Chapter 266: Let’s Talk When We Get Back

The men all indicated they understood. The three who Nathan Grant had once called worthless playboys had, over the past few years, become powerful executives capable of supporting their family corporations.

Leah Sinclair and Sheila Hughes were making small talk when Sheila, noticing Leah seemed distracted, nudged her arm. “Leah, what’s wrong?”

“It’s nothing. What were you just saying?”

Leah shook her head, pushing Liam Peyton’s words from her mind. ‘I’ll talk to Asher Keating about this when I get back,’ she decided.

“I was just saying that I’ll never understand the world of the rich. Take a look at these photos of Morgan Sterling the Sterling Group just posted. All those nutritional supplements next to him… Tsk, tsk. They’re disgustingly rich.”

As she spoke, Sheila held her phone up to Leah’s face, casually swiping through the pictures for her to see. They were a few photos of Morgan Sterling looking to be in high spirits, specially posted by the Sterling Group’s official account to prove he was fine after being transferred to a regular ward that day.

Leah glanced at them casually before suddenly reaching out to take Sheila’s phone. Frowning, she zoomed in on one of the photos.

“What is it?”

Sheila leaned in for a look and saw she had zoomed in on a box of premium blood-enriching supplements. “Oh, that stuff. It’s insanely expensive. I had a period where my vitality was low, and Ethan bought some for me to try. Just one box like that costs over ten thousand. What a rip-off! But it works really well, I have to say.”

Even though Ethan Shaw was rich, Sheila had thought it was too extravagant back then. She told him it was wasted on her, that she was a simple girl who couldn’t appreciate such luxury. Ethan got angry. He refused to let Sheila put herself down like that, insisting she deserved the very best, and they had a fight about it. In the end, it took Sheila a full day of coaxing to pacify the Eldest Young Master Shaw.

Aside from the price, there was nothing wrong with those blood-enriching supplements. In fact, they had a special gimmick: every box produced within a single year had a different design on the top-right corner.

And the box Leah had zoomed in on had a pattern in the top-right corner: a beautiful frozen rose. She remembered seeing that exact design on the box Phoebe Peyton’s assistant had been holding that day. She’d even been captivated by its beauty for a moment.

‘This product only has a two-month shelf life, so it can’t be from last year. In that case… why did the item Phoebe’s assistant was holding appear in Morgan Sterling’s hospital room?’

On the drive home, Leah was preoccupied, wondering how to bring this up with Asher. He had noticed her expression was off back in the private room, and he took her hand. “What’s wrong?”

Leah glanced at the driver in the front, then squeezed his hand back and leaned on his shoulder. “Asher,” she said softly, “let’s talk when we get home.”

“Okay. I have something to talk to you about, too.”

Back home, after they had both showered, Asher Keating came out drying his hair to find Leah Sinclair sitting primly on the sofa by the window, waiting for him. There was even a pen and a notebook placed beside her. He couldn’t help but let the corners of his mouth curve into a slight smile. Tossing the towel onto a table, he walked over and sat down across from her.

“What’s… all this?”

Leah bit her lip. “Asher, let’s discuss these things one by one. Otherwise, I’m afraid I’ll get confused.”

As she spoke, Leah opened the notebook and started writing down a few names with her pen: Asher Keating’s, Phoebe Peyton’s, Liam Peyton’s, and her own. When Asher saw her write down Aaron Keating’s name, he raised an eyebrow. “Aaron Keating?”

“Yes.”

Leah looked up at him. “When Wynn was leaving today, he said something to me. He said… to ask you what you did with Phoebe Peyton in Aaron Keating’s house.”

Asher Keating’s brow furrowed. ‘Aaron Keating’s house? What does that have to do with me?’

‘After Aaron Keating lost the internal Keating Family power struggle, I arranged for him to be sent abroad. I did indeed confiscate all the properties and cars in his name. Some were sold, some were given to Alan Keating, and the rest were just left alone for now.’

“I don’t believe you would do anything with Phoebe Peyton,” she said. “I just don’t understand why Wynn would suddenly say that. I feel like he must know something.”

Leah frowned slightly as well. When she first heard him say it, her immediate instinct was to grab Liam Peyton and demand what he meant. But he had left in a hurry, and since it was about Asher Keating, she decided it was best to ask him directly.

Asher Keating took her pen and wrote a date in the notebook—the day Leah Sinclair had fainted. He looked at her and said, “Everything probably started from this day. That day… how did you find out about the… situation with me and Phoebe Peyton?”

It was a topic Leah didn’t want to discuss. But looking into Asher’s deep, somber eyes, her own doubts only multiplied.

After hesitating for a moment, she lowered her head slightly and began, “I went to the garden that day and happened to overhear some of your former classmates chatting. They… they were talking about that incident. They said that for you two to reunite after so long, you must have agreed because you hadn’t forgotten your old flame…”

“We didn’t invite any of our former classmates that day.”

“What?”

Leah shot her head up to look at Asher. ‘They hadn’t invited any classmates? Then who were those two people in the garden?’

Asher stood up, retrieved a tablet, and handed it to her. “I’ve been investigating this for a long time. There was too much foot traffic, so it’s only in the last couple of days that I found them. These two are the ones who were talking in the garden that day for you to hear.”

The video showed the two people’s confession. When Leah heard one of them say that the person who hired them mentioned a “Pey-something” on the phone…

Leah’s expression soured. Asher stroked her head. “The footage also shows Liam Peyton.”

“Asher, do you think Wynn arranged this?”

“What do you think?”

“I don’t think so.”

Leah pulled up the screenshot of the blood-enriching supplements and showed it to Asher. “I saw this box before, with Phoebe Peyton’s assistant.”

She recounted the incident of running into Phoebe Peyton’s assistant that day. A thought struck Asher Keating, and he wrote down Morgan Sterling’s name. “If Morgan Sterling and Phoebe Peyton have been in cahoots from the beginning, then everything would make sense.”

Leah frowned deeply, recalling the events of the past few weeks. From the day of the banquet, to her incident at Azure Bay being exposed, and now to Liam Peyton’s warning—it was as if an invisible hand was orchestrating everything.

‘If that person is Morgan Sterling, then it all does make sense. Phoebe Peyton must have told him about her past with Asher, and Morgan arranged for someone to reveal it to me, planting the first seed of doubt.’

‘And once a seed of doubt is planted, it’s bound to sprout eventually. If I hadn’t been firm in my trust, I would have definitely fought with Asher over it. After that happened enough times, the two of us would have grown more and more distant.’

‘Liam’s presence in the garden could be explained as a coincidence. After hearing such a rumor, it would be natural for him to suspect something was going on between Asher Keating and Phoebe Peyton.’

‘And as for Aaron Keating’s house, Morgan Sterling and Aaron were very close at the time, so it wouldn’t be at all strange for him to know the password.’