Chapter7 Taking Everything Back

The man from last night, even though he wore a repairman's uniform, was muscular and tall. One hand could grip her entire waist. He had exceptionally vigorous energy, making her reach peaks again and again, yet his rhythm never faltered.

Not like this person beside her...

But before Linnea could sort through her extreme confusion, a group of people burst through the door.

They surrounded her, deliberately asking in malicious, mocking tones, "Miss, why are your clothes disheveled?"

"Is this man beside you your lover? Oh! He seems to be dead!"

"I know this man! He's an ordinary repairman on the ship, a married man! With a wife and children! This lady was actually having an affair with a married man!"

The yacht's doctor came forward and determined the man had died of a heart attack during climax.

Linnea remained bewildered, but everyone had already reached their conclusions.

"Miss, did you have an affair with someone else's repairman husband, drain him dry, and cause his death?"

"My God, whose rich young lady is this? How shameless!"

The gossip became increasingly ugly.

Her stepsister even covered her mouth in shock. “Oh my God, how could you do something like this, sister?!”

Linnea shook her head desperately, tears sliding from her eyes. No, it wasn't like this!

The discomfort of being stretched inside her body still existed. Linnea was absolutely certain that everything last night had really happened.

But not with this dead man!

That person didn't have a thin body, didn't have a strong gasoline smell, didn't have... everything was different!

From far away, she seemed to see her father's face.

Even though after her mother's death, she thought she had matured a lot. She freely displayed herself in nightclubs, learned to say all kinds of elegant and vulgar sweet talk, learned to handle those social occasions whether sincere or insincere. But now, with extreme physical discomfort and facing everyone's filthy slander.

Linnea still instinctively looked toward her father.

The one who, after his mother's death, should have been her most loving family member.

He would surely stand up for her like a real father, right? Tell everyone she was an excellent daughter, not some slut!

But what she met were eyes as bone-piercing as ice picks.

Her father coldly glanced at her, then announced to everyone, "Yes, this slut who had an affair with a repairman is my daughter, Linnea Knight!"

"She has disgraced the Knight family and brought shame to her deceased philanthropist mother, Lady Laurel!"

"From now on, she is no longer my daughter!"

Everything began to collapse.

After the incident, Linnea was placed under house arrest by her father. Her emotions collapsed. She locked herself in her mother's bedroom.

She endured countless police interrogations. The police ultimately found no evidence of her crime.

This could prove Linnea was innocent.

But on the third day, her father came in and said apologetically, "Linnea, the police have cleared you of suspicion. I also believe you're not a bad girl. I apologize for those cruel remarks that day."

"But recently, the company has been in deep cooperation with Thorne."

"And the Thorne family cannot tolerate a wife suspected of promiscuity!"

Linnea roared in rebuttal. "But it's all just rumors!"

Her father said calmly, "Even if it's just rumors, it brings disturbance to both companies' reputations."

"But if it were my mother, she would immediately clear the rumors for me and not let me suffer any harm!"

"Oh, I'm truly sorry." Her father showed a guilty expression. "But your mother has passed away, and I'm a businessman. I can't gamble with all the employees' salaries to prove your innocence. Linnea, you need to learn not to fear public opinion..."

Linnea couldn't hold back anymore. "But the one leading the slander against me is my own father! How could I have a father like you!"

And her father just smiled and left.

At that moment, Linnea painfully realized something.

Her father didn't love her at all.

That's why he didn't care if she skipped class and hung out at bars, let her be slandered as a slut. He even hoped she would rot earlier, so she wouldn't have the ability to compete with his beloved pair of illegitimate children for the family fortune.

But did she have to beg her father for protection?

That night, Linnea slammed the document severing their parent-child relationship onto her father's desk.

"Sign it. From now on, I'm only my mother's child."

Of course her father signed it.

After that, she left home.

She changed her surname to her mother's, becoming Linnea Clair, hiding her identity while making her way in society.

She didn't take a single dollar from home.

To earn tuition, she would do anything. She worked hard and saved money, doing all kinds of jobs, from waitressing at restaurants and caddying at golf courses to dancing and serving drinks at bars.

Finally, through her talent and effort, she successfully got into medical school.

But after one year of college, news circulated among high society that Caius and her stepsister had held a wedding!

But this was the fiancé her mother had given her. Anyone could marry Caius except that bitch! She was going to take Caius back!

But how could she, a commoner medical student, possibly have a chance to get close to Caius?

Therefore, she switched majors to finance, continued lying low until she got an offer as an intern secretary.

And that Linnea Knight, with the reputation her father had ruined for her, became gossip for countless nobles in their spare time. A promiscuous slut.

...

Now, five years later.

Her stepmother Carla's movement interrupted Linnea's memories.

Carla drowsily opened the door and ran into this terrible mess and Linnea's hateful gaze. She trembled in fear.

"Linnea, why did you come back?"

The next second, a vase smashed over, shattering at her feet with an explosion-like crash. A shard even pierced her cotton slipper, pinning Carla in place, trembling.

Linnea walked out, looking down at her. "I'm just cleaning up the... garbage in my mother's room."

Carla immediately acted like a weak, bullied woman. Her eyes filled with tears, looking aggrieved and innocent. "Laurel passed away so long ago. I just wanted to use my things to bring life to her room..."

But Linnea was too lazy to play dumb with her.

She suddenly rushed forward and slapped Carla hard across the face, then both hands tightly gripped her neck.

She gritted her teeth, her voice terrifyingly deep. "Tell me, where did my mother's things go?"

Carla struggled desperately. "Ah! Please spare me!"

She almost thought she would suffocate. Fortunately, a brute force pulled them apart.

Linnea's father, Brock Knight, tightly held Carla's petite body in his arms.

His face was gloomy. "Linnea, after five years, you've become a violent maniac. I thought after working as a stripper for a few years, you would know the value of family!"

Stripper, false information Linnea had her best friend spread.

Her father had no doubt whatsoever. He was convinced she would become a filthy bad girl.

Her stepsister snickered from the side. "Sister is so good at pleasing men. How could she suffer at a nightclub?"

Her stepbrother chimed in. "Of course. Sister only had to be on the yacht for a few hours to hook up with a man. That repairman even died because of her!"

They deliberately slandered Linnea.

Wanting to see her go crazy, suffer, argue with a red neck.

But she walked over, smiled, and slapped them both across the face.

Then asked her father, "Where did you put my mother's things?"

"Oh, not long ago, renovation workers came to work and accidentally sold your mother's things as junk..."

Linnea's fists clenched tightly. But finally she released them.

She had hidden her identity and laid low for so many years, not just to beat them up to vent her anger.

So she walked to Vivienne's ear and whispered, "My dear stepsister, these past few years, have you enjoyed getting along with my fiancé?"

Vivienne's face stiffened.

Obviously, she had tried her best to please that man for five years, but he only left her with that interrupted engagement party. No marriage certificate, no assets, and not even a bit of affection. He had never even touched her.

He had only said one thing to her on the day of the engagement party.

"You stole your sister's bride position. That took a lot of effort, didn't it?"

"But unfortunately, I despise illegitimate children. I won't let you get what you want."

Recalling the humiliating past, Vivienne gritted her back teeth in hatred.

She stared hard at her sister, who had long been abandoned by everyone.

She watched her sister raise her head and say to everyone, "Everything you've taken away, soon I'll take it all back, every last bit!"