Chapter 21: Pretty Satisfying
Franklin Whitman was hesitating. Should he pretend he didn’t know, or should he clearly ask for this person’s identity?
He had never seen Gavin Grant.
It wasn’t that he hadn’t done his homework in advance. It was just that all the photos of this old guy online were from his younger days; there were absolutely no photos of him in his old age. Those who didn’t know better might think he had kicked the bucket.
Franklin hadn’t pushed his brain to spin at such a high speed in a long time. In the end, he decided to play dumb and keep his own identity hidden.
Just as he was coming up with an excuse to slip away, Gavin Grant suddenly called out, "Adrian, come here for a second."
Franklin looked over at the sound, the word "Doomed" practically screaming in his mind.
He might not have met Gavin Grant, but how could he not recognize Adrian Grant? In other words, Gavin didn’t know him, but wouldn’t Adrian recognize him?
Adrian walked over, his gaze sweeping lightly over the chessboard on the table and the man playing against Gavin. He looked somewhat familiar—this seemed to be Caroline Whitman’s father.
"Grandpa, what is it?" Adrian asked.
Gavin stood up directly, offering his seat. "Come play a game with my grandson. If you can beat him, I’ll call you my big brother."
Adrian was speechless.
Franklin was speechless.
"No, no, no. If you’re going to put me on such a pedestal, I’m leaving," Franklin hurriedly stood up and waved his hands.
"Mr. Grant’s grandson, your grandfather just lost ten games. If you don’t step in to save his face, he probably won’t be able to sleep tonight," Master Lockwood, who was watching the show from the sidelines, chuckled heartily.
Seeing that Franklin was about to slip away, Gavin had no choice but to say, "Alright, alright, let’s just have a friendly exchange of chess skills, nothing more."
Just like that, Franklin was pushed back down into his seat to have a match with Adrian.
Franklin had the first move in this game. However, before placing his piece, he pondered whether he should go easy on the younger man or maintain his usual ruthless style...
After all, winning against the grandfather and losing to the grandson would, frankly speaking, mean giving no face to the birthday star. But if he beat both grandfather and grandson, would this family hold a grudge? Would their future business cooperation go up in smoke?
Ugh, what a headache. The business world was like a battlefield; who knew the chessboard was one too?
After turning it over in his mind, he decided to win it all. When the time came, he’d just find an excuse, dust off his hands, and slip away early, leaving the rest for Caroline to handle on behalf of the Whitman Group.
「Meanwhile.」
Caroline Whitman had been searching for quite a while. Winding her way through the massive garden, she finally found a place with a pavilion and a chessboard.
There were very few people here. It was easy for her to spot the horrifying scene of her unreliable father playing chess with Adrian Grant—it nearly scared her to death. Most importantly, there were two elderly men standing beside them.
Although Caroline hadn’t seen those two older faces before, her intuition told her that one of them had to be Gavin Grant—Adrian’s grandfather and the star of this birthday banquet. She could even picture exactly what had happened: Franklin had definitely played against these two elders earlier, and they had eventually pulled Adrian in as a substitute.
For Adrian to be called in, it meant that Franklin absolutely wasn’t holding back on the board.
"Dad... you’ve really given me quite a scare!" Caroline thought, feeling a headache coming on.
She stopped and watched for a while, deciding to stay quiet and not disturb them. She could only pray that those men didn’t know who Franklin Whitman was.
Unexpectedly, after placing a piece, Adrian inadvertently raised his eyes to look behind Franklin and met Caroline’s gaze head-on. He took in the brief look of shock that flashed across her small face.
Retracting his gaze, he calmly lowered his eyes to look at where Franklin had moved and suddenly praised, "Good move."
Pausing for a moment, he offered a slight smile, his tone gentle. "President Whitman’s perspective is indeed tricky. Thinking three steps ahead for every move you make—no wonder the Whitman Group has grown so rapidly in recent years."
Adrian’s voice was unhurried, neither too loud nor too soft, but just enough for both Franklin and Caroline, who was standing not far away, to hear clearly.
The hearts of both father and daughter skipped a beat simultaneously.
"This guy is definitely doing this on purpose, right?" Caroline grumbled inwardly, her eyelid twitching.
"Oh? So it’s President Whitman of the Whitman Group," Gavin Grant said in surprise.
Franklin was quite the actor himself. He first acknowledged his identity, and then, feigning a delayed realization, he gasped, "He called you Mr. Grant, and President Grant here calls you Grandpa... could you be today’s birthday star? Haha..."
Hearing this, Caroline turned around in silence and slipped away. She didn’t have the guts to listen to the rest of the conversation, so she went to look for Yolanda Young instead. As it turned out, her old mother was chatting and laughing with a group of wealthy ladies. Forget it; this wasn’t a circle she could participate in anyway.
Guests were still continuously pouring into the birthday banquet. Aside from eating cake, drinking, and chatting in the main hall, everyone was wandering around the gardens, enjoying the scenery.
Frankly speaking, she had been here for an hour, and the star of the banquet still hadn’t appeared before the public. After asking around, she found out that during Gavin Grant’s birthday banquets in previous years, ordinary guests rarely got to see the man himself. Only family members and a few guests with special ties would be invited into the inner hall to meet and catch up with him.
So, how did her cheapskate dad manage to blunder his way in there? Thinking of this, Caroline finally noticed that along the way, there seemed to be no random guests like her around. Wait, was this the inner domain of the Grant family?
Relying on her memory, Caroline fumbled around for quite a while before finally making it back to the banquet hall. Fortunately, her body didn’t experience any abnormal reactions during this time.
However, no sooner had her front foot stepped into the hall than she saw Franklin and Adrian walk in, chatting and laughing. There was no one else following behind the two of them.
As she walked over to find Franklin, a figure blocked her path. It was Matthew Grant again.
"Where did Miss Whitman go just now? I heard you secured a project from my uncle. Congratulations on getting what you wanted.
"Let’s have another drink. Now our two families can be considered partners," Matthew Grant said, tipping his chin slightly. A waiter beside him immediately poured a glass of wine and handed it over.
Caroline calmly glanced in Franklin’s direction. In just a short while, he had already struck up a conversation with a group of middle-aged men. Meanwhile, Adrian was unexpectedly talking with Vincent Fuller and a few others. What a surprising sight.
Matthew Grant followed her gaze, his eyes darkening with complex emotions. Why did Adrian appear here? However, he wasn’t afraid of this woman suddenly making a scene. If she threw a huge tantrum like last time, it would be even better; he was just worrying about not finding an opportunity to push the Whitman family into a corner.
Naturally, Caroline wouldn’t act like the nail that sticks out and publicly humiliate Matthew Grant on such an occasion. After all, this was the Grant family’s home turf.
Caroline took the wine glass and downed it in one gulp. "Does President Grant have anything else to say?"
"Very straightforward," Matthew Grant replied. "It’s just a pity that your straightforwardness is misplaced."
At this moment, a delicate woman holding a wine glass came up and linked arms with him. "Matthew, we haven’t seen each other in so long."
Matthew Grant’s attention was immediately drawn to this beauty, and Caroline took the opportunity to slip away to the restroom.
On her way back to the banquet hall, she suddenly felt her entire body burning up.
"Fuck," Caroline cursed under her breath.
She looked up at her surroundings and, sure enough, saw the waiter who had poured her wine standing in the hallway. Seeing this, she immediately turned around and pulled out her phone to call Franklin and Yolanda Young. In the end, perhaps because they were too engrossed in chatting with someone, neither of them answered her calls this time.