Bought For A Baby, Kept For A Lifetime-Chapter 76: Framed

As Anne returned downstairs, she encountered a familiar face. The young man walked in with elegant strides, eyes lowered as his fingers tapped over his phone screen. Then he subtly raised his gaze, inadvertently falling on her.

Anne’s face split up in a nice smile as their gazes met. After all, he’d become someone she was now quite familiar with.

It’d been quite a while since she last saw this kid. She realized she hadn’t seen him after that evening he’d helped her clean those offices.

Donald, upon seeing her, stiffened for a moment. He’d had on a pair of earphones, his eyes distractedly looking at his phone as he returned home. After raising a fleeting glance, his eyes landed on Anne, who was smiling at him.

She even raised her hand and waved at him in a familiar gesture. However, his expression wasn’t as friendly as hers.

The youth’s eyes turned cold upon seeing her. Neither did he smile at her, nor return her enthusiastic wave. His eyes retained a look of unfamiliarity, as if he’d encountered a stranger. Without saying a word to her, he walked past her.

Anne’s waving hand stiffened, the smile on her face falling.

What was that?

Did he not see her or what?

She knew she wasn’t too nice to him before, but she’d never been this rude to him, right?

Besides, he helped her clean the last time she was punished by his brother, so why was he suddenly acting strange?

Elder Sterling returned, and dinner was served in the dining room.

Anne still felt quite awkward being here, but she followed to the exquisitely large dining room that looked like a vision from modern royalty.

Gabriel constantly tried to talk to her while they ate, and Elder Sterling made sure she was well attended to the whole time.

When it was finally over, she quickly said her thanks and goodbye to the elder man who’d invited her and went on her way.

Elder Sterling asked a maid to call the driver to drop her home before he retired back to his room afterward.

On her way out, Anne couldn’t help but look around, wondering why Andrew hadn’t been in the dining room earlier.

She hadn’t seen him throughout dinner.

He was constantly working, she seemed to have noticed.

At the office, his eyes were glued to files and his computer—if he wasn’t attending meetings, that is. And here too, she’d managed to come to his home only to see that he was constantly buried in work, judging by how he’d brought his laptop downstairs earlier to work.

Anne stopped looking around when she couldn’t see him, but she didn’t expect someone to suddenly block the door and stop her from leaving.

"Is there a problem?" Anne gently asked the maid who suddenly showed up and blocked her way.

"We don’t allow guests to leave with things that don’t belong to them," the maid said rudely.

When Anne turned to look behind her, she realized several other maids had shown up behind her, standing like guards around her.

"What do you mean by that?" Anne couldn’t understand what was going on.

She was suddenly surrounded by the staff in the estate. A bad premonition rose up her spine.

"Grab her bag and someone call Master Andrew, tell him something precious to him has been stolen," the maid instructed with an authoritative voice, and all the others moved to carry out her orders.

Anne felt her bag suddenly yanked out of her grip by someone.

"Don’t pretend to not know what’s going on. A thief who’s been caught already knows deep inside that they’re guilty. If I hadn’t seen you, you would have gotten away with this. But we’re not being paid to let just anyone take something out of this estate just like that."

Anne’s eyes clouded with confusion. "Are you... accusing me of stealing something?"

"Accusing? I’m not just accusing you. I’m sure you stole something, and I’m not letting you get away with it."

At this point, Anne finally saw the familiarity on the maid’s face.

It was the same girl she’d encountered earlier up in Andrew’s bedroom.

"I didn’t steal anything. If you’re misunderstanding, then you can just check through my bag."

The girl’s lips turned in a twisted smirk. "Oh, we won’t just be searching your bag. We’ll search through every part of your body until we’re sure you didn’t take anything."

"Why do you sound so sure that I took something, unless you’re the one framing me for it?"

Anne couldn’t help but rapidly think about it. It was no coincidence that this girl who she’d randomly met in the room would openly accuse her of something she hadn’t done.

"Framing you? Why would I do that when I would risk losing my job? I’m telling the truth and nothing else, and it’s only because I saw you take something in Master’s room earlier."

She took something in whose room earlier? Was she talking about Andrew’s room?

Anne finally understood.

It wasn’t a coincidence that she’d met the girl in the room earlier.

The girl had planned to frame her all along. She wouldn’t claim to have seen her otherwise.

The girl did speak one truth: she wouldn’t risk losing her job by harassing a guest. That only meant that...

