Mr. CEO, You Look Strangely Familiar

Quentin Grant tickled her under the arms. ”How’s that?”

Nora Ainsworth squirmed a few times. ”Haha, that’s nothing.”

He attacked with both hands, tickling her until she shrieked with laughter.

Finally, unable to take it anymore, she begged for mercy.

”That was beautiful. How long did you practice to get that good?”

Quentin Grant replied smugly, ”Practice? Do I need to? With my natural talent, it was effortless. A piece of cake.”

Nora Ainsworth scoffed. ”You’re not a musician. ’Effortless’? Even professionals wouldn’t be so quick to use that word.”

”But it really was easy. I mean, who am I? Do you really think something like this would be a challenge for me?” ’He would never tell her that he’d listened to Shawn Warner’s original version seven or eight hundred times just to learn that song.’

”Alright, alright, the great President Grant is omnipotent. Oh, that reminds me, was Chloe Marshall Ethan Ellsworth’s assistant?”

Her question caught Quentin Grant off guard. To this day, he still didn’t know how to tell her what had happened to Chloe Marshall.

”Yeah.”

”And... we were good friends?”

”Yeah.”

Nora Ainsworth sensed something was off. ”All you’re doing is saying ’yeah.’ I’m asking you a question. Exactly how close were we?”

”Very close.”

”So... is she dead?” Nora Ainsworth asked tentatively.

Quentin Grant whipped his head around to look at her. ”How did you know that?”

”I logged into Weibo and saw the comments on her most recent post. They all said things like ’rest in peace,’ and that she was gone.”

She was telling him the truth.

”Weibo? You mean your old account?” Quentin Grant pressed.

”Yes. I don’t know how it happened, but my hands just typed in the username and password on their own.”

Quentin Grant’s heart grew heavy. ”The details... when you’re fully recovered, I’ll tell you everything.”

”Why do you look so pale?”

Quentin Grant suddenly pulled her into a tight embrace. ”Nora, I don’t know what’s wrong with me. Whenever we talk about Chloe, I get this feeling that you’re going to drift further and further away from me.”

It was a premonition he felt deep in his gut.

Chloe Marshall was too important to Nora Ainsworth.

’If she were her old self again and found out that my own sister was behind what happened to Chloe Marshall—and that I covered for her—would she leave me?’

’He wasn’t afraid of anything now—the only thing he feared was losing her.’

’He had suffered enough during their last separation.’

’He never wanted to taste the agony of being apart from her ever again.’

’The entire ordeal had been unbearable.’

”As long as it wasn’t you or your family who killed her—”

Her words made Quentin Grant’s heart plummet. ’Even now, without her memories, she sounded so absolute. If she were to...’

’He didn’t dare to think any further. A chilling wave of fear for what was to come, the likes of which he had never felt before, began to wash over him.’

On the morning of April 14th, Mrs. Young was up bright and early.

She put on a new outfit, did her makeup, and sat on the living room sofa, waiting for Marlon Marshall to come pick her up.

But she waited from seven in the morning until half-past eleven, and he never showed up.

She pulled out her phone to call him, but the number was out of service.

It took a moment for the reality to sink in. She was starting to believe what her daughter had told her yesterday.

She immediately went to pound on Carol Young’s door.

”What do you want?”

”Marlon Marshall still isn’t here! Do you think he’s not coming?”

Carol Young let out a cold laugh. ”Why don’t you ask him? What are you asking me for?”

The ominous feeling in Mrs. Young’s heart intensified.

She rushed out the door and went to the address Marlon Marshall had given her for the storefront.

When she arrived, she found that it really was a large supermarket.

’She was a little confused. Was he planning a surprise for her? Or was he just too busy to pick her up?’

She walked in slowly and saw that the supermarket was bustling with shoppers.

Feeling pleased with herself, she walked up to the checkout counter and spoke to the young cashier with the air of an owner. ”Is your President Marshall in?”

Coincidentally, the owner of this supermarket was indeed also named Marshall.

”Are you here to see our boss about something?”

Hearing this, Mrs. Young grew even more certain.

”Of course I have business with him. Hurry up and get him.”

”Ma’am, you can just tell us what it’s about. Our boss isn’t in the supermarket very often,” the employee said calmly.

Mrs. Young was full of herself. ”Tell you? Are you the one who calls the shots here?”

”Well, we can’t make that decision until you tell us what it’s about.”

”I said, get your boss. Just go get him and be done with it. Why all the questions?”

The employee had no other choice but to ask a coworker to get the boss.

Mrs. Young stood by the counter waiting, feeling smug. She couldn’t wait to see the looks on the employees’ faces when they realized who she was.

More than ten minutes later, the supermarket’s President Marshall hurried over.

”What’s the emergency?” The man who came over was in his forties.

The employee pointed at Mrs. Young. ”This lady insisted that we call you. She said she has urgent business with you.”

Mrs. Young’s heart sank. She stammered, ”You’re... President Marshall?”

”Is there another President Marshall here? Ma’am, how can I help you?”

Mrs. Young looked bewildered. ”Isn’t the owner here Marlon Marshall? How come it’s not—”

The middle-aged man’s expression stiffened at her words. ”Ma’am, my older brother was named Marlon Marshall, but he died in a car crash more than ten years ago. My name is Marcus Marshall.”

Mrs. Young turned and walked away, her heart filled with despair.

She had been scammed.

On top of the hundreds of thousands he had already taken from her, he had gotten another five or six hundred thousand for this ”big store.” And now, he was gone without a trace.

Mrs. Young went to Marlon Marshall’s home, but only Mrs. Marshall was there.

”Where’s your son?”

”My son’s not home. I can’t find him either,” Mrs. Marshall said.

”Your son scammed me out of more than a million!”

Mrs. Marshall was unfazed. ”A little over a million is a small sum. Once he gets back together with his ex-wife, he’ll pay you back.”

Panic seized Mrs. Young’s heart.

The compensation money from her eldest daughter’s death—her husband had taken some, but she had taken the lion’s share.

She had no idea where her husband had hidden his portion, but hers was now completely gone!

She waited at the Marshall house until the afternoon, but Marlon never showed up.

Mrs. Young returned home, utterly dejected.

She completely broke down. Only now did she realize that young man had been up to no good.

’Was I out of my mind back then? How could I have given him the money so easily?’

Mrs. Young sat on the floor at home, cursing and screaming for ages, throwing a crying fit.

In the end, she directed all her resentment toward her own daughter.

She threw open Carol Young’s door and found her sitting on the bed, looking equally listless.

”You! Go find Marlon Marshall for me!”

”And do what? Ask for the money back? He’s spent it all by now.”

At this, Mrs. Young grabbed her arm. ”Get off this bed! Go find him!”

Seeing her mother’s crazed expression, Carol Young sneered. ”Where was all this rational thinking when you were handing him fistfuls of cash? Why didn’t you think of this then? You regret it now? Too late.”

Her words were another dagger to Mrs. Young’s heart.