Filed to story: Sweetheart Do You Still Love Me
Judging from the boys’ behavior and the conversation Elspeth heard earlier, she reckoned that an argument had broken out between them. It wasn’t difficult to put two and two together that their fight was related to Damian’s birth. “Damian, let him go,” she persuaded softly.
Damian’s eyes were bloodshot, filled with reluctance, but he still released the boy. After all, he only had one kin, so he always listened to her.
“Tell me what happened.” Elspeth knew that he had been bullied because he would have never started a fight with someone else if he wasn’t provoked. As Damian’s mother, she was very confident about this.
“This is the boy who called me a b*stard without a father,” he answered tremulously, feeling depressed at every mention of his father.
When she heard his tone, her initial idea to reprimand him immediately took a turn in the opposite direction. Besides, she had never been a person to be messed with and she would definitely never gang up with someone else when it came to her son. So, she spun on her heel and she stared at the boy who called her son a b*stard with cold indifference in her eyes. “Is he telling the truth? Did you say that?”
It never occurred to the little boy that Damian and his mother shared the same air of ferocity when they turned icy and he gulped, so overwhelmed by her aura that he couldn’t find the words to say. “But it’s true that he doesn’t have a father…”
“Even so, you can’t simply call someone else a b*stard. Is that a word you can use carelessly?”
Despite the disdain in his heart, the little boy hung his head and admitted his mistake. “I’m sorry. I realize my mistake now.”
It didn’t matter to him whether Damian was a b*stard or not; he simply didn’t like the fact that Damian was so popular with everyone in the class, including the little girl whom he fancied. In his little mind, he couldn’t figure out what other strengths Damian had besides having a pretty face. So, he wanted to bully him, and since he couldn’t pique Damian with anything else, this was the only topic he could use that would spark a reaction from Damian.
Elspeth felt the anger in her chest dissipating upon hearing his apology. “You’d do well to avoid saying such things in the future.”
Just when she was about to let the matter go, the little boy’s mother showed up. She was a rather plump woman, wearing a pair of three-inch heels. It was clear she wasn’t one for fashion considering the hideous and violent shade of red her dress was. Her face was slapped with thick makeup and she even carried a pungent smell of perfume.
When the boy’s mother noticed that Elspeth was here as well, she frowned in annoyance as a hint of jealousy flashed over her eyes at the same time.
“I’ve merely been just a tad late, yet you guys dared to take this opportunity to walk all over my son. You’re just doing this because he has nobody to support him, aren’t you?” This wasn’t the first day that she found Elspeth an eyesore. Finally, she had found an outlet for her frustrations today as she snarled, “I’m warning you, don’t even think about bullying my son.” Then, she tugged her son behind herself and snapped at Elspeth, “It’s you again? Why do you keep starting a fight with my son?”
Again? Elspeth turned to her in puzzlement. “What do you mean by that?”
A dark, sad light flashed past Damian’s eyes. “It’s not the first time that he has called me a b*stard.”
Next to them, the teacher explained in embarrassment, “They usually have some small disagreements, but they could always be settled…”
“Small disagreement? The kindergarten doesn’t care that my son is being humiliated like this?” All of a sudden, Elspeth felt her anger explode and the air around her turned bone-chilling cold.
“Miss Lynwood, it’s…” The teacher wanted to pacify the matter, but when she saw that Elspeth had no intention of doing that, she didn’t know how to mediate this sticky situation.
“What? Do you want to make a big deal out of this?” The woman snorted, and the fat on her body jiggled. “I’ll say it to your face, then. Your son is a b*stard without a father!”
Before she could finish laughing, the crisp, loud sound of a slap echoed, and she staggered backward while holding her face, shrieking in disbelief, “How dare you hit me?! Do you have any idea who I am?!”
Elspeth hadn’t bothered to hold back her strength with that slap, and it was obvious from the swollen look on the horrid woman’s cheek that it hurt.
As the woman had never been in such a disadvantaged situation, she couldn’t accept that it was happening to her and lunged forward to grab Elspeth’s hair. Yet, Elspeth simply raised her leg and kicked her aside. The harpy could only clench the meat around her back in pain as her face twisted into an ugly sneer.
“I’m telling you right now! You’re done for!”
“Done for? Be my guest.” Although Elspeth had no idea why she could fight so well, nothing was holding her back anymore since she already struck that woman. Whoever came in her way would be dealt the same way.
The woman shakily fished out her cell phone to call for help, but a voice came from the door out of the blue, announcing, “Who said that he’s a b*stard?”
The voice from the door sounded a little familiar and also pleasant to the ears, but Elspeth had never seen this man before. She swiveled her head in confusion at the source of the voice and wondered why this stranger was speaking up for her. She was met with a pair of eyes that held a deep tenderness for her. His eyes were very familiar and looked almost the same as Damian’s.
The woman was about to open fire when she saw a dashing man standing at the door, and she became shy all of a sudden. “May I ask who you are, sir?”
“That’s not important. More importantly, who did you call a b*stard earlier?”
When the shameless woman heard that, she grabbed her chest and said in a soft, coquettish voice, “It’s all because of this woman. She’s the one who started a fight with us.”
Elspeth sniggered at the woman when she deliberately distorted the truth. “Sure. You’re only guilty if you’re caught red-handed. I have to say, I didn’t think you’d also be guilty of stupidity.”
The woman desperately wanted to snarl at Elspeth for such humiliation, but when she remembered that the man was still looking at her, she pretended to be gentle and understanding instead. “I know that you’ve always hated me, but today, I’ll forgive you if you apologize to me and my son.”
