Talitha felt upset too when she saw what was happening in front of her. No matter where she went, she was always the center of attention. But tonight, Andrew and Raymond were cold towards her, while William completely ignored her.
Not only that, but even the men in their family were treating Valeria with the utmost care too, so Talitha was jealous and she hated her.
There was fur on William’s body, so he went to wash his hands. Valeria followed him out of the room to help clean up the fur on his body beside the sink. While the two washed their hands, William grabbed her shoulders, wanting to kiss her.
However, she whined in pain at his touch, “Ouch! My shoulder hurts!”
“What’s wrong?”
“Talitha bumped into me at the entrance of the Wolf Group Hotel, and it’s all bruised up now. I don’t know what was up with her bag.”
Her words made him narrow his eyes in suspicion. “She bumped into you at the Wolf Group Hotel? Had it been crowded back then?”
“No, it was just us both.”
The entrance of Wolf Group Hotel was wide and spacious, so Talitha accidentally bumping into Valeria would only make sense if it had been crowded. However, it had only been the two of them, so an accident like that was impossible.
Talitha was Devon and Raelyn’s daughter, and both of them were not decent people themselves, so their children would probably follow in their footsteps. Did Talitha bump into Valeria on purpose?
As he thought of this, William’s face darkened. Seeing his change in expression, Valeria reached out to touch his arm and said, “It’s fine if you don’t touch it. You don’t have to worry about it.”
How could he not be worried? He suppressed the urge to look at her shoulder and wrapped his arms around her waist as they returned to the room.
Seeing them enter the room practically glued to each other, Paisley lowered her head and willed herself not to look at them. Talitha, however, stared at them openly.
Hah! Valeria was her uncle’s daughter, and William was her uncle’s brother-in-law. But her grandfather and uncle had both turned a blind eye to their intimate acts, which was utterly annoying.
Talitha hadn’t expected William to treat Valeria so well, while he had completely ignored her! Not only that, but Valeria had also stolen her grandpa and uncle’s attention that was once hers, and this made her extremely upset.
It infuriated her, so she decided that she had to make things difficult for them. Not long after, the dishes were served. Seeing Valeria and William picking up food for each other, Talitha poured a glass of wine and stood for a toast. First, she toasted Gavin, and then Archer. After that, she turned to William and said, “Uncle, here’s to your health and prosperity!”
William did not move, and as he had one hand on Valeria’s shoulder, he looked at Talitha with cold eyes. “Uncle? Who are you? Are you out of your mind or are you drunk? I don’t have much relatives, and I’m definitely not your uncle.”
Initially, Talitha had wanted to bring trouble to William and Valeria by toasting him after she saw how lovey-dovey they had been. However, William had refuted her with such harsh words, which made her face turn red in embarrassment.
Her father, Declan, was one of the most important people in Ruthorham, and her mother was the eldest daughter of the Saunders family, while her uncle, Archer was rich and powerful. Because of this, she had always been treated with respect, so she had never felt humiliated.
At that moment, her face flushed, and she gritted her teeth while she replied him, “My bad. You are indeed not my uncle. I just followed Raymond and called you that out of courtesy.”
As he heard this, a cold smile appeared at the corner of William’s mouth. Previously, he had only suspected that Talitha had just deliberately bumped into Valeria, but now, he was certain that she did it on purpose.
His eyes were filled with coldness. “It seems that this lady here tonight is not only blind, but deaf too? I don’t think Raymond has addressed me as his uncle today. Right?”
Raymond never greeted him today, which made it evident that she had made everything up. Talitha was so ashamed that she couldn’t utter a single word to refute him.
No one had expected William to be this harsh and direct. If William was just an airhead, it would be likely that he might have lost his temper and was treating everyone harshly.
However, he was not an airhead, but the president of the Wolf Group. Archer and Gavin glanced at each other knowingly. Needless to say, Talitha must have done something to offend him.
Although they did not know what did Talitha do to anger William, but Paisley, an outsider, was present tonight, so someone had to step in to clear the air. Seeing Talitha’s red face, Gavin said awkwardly, “Oh yeah… everyone, please help yourselves. The food won’t be tasty if it gets cold!”
As he spoke, he put Valeria’s favorite dishes in front of her. “Valeria, you like this, right? Have some more!”
Meanwhile, Paisley pulled Talitha’s hand and urged her to sit down. Talitha teared up because she had originally wanted to make a fool out of other people, but she didn’t expect that the tables would be turned against her.
Both Gavin and Archer hadn’t even intended to help her, let alone the other people present.
As she could not stay there any longer, she got up and left the room. Naturally, Paisley could not stay either, so she immediately got up and followed her out.
After the two of them left, the atmosphere in the room lightened up. William gave Valeria some food as he looked at Archer and Gavin. “If you want to eat with us in the future, and you have no choice but to include those useless people, you should inform us beforehand. We have no interest or energy to put up with them.”
Both Gavin and Archer were wrongly accused, so they said, “It wasn’t us.”
“Then, who else could it be?” William did not believe them at all. Seeing that William was accusing Gavin and Archer, Raymond took the initiative to take responsibility. “She insisted to follow me here. I didn’t expect…”
As Raymond spoke, William glanced at him. Even though William didn’t say anything, the silence was meaningful, and Raymond’s face turned red involuntarily.
In the past, William was his uncle, and he did not care about what he did. Even if Raymond did make a mistake, it was never a big deal. However, now that William was his brother-in-law and he had clearly made a foolish mistake, he felt embarrassed under William’s gaze.
Fortunately, William quickly looked away and asked Valeria, “Does your shoulder still hurt?”
“A little bit,” She replied.
“Don’t eat spicy food. Have something else instead. I’ll take you to a doctor after dinner.”
Archer and Gavin looked at each other. They hadn’t put too much thought into the incident after Valeria assured them that she was fine not long ago. Now that William mentioned it, it was evident that his behavior towards Talitha was influenced by Valeria’s injury. As Gavin realized this, he immediately asked, “Is her injury very serious?”
“She’s already badly bruised. How can it not be serious?” Abbie said with a fed-up tone. “Didn’t I mention it just now? Something’s wrong with Talitha. The Wolf Group’s entrance is humongous, and it’s not like she’s blind! So how could she accidentally bump into Valeria? Even a fool would know that she did it on purpose! She must’ve tied something to her bag!”
Archer’s and Gavin’s expressions darkened as they heard this. Both of them certainly couldn’t compare with William’s attentiveness towards Valeria.
They had just let it go after Valeria said that she was fine, but William had been different. Not only did he find out about it that fast, but he also deduced that something was wrong with Talitha and had even dealt with her!
No wonder Valeria trusted him so much. He truly loved her with everything he had.