Not One, But Two!
Chapter 93

Chapter 93

Chapter 93

"Holy crap! You almost killed me, Abigail!" Greg narrowly dodged the scalpel.

Abigail frowned and asked, "Greg?"

"What do you think? Who else would be able to get into your place?" He was still having palpitationsafter the scalpel nearly cut him. He eyed the woman incredulously, baffled that she would sleep withher scalpel next to her. This is twisted!

Abigail, on the other hand, had lost all sense of sleep. "What are you doing in my house? And also, didyou actually come through the window? For the love of all that's good, Greg, you have quite themakings of a vagrant! May I ask if you're here to assault me or to rob me?"

He was stumped by her question, and a sudden awkwardness hung in the air as he thought, Neither. Icame to do neither of those things. But as for why he came in, he didn't think there was a need to tellher anymore.

"I just, uh, came through the wrong door," he offered lamely after a long pause. It was such a ridiculouslie that even he wanted to laugh at himself.

"Hah!" A smirk tugged up the corner of her lips as she let out a sarcastic bark of laughter. "Think youcould replace the right door now, Mr. Buckley?"

"I'll get going right now." At that moment, Greg swore he had never been quite so embarrassed before.

He returned home after his mishap at Abigail's and was greeted by Alissa, who stood at his bedroomdoor with her arms crossed. She shook her head as she eyed him with mock disappointment. "You'reway too uncool, Daddy."

Greg's pride was taking a hard hit today. He shot her a withering look and asked, "What are you doinghere in my bedroom when you should be sleeping?"

"I can't sleep. Can I use your laptop to play some games?" She didn't wait for him to give her the greenlight before she scrambled into his bed and opened up his laptop.

His brows furrowed. "You know, there's a computer in the study that you can use."

"Aria's using it right now, and she has mad computer skills. She's probably talking to those people overat the Hackers' Guild again." As she said this, Alissa logged onto the gaming platform and started thegame.

Suddenly, Greg realized that he had never told her the password to his laptop. How did she access it?He took a step forward and saw her little fingers flying over the keyboard with a swiftness that beliedher mastery. A little stunned and overwhelmed by this, he pressed, "Are you a hacker, too?"

Blake's son, Alex Huntington, was already a force to be reckoned with. Who could have thought that Iwould have a little genius of my own?

Alissa, however, was oblivious to Greg's thoughts as she said plainly, "I'm not really a hacker. I knowthe basics of it, but Aria's the real master. I think she's even part of the Hackers' Guild."

Greg had heard of the Hackers' Guild. It was a self-established world organization made up of plenty oftop hackers, but only a dozen of them were truly acknowledged by and worked for the Guild.

Is my little Aria one of them? Eager to replace out more, he asked cautiously, "When you say Aria's part ofthe Hackers' Guild, do you mean she's in it for fun or if she's actually working together with them?"

Alissa paused, then frowned and said, "I'm not sure, but there are occasions where money will come infor her. We're talking about numbers like a hundred or two hundred thousand here, but we're kids, and

we can't have our own savings account. Apparently, Aria hacked into someone else's account andused it for her transactions or something like that. Oh, but Mommy doesn't know about this, so youcan't breathe a word, okay, Daddy?" With that, she raised her little pinky finger to him and waited forhim to pinky-promise to keep the information a secret.

Startled, Greg pinky-promised her and left for the study, whereupon he saw Aria typing fervently awayon the keyboard.

When she was serious, she looked like a whole different person. So this is what her real life is like, hethought in awe as he watched her.

Presently, Arianna looked like she was in control of everything. There was even a confident smile onher lips that made her little face even more dazzling.

Greg sneaked up behind her and stared at the numbers that rolled up on her screen like a long,unending receipt. He was suddenly overjoyed, for as it turned out, his child really was a little genius!"Aria, are you..."

He spoke softly, but it still gave Arianna a fright. She jumped and gasped, "Daddy?"

She quickly switched tabs, and when Greg peered at the screen, he saw his company's secret filespulled up before him. As though remembering something, he muttered absentmindedly, "The companyfiles..."

