Francis’s expression changed when he heard this and his pupils dilated in shock. However, Evelyn did not find anything strange in his behaviour because she was simply too angry.
From Evelyn’s point of view, it was more acceptable for Azalea to be labeled as Francis’ mistress than his illegitimate daughter.
Azalea was nothing but a piece of trash with a horrible reputation. How could she be worthy of being Francis’s illegitimate daughter when she was involved in so many disgusting scandals?
This was simply an insult to the Gurney family. Evelyn said angrily, “They also uploaded an article saying that you had recognized Azalea as your daughter in a voice recording.”
As Evelyn spoke, she opened her phone and played a recording. “It sounds so fake, but where did they find an actor with the exact same voice as you?”
The recording was taken when Francis and Azalea had hugged each other while they cried, and Francis could tell that it wasn’t fake immediately after he listened to it.
Evelyn was still rattling on about how shameless those netizens were, but Francis felt as if his face was on fire.
“That’s enough! All of you can leave first!” Francis waved his hand and motioned for the lawyers of the company to leave.
“Grandpa, why did you ask them to leave? Why don’t you ask them to sue those accounts? All these disgusting people are trying to ruin your reputation, so you must teach them a lesson!”
“Who… who the hell am I going to report?!” Francis’ angry shout made Evelyn jump in fright and she took a step back. “Grandpa, are you… are you in your right mind? Why are you angry with me? Shouldn’t you report all those media platforms and netizens instead?”
“Get out! It’s best if you can get out of my sight right now!” Francis scolded Evelyn directly and chased her out. She was also a little scared when she saw how angry Francis was and she left with teary eyes.
Francis was not in the mood to care about Evelyn’s feelings right now. Then, he raised his voice and shouted, “Frederick…”
He wanted to discuss this matter with Frederick, but he only remembered that the latter was still at the police station.
He was just about to call his assistant when his phone rang. It was his wife, Camila.
Francis looked at the flashing phone number on the screen and sighed before he picked it up. “Yes?”
“What’s up with the news about your illegitimate daughter? I want to listen to your explanation.” Camila’s voice was trembling with anger.
Francis had a serious headache. One of the reasons why he didn’t want to publicly acknowledge Azalea was because he was worried about his wife. However, he couldn’t deny it any longer now that his wife had already called to question him. “I’m so sorry! I was so foolish back then… but I didn’t expect that I would…”
“Do you mean that this is true? How could you do this to me?!” Camila was so angry that she gasped for air.
“I didn’t want this to happen either, but it has already passed…”
Camila directly interrupted Francis. “Why did you hide it from me and make such a big deal out of it?! This is just a small matter and you could’ve just been honest with me. Why the hell would I stop you from acknowledging her? Were you worried that we can’t afford to raise someone like her? But you hid it and made such a big commotion for a nobody like her… You are really…”
She took a breath and said, “You even became enemies with the Clark family for such a disgusting person, and everyone knows about this! Don’t you have a shred of pride in yourself!? Tell me, what are you going to do now?”
“I have no choice but to accept her!”
“You’re really sick in the head! You didn’t want to admit her existence before this, but you had to wait until things became like this. How can you embarrass me and the children this way? I’ll be straightforward with you. That piece of trash is not allowed to step into my house and you’re not allowed to give her any of our assets at all!”
Francis could not say anything because he was in the wrong, and he could only admit defeat in the face of Camila’s fury. “Let’s settle this matter first. Don’t worry, I won’t let her affect you and our children.”
There was no way for him to deny his relationship with Azalea since things have gotten to this point. Francis then shamelessly asked his lawyer to issue a statement on his behalf to declare that he had acknowledged Azalea’s status as his illegitimate daughter.
This piece of news immediately spread like wildfire on the Internet and the Gurney family’s website was flooded with hateful comments.
Francis was getting retribution for his actions after he had paid a lot of anonymous users to attack the Clark family back then.
When the netizens realized what had happened, they all knew that Francis and Azalea had taken advantage of them. Everything was a lie, including the story that Azalea had been beaten up so badly that she had to be hospitalized because her life was hanging on a thread.
All of this was made up because Francis and Azalea wanted to attack the Clark family.
Some netizens brought up how Azalea had drawn a wedge between Abbie and Michael’s relationship in the past, and they pointed out that Francis and Azalea had attacked the Clark family with the intention of taking revenge.
The photos of Francis and Azalea’s swollen faces were spread all over the Internet. Some people used Azalea’s appearance to dig out a photo of Azalea’s birth mother.
Some people claimed that they knew Azalea’s mother because she was the most famous escort in B City’s nightclubs. She managed to wreck many rich families, and she was a socialite in the upper-class society.
It was no wonder that Azalea was so shameless because she took after her mother.
There was also a video of Francis buying a beautiful bungalow in B City for Azalea’s birth mother.
Stories about how Francis had cheated on his wife when he was in his fifties went viral. Everyone was discussing it and Francis’ reputation was completely destroyed.
Francis was so angry that he almost blacked out when he saw how outrageous the comment section was, and he spent a huge sum of money to suppress the news.
However, he couldn’t get rid of the millions of comments online. Countless posts and videos that were uploaded to analyse this matter had gone viral on the Internet.
Francis and Azalea had turned into the target of the netizen’s anger. Furthermore, the Clark family started to sue Francis after they obtained evidence that he had hired anonymous online users to target them.
Not only Camila, but his whole family scolded him for not covering up his mistakes well. Francis was extremely anxious because he was drowning in problems.
Frederick heard Francis’s angry roar from the living room as soon as he returned to the Gurney family’s courtyard after being bailed out. “What is the public relations department doing!? Why can’t they suppress anything? They must suppress the news no matter what, or else they’re going to be fired!”
Frederick was not as worried or anxious as he used to be when he heard how furious Francis was. Instead, he was heartbroken because of Francis’ selfish behaviour. A cold smile appeared on the corner of his mouth as he silently said in his heart, “You deserve it!”
Frederick stood quietly at the door for a while and waited for Francis to finish venting his anger before he entered the living room.
When he entered the living room, he put on his usual respectful expression and said in a respectful voice, “Sir, I’m back!”
Francis was overjoyed when he saw Frederick. “I’m so glad that you’re back! You should have heard about what happened, right? You have to figure out a solution with me because things have spiralled out of control, and we must suppress all these discussions no matter how much it costs!”