Thorns Grow After Betrayal (Celeste and Chester) novel Chapter 390

Yolande's eyes darted away, unable to meet Bagehot's gaze.

For this competition, she had clearly paid someone in advance for the theme.

How could the theme suddenly change from "Courage" to "Confidence"?!

She wanted to scream.

But it was just one competition. Did Bagehot have to be so harsh?

Bagehot's head was pounding.

He had placed far too much hope in her.

He remembered the last thing Celestine had said before she left.

"As long as her rank is in the top three, I'll stay with the company."

He never thought her words would become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Out of four contestants, Yolande had actually failed to even make the top three.

"Mr. Kelsey, do you have any further objections to the results?" the judge asked, his expression unpleasant.

Bagehot's lips moved, but in the end, he said nothing more. He grabbed Yolande and fled the competition venue.

***

"Celly, I'm sorry. I never thought Bagehot would do something like this."

After leaving the competition, Celestine went to the rehabilitation center to visit Crystal.

Having not seen her for a while, Celestine noted that Crystal's face was pale and she had lost a lot of weight.

Celestine's brow furrowed in concern.

"Crystal, if you're not happy here, you don't have to stay."

"My mother-in-law chose this place. It wouldn't be right if I didn't stay," Crystal said with a strained smile.

Celestine held her tongue, ultimately saying nothing more on the matter.

Before leaving, she did tell Crystal about her decision to resign.

Crystal looked troubled, but in the end, she approved the resignation.

"Celly, I'm sorry. My intention was to rescue you from one bad situation, but I almost pushed you into another."

She had lost a significant amount of weight.

Her mother-in-law also frequently had the maternity nurse prepare strange concoctions for her to drink that she'd never even heard of.

After being a strong, independent woman for so many years, Crystal had never experienced anything like this.

Especially seeing Bagehot and Yolande constantly appearing together as a pair.

In earlier years, she had been too busy with work to give much thought to their relationship.

But now that she had the time, their interactions and the way they behaved around each other went far beyond a normal uncle-niece relationship.

The Kelsey family wasn't so powerful and distinguished that all its secrets could be kept hidden.

After some casual probing, she learned that the two were not blood-related at all.

Yolande was an adopted child.

But Bagehot's affection for her was not normal.

Crystal had initially been skeptical of her own suspicions, wondering if she was just being overly sensitive due to her pregnancy and misinterpreting their actions.