutton residence.
Fordham led the way and reported to the butler.
Lynn Thorne entered the living room and scanned her surroundings, but she didn’t see her son.
She retracted her gaze in disappointment. The fact that the Suttons had let her in meant they must have hidden Leah away.
’How could I have been so foolish as to hope I might see my son?’
Just as she was about to head upstairs, Finn Sutton’s mother came down. "No need to go up. Jenny is resting in her room right now!"
"That was my and Finn’s room. How could you..."
"Why couldn’t I?" Mrs. Sutton shot her a sideways glare. "You’re divorced from my son now. You have nothing to do with the Sutton family anymore. What ’your room’ is there to talk about?!"
"I had the maids pack up all your things. They’re in the storage room." Mrs. Sutton’s aggressive gaze then fell on Fordham. "Who let this irrelevant person in?!"
"Madam, this..." Fordham glanced hesitantly at Lynn Thorne, at a loss for words.
"You people are going too far! My sister just divorced your son a few days ago, and you’ve already moved his mistress in! As for the baby in her belly, who knows if it’s even yours!"
"What did you just say?!"
"I’m just speaking the truth! You..."
"Georgia, stop it!"
Georgia Thorne was about to go up and argue with Mrs. Sutton, but Lynn Thorne stopped her, grabbing her wrist tightly. "I’m sorry, Mrs. Sutton. My younger sister is young, please don’t mind her."
"Let’s go."
"Lynn!"
Georgia Thorne stomped her foot in frustration. She watched Lynn Thorne walk out, shot a resentful glare at Mrs. Sutton, and quickly followed.
Lynn Thorne’s things were in the storage room, packed into several large boxes.
Lynn Thorne didn’t take anything else, only a few photo albums.
As they passed the entrance, Georgia Thorne glanced back and saw a man in a suit entering the villa.
He inadvertently revealed half of his profile. ’Wasn’t that Attorney Aaron Larkin?’
Back at their apartment, Lynn Thorne went into her room, clutching the photo albums.
Nancy Hughes and Georgia Thorne exchanged a look. It seemed Lynn would have no appetite for dinner again tonight.
That night, Georgia Thorne was once again sharing a bed with Nancy Hughes.
"I’m telling you, when is that mark on your arm going to fade? It looks like a birthmark. It’s creepy."
Georgia Thorne’s arm didn’t hurt anymore, but the bruise was still there, stark and obvious.
She usually wore long-sleeved clothes, so out of sight, out of mind.
"I don’t know either."
"By the way, how come you haven’t been running over to Elliot Sheridan’s apartment lately?" Nancy Hughes rolled over and sat up.
Georgia Thorne was lying flat on her back. Suddenly, her dark field of vision lit up, reflecting Nancy Hughes’s magnified face leaning over her.
"Something’s fishy with you two!"
The two of them were usually so inseparable, but these past few days, she hadn’t seen them texting or calling each other.
"We broke up."
"What!" Nancy Hughes slapped the bed. "How did you break up again? Weren’t you two just fine a little while ago?!"
Georgia Thorne lowered her gaze. "You know how Zane Lennox took me out last time? We broke up that night."
Nancy Hughes remembered. She had chatted with Georgia Thorne on WeChat for several hours that day.
"So Elliot Sheridan saw you getting a room with Zane Lennox, got jealous, and broke up with you?"
"No, I’m the one who broke up with him!"
"...Why!" Nancy Hughes was genuinely impressed with Georgia Thorne. Both times, she was the one who initiated the breakup with Elliot Sheridan.
If the timing wasn’t so bad, she would have definitely given Georgia a big thumbs-up.
"It was Joanne Donovan’s birthday party. He was being very close with some woman, acting all intimate, and he didn’t even look at me once the entire time. I was so upset. When I got back to the room, instead of comforting me, he got rough with me. So, in a fit of anger, I broke up with him." Georgia Thorne sighed softly and stared at the ceiling. "He’s a proud man. Maybe we’re just fundamentally incompatible. A breakup is probably for the best."
In the dim yellow light, a few small insects were fluttering relentlessly into the lampshade.
Like moths to a flame, their final end was death.
"So, you broke up because you were both jealous, not because you don’t like each other anymore?"
Georgia Thorne remained silent. She didn’t like her man being too intimate with other women.
"Georgia, I’m no expert on matters of the heart, but I can tell you like Elliot Sheridan, and he genuinely treats you well. If you two can have a good life together, you should. Elliot is definitely a good man. If you let this one go, it’ll be hard to find another one as good as him."
Georgia Thorne mumbled a reply, closed her eyes, and turned over to sleep.
’When Elliot Sheridan doted on me, I truly felt like the happiest person in the world. But the moment his gaze leaves me, I’m nothing!’
It wasn’t that Georgia Thorne didn’t have regrets. She regretted it the first night she came back.
