Secret Marriage: The CEO's Pampered Wife

Chapter 183: Chapter 173: What Exactly Is Your Relationship with Elliot Sheridan? (1)

"Mrs. Everett, please come in," Georgia Thorne said stiffly.

Meghan Everett’s face was pale. She glanced around the apartment but didn’t go inside.

"That won’t be necessary. I came to find you because there’s something I need to ask of you."

「Inside the hospital.」

Georgia Thorne followed behind Meghan Everett. The hallway reeked of disinfectant.

The smell of disinfectant wasn’t as strong inside the hospital room. Georgia Thorne looked at the man sitting on the bed.

She greeted him respectfully, "Hello, Mr. Lennox."

The moment Zachary Lennox saw Georgia Thorne, he seethed with anger. ’So it’s true what they say about beautiful women being a curse.’

"Don’t call me that. I’m not worthy of such an address from you, Miss Thorne." Zachary Lennox slammed the newspaper in his hand onto the adjacent table.

Georgia Thorne glanced at it. It was a financial news article about the Lennox Group’s stock plummeting.

"Miss Thorne, I had you brought here today to make one thing clear," Zachary Lennox glared at her. "The Lennox Family will never accept you, and Zane Lennox will not be marrying you!"

Georgia Thorne had already considered this possibility the moment Meghan Everett showed up at her door.

"If Zane Lennox says he won’t marry me, then I won’t." In that moment, a sudden calm washed over Georgia Thorne.

’She’d be more surprised if Zachary Lennox and his wife actually approved of her marriage to Zane.’

"Impossible! I’ll never..." Zachary Lennox’s face flushed red with anger. He held his breath for a moment before breaking into an uncontrollable coughing fit.

"Dear, please calm down! It’s not worth ruining your health over this!" Meghan Everett sat frantically on the edge of the bed, patting her husband’s back.

"Mr. Lennox, if there’s nothing else, I’ll be leaving now." Georgia Thorne smiled and bowed to Zachary Lennox.

’It wasn’t that she didn’t feel a pang of sympathy for the elderly Zachary Lennox, but she was at a point of no return.’

"S-Stop right there! Who said you could leave!" Zachary Lennox called after her, still coughing.

Georgia Thorne turned around. "Is there something else, Mr. Lennox?"

Zachary Lennox waved his wife away. "Go outside for a minute. I need to speak with her alone."

"But your health..." Meghan Everett hesitated, but after meeting Zachary Lennox’s gaze, she stood up and said with concern, "Please, talk things out calmly. Don’t get angry again."

Zachary Lennox closed his eyes and waved his hand with obvious effort, gesturing for her to leave.

Meghan Everett let out a faint sigh. Her hesitant gaze swept over Georgia Thorne’s face before she turned and walked out.

Only the two of them remained in the hospital room.

It was one in the afternoon. Bright sunlight streamed through the window, carrying a warm summer breeze into the room.

Georgia Thorne had already made her position perfectly clear. ’What else could Zachary Lennox possibly have to say to me?’

Zachary Lennox stared at her. "Get me that file folder from the coffee table!"

Georgia Thorne did as she was told and picked up the folder from the table, but then Zachary Lennox ordered, "Open it! Take a look!"

"What is it?"

Georgia Thorne didn’t move. Her intuition screamed that it was something bad.

"What is it? Why don’t you go and ask Elliot Sheridan why he did all this!"

"Mr. Lennox, what are you talking about?" Georgia Thorne frowned, her grip unconsciously tightening on the file folder.

"What exactly is your relationship with Elliot Sheridan? He’s actually going after the Lennox family, all for you!"

Zachary Lennox sneered. ’I have to admit, this girl is deeper than she looks. The truth is laid bare, and she’s still playing dumb!’

"Do you have any idea that because of you, the Lennox family is on the verge of collapse? Did you really think an enterprise as large as ours would face a crisis like this unless someone was sabotaging us from behind the scenes?"

"..." Georgia Thorne’s back went rigid as she stared, expressionless, at Zachary Lennox.

’The Lennox family is on the verge of collapse?’

’But I just saw Zane Lennox yesterday. Why didn’t he say anything? We’re supposed to get married in a few days!’

"Zane thought he was marrying a treasure, but he brought a curse into our home! That fool poured his heart and soul out for you, investing half our company’s capital into your family’s business. If you have a shred of conscience, stay away from my son! Stop ruining him!"

"Okay. I understand."

’She hadn’t known what Zane Lennox had done, or how much capital he had poured into Jared Thorne’s company. She didn’t know anything.’

’She never imagined that this would plunge the Lennox family into a crisis.’

’And Elliot Sheridan... what on earth was he thinking?’

Her mind was in utter turmoil, as if she were running frantically through pitch darkness, with no exit and not a single ray of hope in sight.

Meghan Everett, worried something might happen to her husband, had been waiting right outside the door.

Hearing the door open, she rushed forward and saw Georgia Thorne’s deathly pale face.

Georgia gave her a weak smile, looking as if she had lost all her strength as she trudged away.

Meghan Everett watched her go, puzzled, before her concern for her husband grew and she hurried back into the room.

Zachary Lennox was lying in bed. "What have we done to deserve this? Of all the people our son could have gotten involved with, he had to pick someone connected to Elliot Sheridan!"

"There, there. As long as she understands, it’ll be fine."

Meghan Everett poured a glass of warm water and thoughtfully handed it to her husband, curious about what exactly he had said to Georgia Thorne.

On the verge of a breakdown, Georgia Thorne walked out of the hospital in a daze.