Anne turned to glimpse her bag, which was currently held by another maid as they awaited the superiors of the house to arrive at the scene.

Whatever the maid claimed she stole was currently in her bag.

And how did it get there?

The person framing her knew exactly how. This maid was deliberately framing her, and she’d put something in her bag.

Anne recalled the encounter where the girl had bumped into her by accident. She realized now that it was no accident but something deliberate.

But what Anne couldn’t understand was how she’d offended this maid. She’d never been here before, nor did she know this maid before, so why was she doing this?

"What’s going on here?"

Donald came down with his headphones still on.

In all truth, he’d deliberately ignored Anne earlier, but he hadn’t been able to get it off his mind.

He realized he was just sulking like a child after being upset about the other night, but perhaps she didn’t even know what he was upset about.

That night, after his brother had made him leave that office, Donald had gone to the end of the hallway and waited.

He couldn’t just leave Anne with his brother just like that. He knew how his brother’s rage could be. But after waiting for a full hour, no one emerged from the office.

Donald had gone back, contemplating if he should knock and ask what was going on, but he’d held back. In the end, he’d decided to wait some more. But Donald felt something strange.

What could his brother possibly be discussing with Anne in the office for so long?

After waiting for about twenty more minutes, Donald couldn’t take it anymore. He held the knob and turned with the intention to open the door. If his brother was still angry, he would just do everything to appease him, but he definitely wouldn’t leave Anne alone with him again. However, no matter how much he turned the knob, the door didn’t budge.

Donald stiffened with a strange look on his face.

Why was the door locked from the inside?

A trace of fear suddenly trailed into him.

Could his brother have lost his temper terribly? What if he hurt Anne?

Donald raised his hand with the intention to pound on the door when the lights suddenly went off.

He frowned, wondering what happened to the lights, when he caught a glimpse of some uniformed men walking by the next hallway holding torches to illuminate their way.

These people were the electrical team.

From what Donald knew, the electrical team were supposed to come a few days ago, but...

With a thoughtful look on his face, he remembered his brother calling and instructing them to postpone the inspection date.

Something seemed to click in Donald’s mind.

Why had his brother postponed the routine inspection knowing the lights and connection would be down tonight? Furthermore, why did he send him away, insisting on being alone with Anne in that office, tonight of all days?

And Anne... she hadn’t even reacted with fear like others would in his brother’s presence. In fact, she’d even asked him to leave too.

Could it be... his brother and Anne?

Donald felt as if something exploded in his mind.

His hand, which had been raised to knock, suddenly came down, and slowly he began to back away and walk away in the darkness of the hallway.

In that moment, Donald hadn’t allowed himself to think rationally. He’d just suddenly felt betrayed for some reason and forcefully shoved any other thought out of his mind. It was only tonight, after seeing Anne, that he let himself think about it.

Why would Anne have anything to do with his brother? And why would his brother punish her like that if they had anything going on?

He’d really not been thinking straight. Was he actually jealous?

That was the only good enough explanation for why he’d rashly jumped to stupid conclusions.

Thinking back to her radiant smile when she sighted him earlier, he felt terribly guilty for ignoring her. He quickly rushed down to at least apologize to her and say goodnight, since she was about to leave, when he encountered the commotion.

"Young Master Donald, I apologize for causing a ruckus tonight, especially with a guest Old Master brought home, but I believe it’s my job to bring a wrongdoing I’ve witnessed to light. Otherwise, we the staff will end up being blamed for it if she manages to get away."

Donald frowned as he noticed a maid called Sasha ramble on and on while several of the staff surrounded Anne like a criminal about to be apprehended.

"What rubbish are you talking about? First of all, get away from her before explaining exactly what you’re talking about."

Hearing a rare stern tone in Donald’s voice, the maids all stepped aside, and even Sasha reluctantly moved.

Donald walked up to Anne, staring at her apologetically.

"Are you okay?" he asked, gently touching her arm. Donald didn’t think too much about that subtle touch. However, he felt the hairs at his nape stand on end and turned around, only to be met with a pair of dangerously dark eyes from Andrew, who was standing at the foot of the stairs.

Anne, upon seeing Andrew’s dark eyes, felt hopeless.

If whatever they planted in her bag was found there, Andrew would never believe she hadn’t taken it. He hated her that much.

Fear became a sharp lump stuck in her throat.