She wanted to call him and explain everything, but the image of him with Nathan Rhodes popped into her mind, and she forced herself to dismiss the thought.
Nancy Hughes turned off the light and lay down beside her.
After a long silence in the dark, Nancy Hughes called out to her, "Are you asleep?"
"Not yet."
"Georgia, I want to ask, this time, did you two really break up? You’re not getting back together?"
"Yeah."
After that, a heavy silence fell between them.
Georgia Thorne clutched her pillow. ’Probably.’
Georgia Thorne didn’t sleep well all night. When she looked in the mirror, she startled herself.
Her face was pale, her dark circles were severe. She looked nothing like the vibrant young woman she was supposed to be.
She put on some light makeup to cover the dark circles, applied some red lipstick, and looked again. She definitely looked more energetic.
Georgia Thorne skipped breakfast and rushed to catch her ride to work.
The office was bustling with excitement today, especially the female colleagues, whose faces were all alight with gossip.
There wasn’t much to do in the morning, so she lazed around, resting her head on her desk.
Feeling a bit sleepy, she took her mug to the breakroom to make a hot cup of coffee.
A few female colleagues, with nothing better to do, were standing around with their mugs, chatting.
"Did you guys see the news this morning?"
"The story about Elliot Sheridan’s romance with the chief designer from Genesis?"
"You saw it too!"
"Of course! Elliot Sheridan is the man of my dreams, how could I not follow news about him? Sigh, with a man like that, the women by his side are destined to be extraordinary! Look at Amanda Thorne, the eldest daughter of the Thorne family, then Joanne Donovan, the mayor’s daughter, and now Nathan Rhodes, who’s a top executive at a big company and in high demand. And not bad looking either!"
Georgia Thorne had been so busy comforting Lynn Thorne these past two days that she had no time to keep up with the latest news.
She did a quick search online, and a flood of stories about Elliot Sheridan and Nathan Rhodes overwhelmed her.
Countless gossip headlines completely drowned her.
The news had broken last night: Elliot Sheridan and Nathan Rhodes were seen entering and leaving a hotel together.
The two of them spent a long time in the hotel before emerging together.
Although Nathan Rhodes was wearing a mask in the photo, the paparazzi still managed an expert identification.
Even worse, the paparazzi now suspected that in the previous photos of Elliot Sheridan entering a hotel with a woman, the person with him wasn’t Amanda Thorne, but this new flame, Nathan Rhodes.
A sour feeling grew in Georgia Thorne’s heart. She wanted to close the webpage, but as she scrolled down, she saw what Elliot Sheridan had said in an interview last night.
"Nate is a good woman. Please don’t attack her maliciously. We’re just ordinary friends!"
The accompanying photo was of Elliot Sheridan protectively holding Nathan Rhodes in his arms, as intimate as a pair of lovers.
’So that’s a pose he can strike with any woman.’
Elliot Sheridan had had plenty of female companions in the past, but he had never been heard using a nickname for any of them.
’Nathan Rhodes... self-reliant and independent. She must be a special existence to Elliot Sheridan.’
Georgia Thorne slumped sadly onto her desk. Just last night, she had been considering whether she should swallow her pride and explain things to Elliot Sheridan.
Now it seemed she’d just been getting ahead of herself.
She didn’t hold a very important place in Elliot Sheridan’s heart.
At noon, Nancy Hughes sent her a WeChat message, asking if she was okay.
Georgia Thorne replied, "Great."
The person on the other end was probably busy; she didn’t reply for over an hour. "As long as you’re okay. I’ll always support you."
She put down her phone. ’No wonder Nancy Hughes had asked about her and Elliot Sheridan’s relationship last night.’
Georgia Thorne had no appetite. She was slumped over her desk when her phone, lying on the table, buzzed twice.
Two text messages. One was from Lynn Thorne, and the other was from Byron Shaw.
Lynn Thorne told her the court hearing was scheduled for this Friday.
The other was from Byron Shaw, asking her to dinner tonight.
’Byron Shaw is asking me out... does this include my sister?’
Before she could figure out how to reply, he called.
"Are you busy?"
"No. Attorney Shaw, may I ask what this is about?" Georgia Thorne’s voice became tense, betraying her nervousness.
"Didn’t you see my text?"
"No."
Georgia Thorne lied instinctively, hoping Byron Shaw would change his mind.
There were a few seconds of silence on the line, followed by the man’s gentle voice. "Miss Thorne, I was wondering if I might have the honor of inviting you to dinner?"
"Well, I... today I..." Georgia Thorne was in such a panic she couldn’t think of an excuse.
She thought the man would back down, but he turned out to be more direct than she’d imagined.
"Miss Thorne, not even for the sake of the case?" the man said softly.
"Er..." Georgia Thorne was suddenly speechless.
The man on the other end of the line was laughing, his threat delivered with casual, effortless grace.
