Novel Square
Chapter 1216
Melon shouldn’t have been thrust into this harsh reality at such a tender age. Ariana had always wished for him to enjoy a carefree childhood.
Tears streamed down her cheeks as Ariana knelt, enfolding Melon in her arms.
After contemplating, she said, “Daddy loved us very much. He must be watching you growing up and missing us terribly.”
Ariana’s voice broke several times as she continued, “But Daddy turned into a star in the sky to watch over us. He’ll always be there, guarding you and me.”
Understanding dawned on Melon, and he couldn’t help but cry in Ariana’s embrace. His quiet sobs soon escalated into heartrending wails. “I’m truly a fatherless child! I don’t have a dad!” Property belongs to Nôvel(D)r/ama.Org.
Ariana’s heart ached as Melon’s cries pierced the room. The weight of her decisions bore down on her. Her arms wrapped around Melon, tears streaming down her face, she whispered, “I’m right here with you, Melon. Always.”
Those words were all she could muster.
At that moment, Mitchel dropped by. Noticing Ariana hadn’t descended from upstairs in quite some time, he went up. The scene that greeted him, Ariana and Melon in tears, caught him off guard. With a surge of concern, he rushed to them. “What’s going on? What happened?”
Melon, upon recognizing Mitchel’s voice, clung to him, his face stained with tears. Mitchel embraced the child, patting his back gently, trying to soothe him.
Pulling herself together, Ariana’s voice trembled. “I messed up. I hired someone online to pretend to be Melon’s dad, and he found out… I told him about Theodore.”
Tears blurred Ariana’s vision as she continued to dab them away.
Ariana gazed at Melon, her heart weighed down by guilt. It dawned on her: hiring someone to pretend to be Theodore had been a grave mistake.
Perhaps honesty from the start would have spared Melon the heartbreak.
Mitchel, seeing Ariana’s distress, gently guided her head to his shoulder
“You acted out of love, trying to give Melon a complete childhood,” he whispered. 12
His hand reached out to smooth Melon’s hair. “Melon, your dad is still with you, just in a unique way. He was there when you both needed him most. His love remains.”
Melon nodded as tears continued, but as they flowed, exhaustion took over, and he drifted to sleep. Ariana, eyes still swollen, looked at him and then slowly regained her composure.
She turned to Mitchel, her voice hesitant. “The man I hired to play Melon’s dad is Holden.”
Mitchel blinked, his emotions churning. This revelation was startling.
After a pause, he asked, “Have you ever seen Holden face-to-face?”