Chapter 259

"Since when does Mr. Roland have kids? Didn't he just break up?"

"Shh, keep your voice down. I heard he used to date a woman named Lily..."

"Lily?"

"Yes, Lily."

Ethan suddenly let go of his father's hand and ran back to the whispering employees. He looked up at them with a serious expression. "My mom's name is Stella! S-T-E-L-L-A!"

The employees froze in awkward silence.

Luna rested her chin on her father's shoulder, blinking her big eyes. "Daddy..."

"Hmm?"

"Did you have other girlfriends before?"

Adrian's steps faltered.

He looked down into his daughter's innocent eyes and whispered, "...Yes."

"Then did you not love Mommy?"

"I did."

"If you loved Mommy, why were you with someone else?" Luna pouted. "That's not right."

Adrian's throat tightened. "Daddy knows he was wrong. Can you forgive me?"

Luna shook her head.

"You won't forgive Daddy?"

"Mommy says people should apologize when they do wrong things, but we don’t have to forgive them." She counted on her fingers. "Like when a mean kid at Ethan's school called us bastards. Ethan hit him, and the kid apologized, but Ethan didn’t forgive him."

Adrian's pupils constricted sharply.

"What does 'bastard' mean?" Luna asked innocently.

Adrian's chest tightened painfully.

"But Ethan and I have a daddy!" Luna declared proudly. "Mommy said you were protecting Earth, so you couldn’t be with us much..."

Adrian's eyes burned.

He couldn’t fathom how Stella had endured all these years alone.

Ethan stormed back, his eyes red-rimmed with unshed tears.

Adrian crouched down and gently wiped his son's face. "Come on, let's go to Daddy's office."

Outside the CEO's office, Penny and Jason stood waiting.

"Oh my god!" Penny gasped. "That’s definitely Mr. Roland’s son! They look identical!"

Adrian frowned. "Find some children's books."

"Now?" Penny's eyes widened. "But everyone’s waiting in the conference room for the meeting—"

"Cancel it."

Penny inhaled sharply.

Workaholic Mr. Roland was canceling a meeting... for his kids?

Inside the office, both children sat glumly.

Adrian pulled up an episode of Pleasant Goat and Big Big Wolf on his computer.

"Daddy," Ethan scrunched his nose in disdain. "We stopped watching this ages ago."

"What do you watch now?"

"Iron Man!" Ethan's eyes lit up. "You even bought me an Iron Man action figure before!"

Adrian immediately called his secretary. "Penny, buy Iron Man toys."

"Um..." Penny hesitated. "The budget—"

"Send me your account details."

Two minutes later, Penny gaped at the $50,000 transfer notification.

Emails kept flooding in as Adrian worked.

He glanced up to see Ethan entertaining Luna.

"You can keep working, Daddy," Ethan said understandingly. "When Mommy was busy, Luna and I played by ourselves."

Adrian's heart clenched. "Was Mommy... working very hard?"

"Yeah." Ethan nodded. "She said we didn’t have startup funds, so she couldn’t buy good gemstones. She had to stay up late designing..."

"No funds?" Adrian was stunned. "But abroad, you—"

"At first, we couldn’t even afford rent." Ethan lowered his head. "Later, money appeared in Mommy’s account, but she said it was earned with Daddy’s life. She refused to spend a single cent..."

Adrian's pen clattered to the floor.