She walked like a zombie under the scorching sun, her mind a complete blank, her hand clutching tightly to the file folder.

She opened the folder. The sight of the densely packed text inside made her head throb even more.

She didn’t even feel the scorching sun. A bone-deep chill spread from the depths of her heart, freezing her to the core.

’So it really was him, pulling the strings in secret.’

Georgia Thorne walked for over an hour, all the way from the hospital to the city center. By the time she snapped out of her daze, she found herself standing unconsciously at the foot of the Sheridan Corporation building.

She tilted her head back to look up at the skyscraper. The glare of the sun reflecting off the building was so bright she could barely open her eyes, and tears began to well up without her realizing.

She took out her phone. A number she knew by heart surfaced in her mind, and she slowly dialed it.

The long beeps of the ringing tone began. She had a desperate urge to confront Elliot Sheridan and demand to know why he had done this.

’Or was she just being delusional again?’

The phone rang for a long time, but no one answered. Finally, the automated voice of the service provider began to play.

Unwilling to give up, she clutched her phone and tried several more times, but the result was always the same.

The palm of her hand felt ice-cold. After standing under the sun for a while longer, Georgia Thorne turned and walked away.

A car had been tailing Georgia Thorne ever since she left her apartment.

Seeing her turn away from the building and head toward the bus stop, the driver quickly called Elliot Sheridan.

After reporting Georgia Thorne’s movements and hearing Elliot Sheridan’s grunt of acknowledgment, the man asked uneasily, "Also, Miss Thorne was just standing downstairs. I think she might have spotted me. Should I pull back?"

"No need. Keep following her."

"Yes, sir!"

Georgia Thorne returned to her apartment, exhausted and hungry. She collapsed onto her bed and immediately fell asleep.

She slept until six o’clock.

The sky outside was still bright. She had just gotten out of the shower when she heard her phone ring.

Thinking it was Elliot Sheridan, she jogged over to pick it up, only to see it was a call from Nancy Hughes.

"Georgia, I’m eating out tonight, so I won’t be home!"

Nancy Hughes’s voice was soft, and Georgia Thorne could hear men’s voices in the background. She faintly caught words like "mahjong" and "pay up."

’Nancy was probably with Dylan Heston.’

’Dylan Heston, Ethan Fletcher... that whole group seemed to know Elliot Sheridan.’

Georgia Thorne hurriedly asked, "Nancy, are you with your boyfriend right now?"

"Yeah, what’s up?"

"I need to ask, is Elliot Sheridan with you guys?"

Nancy Hughes tightened her grip on her phone and glanced over at the four men playing mahjong nearby. "He is, yeah."

She wasn’t sure what the occasion was, but Dylan Heston had suddenly asked her out to dinner today.

She’d thought it would just be the two of them, but she was a bit disappointed when she arrived and saw it was a group thing.

"Tell me where you are right now!"

"Are you coming?"

"Yes."

Nancy Hughes quickly gave Georgia Thorne the address, then asked curiously, "Georgia, are you coming over to find Elliot Sheridan?"

Georgia Thorne didn’t answer and just hung up.

’This was the first time since she’d returned to the country that Georgia had proactively brought up Elliot Sheridan.’

’Something must have happened between them last night. Why else would Georgia change so much overnight?’

Nancy Hughes was all for Georgia Thorne and Elliot Sheridan getting together, so this news cheered her up.

Dylan Heston waved her over from the side. She walked over with her glass of juice and asked sweetly, "Want a sip of juice?"

"You’re in a good mood?" Dylan Heston took a sip of the juice she was holding and asked casually.

A brilliant smile spread across Nancy Hughes’s face as she nodded repeatedly. "Georgia’s coming over soon!"

"Miss Georgia is coming? For real?" Liam Sheffield, sitting across from Dylan Heston, stood up excitedly. "Is she..."

"Mahjong."

Just as Liam Sheffield was reveling in his excitement, Elliot Sheridan, who was sitting next to him, calmly pushed his tiles over and exhaled a puff of blue smoke.

"What? You won already? I was just one tile away!" Liam Sheffield had a great hand, but the Green Dragon tile he desperately needed just wouldn’t come.

He glanced over and saw three Green Dragons in Elliot Sheridan’s revealed hand, and he secretly rolled his eyes.

’No wonder,’ he thought. ’We’ve nearly gone through the whole wall, and not a single Green Dragon has turned up.’

The cigarette between Elliot’s fingers burned down to the filter, scorching his fingertips before he finally stubbed it out in the ashtray.

With Georgia Thorne on her way, Elliot Sheridan should have been the happiest person in the room.

But for the past several rounds, Elliot Sheridan had been frowning nonstop, even as he won every single hand.

Anyone could sense that something was off with him. Dylan Heston lit a cigarette and asked Nancy Hughes, "When will Georgia be here?"

"I don’t know. I’ll give her a call."

Nancy Hughes skipped over to the window to call Georgia Thorne.

At that moment, Georgia Thorne was already downstairs. "I’m heading up now," she said.

Five minutes later, Georgia Thorne appeared at the door of the private room.

"You’re here!" Nancy Hughes hurried to greet her, pulling Georgia Thorne inside.

Inside, four men were playing at a mahjong table.

Georgia Thorne walked straight toward Elliot Sheridan. "Mr. Sheridan, I need to talk to you about something."

Georgia Thorne had come specifically for Elliot Sheridan, determined to demand a clear explanation.

Elliot Sheridan leaned back lazily in his chair, picking up a mahjong tile and glancing at it as if he hadn’t heard a word she said.