Elspeth’s eyes widened. “What? Are you dreaming?”
“You-“
“What about me?” Elspeth snorted disdainfully. “You’d better apologize to me. Otherwise, I can’t promise that I’ll let you off. Of course, your son is included in this deal.”
“The audacity!” The woman cast an aggrieved look at Callum. “Sir, please you have to see how lawless she’s acting. She’s the one in the wrong in this situation, but she’s so aggressive and unreasonable.”
Callum nodded as though he was pondering over it. “You’re right. She is fierce and unreasonable.”
Elspeth glowered at him. “Stay out of this if you’re not on my side. Otherwise, I’ll bite your head off, too.”
The scene of her wielding her sharp tongue was very familiar to him, but she now had an added cuteness to her. His reflex reaction was faster than his thought process, and he couldn’t stop himself from taking her by the waist and planting a kiss on her lips. “You didn’t change.”
It had been barely two minutes since Elspeth first met this man before he did something so outrageous out of the blue and it caught her by surprise. Regardless, she snapped back to her senses the very next second as she raised her hand, slapping him across the face.
Slap! The sound of her palm striking his face echoed through the classroom loud and clear.
Callum held his cheek with a blank look on his face. “Did you just hit me?”
“So what if I did, you sicko? You deserve it for kissing me without my consent!” Then, she shifted her panicked gaze to her son and saw that he was staring at her with a lost look on his face. “Damian, this is…”
While she was struggling to explain herself to Damian, he was surprisingly more considerate than she expected. He simply calmly answered, “It’s okay, Mommy. I know what you’re doing. You’re kissing.” Worried that Elspeth would get the wrong idea, he added, “Don’t worry. I also know that you won’t get pregnant from kissing.”
Immediately, a helpless look washed over Elspeth’s face as she stood there at a loss for words. Before she could stop herself, her hand reached out and pinched Callum hard on his arm. That’s for him being a bad example to the kids!
Startled by the sudden jolt of pain, he exclaimed, “What? Did I do anything wrong by kissing my wife?”
Wife? Elspeth, who was ready to reprimand him from the high moral ground, went speechless at his statement. “Don’t spout nonsense. Who’s your wife?”
He pulled her around and checked her carefully from head to toe before saying, “Did you forget that you’re my wife?”
Bewildered to be held in this manner by a stranger, she shoved him aside in annoyance. “There’s no way that I’m your wife. We’re unrelated, so stop trying to act friendly with me. Even if you claim that I’m your wife, it doesn’t change the fact that you’re a rogue.” This guy’s probably just looking for an excuse for his behavior. What a shameless jerk!
Meanwhile, the actual unreasonable woman, who was left by the sidelines, was forced to witness the intimate interaction between Elspeth and Callum. Then, she finally realized that they were somehow connected and blurted in disbelief, “Is he your husband? That can’t be true.”
“Why can’t I be her husband?”
The woman never imagined that Elspeth’s husband was so young and handsome, and jealousy started to bubble up in her chest. “She doesn’t have a husband! She’s been living here for so long, but I’ve never seen any man by her side. Are you an actor she hired?”
Callum narrowed his eyes in satisfaction upon hearing that Elspeth didn’t have any man by her side after all these years. “Just because she doesn’t have a man by her side doesn’t mean that she doesn’t have a husband. If she doesn’t have a husband, how can you explain her child?”
The woman snorted indignantly from her nostrils. “This child is a b*stard, and only God knows who his father is.”
The smile on Callum’s face disappeared when she mentioned the word ‘b*stard’ again. “I’ll give you another chance to articulate yourself. What did you just call him?”
When she realized that he was mad, she panicked and changed her statement. “I’m not sure, either.”
Elspeth wasn’t expecting that her aura was incomparable to this man’s and was disgruntled. It’s only because he has a good-looking face that this woman backed down. That had to be it.
Callum’s brows shot up as he stole a look at the quiet Elspeth and said to the other woman, “You don’t know who he is and falsely accuse him of being a b*stard. You should apologize to him.”
Although the woman was willing to bow down to Callum, that didn’t mean that she was willing to compromise that far. She was definitely not going to apologize to a brat. “He’s just a kid who knows nothing. Why should I apologize to him?”
“Although he’s just a child, he understands everything at his age. Do you have any idea how badly you’ve hurt him psychologically with your words?” Elspeth scoffed angrily.
Her anger, combined with Callum’s death stare, made the woman hesitate. The wise would never put themselves at a disadvantage, she thought inwardly and apologized. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said something like that to you.”
Damian nodded and accepted her apology because he wasn’t one to bear a grudge, a trait he inherited from his mother. “Okay, it’s fine as long as you don’t say something like this again in the future.”
After that, the woman thought that she hadn’t done enough because neither Elspeth nor Callum said a thing, so she grabbed a few notes from her purse. “This money is my compensation for you. Take it and buy yourself something delicious.”
Damian simply waved his hand in dismissal and made it clear to her that he wasn’t about to accept it. “I don’t need this money. Keep it.”
The embarrassed woman returned the money to her purse. “Since that is the case, I’m leaving with my son now.”
Elspeth remained silent, and the two people next to her didn’t say a word, either. In the end, the woman grabbed her dazed-looking son and fled in a flurry of skirts.
After they had left, it appeared to the teacher that her presence in the room was a little awkward, and she, too, left with a flimsy excuse.