Chapter 74

Chapter 74

The bar owner hesitated for a moment but didn’t object. After all, it was someone from the Richardson family. It didn’t matter who took her home.

Phillip grasped Leanne’s arm to help her stand, but it was awkward. After a moment of thought, he scooped her up in a fireman’s lift.

As they were leaving, Leanne slowly opened her eyes a bit.

Her

eyes were swollen and rimmed with red. She was heavily intoxicated, barely making out the man’s profile through her haze and mistaking him for Curtis.

With a face flushed from too much alcohol, she looked up at him and wept.

“I regret it so much… I should never have married you…”

Phillip was taken aback, “Anne, you’ve got it wrong again. I’m Phillip.”

Leanne didn’t hear him, her sorrow rekindled by the sight of “Curtis.”

“Just like the rest, you pick on me for being an orphan, with no one to stand up for me…

Arguing with a drunk person was pointless, so Phillip gave up on correcting her and listened as she vented her grief, wondering what Curtis had done to her.

Leanne cried so hard her vision blurred and kept asking the man holding her if he ever loved her.

“Why don’t you love me?”

As Phillip carried her out of the bar, he looked up to see a car parked at the curb when Curtis stood beside it in a black trench coat, silently watching them.

Phillip walked over with Leanne in his arms. Curtis, hands buried in his pockets, glanced blankly at Leanne cradled against Phillip.

She gazed up at Phillip, crying desperately, asking over and over why he didn’t love her.

Curtis just watched impassively, showing no intention of taking her from Phillip.

“What are you waiting for?” Phillip demanded.

Curtis gave a careless chuckle, “You know, you should see it through to the end and take her all the way home.”

Phillip deepened his frown, “Is this how you play the husband? What have you done to Anne to make her cry like this?”

“Me, hurt her?” Curtis retorted, “As if it’s my turn.”

His casual demeanor was at odds with the family’s reputation which Phillip had heard all

Chapter 74

about.

Phillip, five years Curtis’ senior and usually indulgent with his younger brother, scolded. him unusually sternly, “Curtis, our family doesn’t condone this kind of irresponsibility. I don’t care what you do in your private life, but as long as Anne is your wife, you’re expected to fulfill your duties.”

Hearing Curtis’ name, Leanne, utterly intoxicated, cried even harder, cursing in a slurred voice, “Curtis, you bastard!”

Curtis scoffed lightly, “Even drunk, she doesn’t forget to curse me.”

Finally, he took his hands out of his pockets and took Leanne from Phillip’s arms.

Trying to set her on her feet, Leanne slipped down like a slippery eel.

Curtis caught her with one arm, “Can’t even stand, huh? Where have your legs gone?”

The drunk Leanne couldn’t answer, limp as a boneless creature in his arms.

With no other choice, Curtis picked her up again.

Jake hurriedly opened the car door. As Curtis bent to place her inside, the unconscious Leanne, like a baby about to be laid down after being lulled to sleep, reflexively clung to

his neck.

Curtis tried to unclasp her hands, but she gripped tighter than iron shackles.

Caught in a bind, he was forced to maintain his bent posture, his right hand bracing against the seat. Looking at her senseless face, he was a mix of frustration and

amusement.

“Leanne, you’re really going to be the end of me.”

Curtis sat down on the seat with her in his lap.