"I was only practicing with them, Daddy! I didn't lose any of the files. Here, I'll restore them for you rightaway," Arianna said, blushing like she had just been caught red-handed doing something illegal.

This was all Alissa's fault. She had been the one who pulled up every single file there was in Greg'scompany's archive to prepare for a full-on retaliation in the event he was doing Abigail wrong. Arianna

was only trying to restore these files to the archive when the members of the Hackers' Guild popped upand started talking to her about an upcoming business deal.

Seeing as Abigail's birthday was fast approaching, Arianna thought this would be a good time to earnsome pocket money and get her a present. Little did she know that she would be caught by Greg.

Frustration welled up in her, but Greg was extremely pleased as he said, "Oh, no, don't worry about it.You can go right ahead and practice to your little heart's content! By the way, darling, where did youpick up all these hacking skills?"

"Mommy hired someone to teach me," Arianna responded easily. Then, she lowered her voice as sheadded, "She said I couldn't go out playing like the other kids because of my asthma, so she got me acomputer to keep me occupied. At some point, I started getting interested in computers, and Mommydecided to hire someone to teach me about this stuff. Allie and I had lessons together at first, but shegot bored, so I was the only one who picked up hacking."

Greg felt like he had struck gold. Abigail certainly has a way with kids! At the thought of that woman, hebegan to wonder if she was still angry with him. Suddenly inspired, he asked Arianna with glitteringeyes, "Darling, do you think you could help me with something?"

"Hmm?"

"See, I kind of made your Mommy angry just now, so could you hack into the security system at herplace and let me see if she's cooled down?"

Arianna's eyes widened when she heard this. "Daddy, do you have a death wish?"

For some reason, he felt like an idiot in front of his daughter. "What do you mean?"

She sighed exasperatedly. "You don't actually think my Mommy wouldn't know if someone hacked intothe security system, do you?"

"But you're a good hacker, aren't you?" he urged, staring at her in confusion.

She was rendered speechless by this. She had never seen Greg look so helpless before, not tomention so adorably naive. With another sigh, she pointed out, "Daddy, you do know that geniusesdon't just naturally become the way they are, right?"

"What?" This time, he was entirely puzzled. He wasn't sure how the formation of geniuses had anythingto do with what they were discussing, which, to him, was a matter of highest import.

However, Arianna merely gave him a sympathetic shake of her head, then said, "You can ask Allie forhelp. She can hack into a system, too. I'm tired, and I'm going to bed now. Goodnight, Daddy."

With that, the little girl pushed her chair back and leaped down from it. She did not spare Greg asecond look as she brushed past him and into her own bedroom.

Greg found himself left high and dry in the study, and he still couldn't make sense of his daughter'swords.

Somewhat baffled, he returned to his bedroom in a daze and relayed the same thing to Alissa, hopingshe would take up his case. But she didn't even consider it before she said, "No deal."

"Why? I can pay you if that's what you want," Greg bargained.

She paused her game and looked at him steadily. "Daddy, are you really this clueless, or are you justfaking it?"

"What?"

"Mommy is a computer genius. Where do you think Aria and I got it from? You? I probably got yourstrength and your fighting instincts, but that's all there is." After saying this, she resumed her game.

Greg was stumped by this new information. Is that woman a computer genius? Seriously? Isn't shesupposed to be a doctor?

He was starting to think that he should have someone look into Abigail's background. It's like she takesme by surprise every day.

Meanwhile, Abigail could not go back to sleep after Greg had trespassed into her bedroom and gaveher an almighty shock.

She got out of bed and pulled on a coat, then came to stand by the French windows. When she thoughtabout how sneaky Greg was behaving earlier, like he was some kind of burglar, she shook her head inexasperation. Then, she locked the window.

They were staying in a really quiet neighborhood. As of now, there was no sign of life out there asidefrom the constant yellow shine of the street lights. The world seemed peaceful without the hustling andbustling of the daytime.

As she stood by the French windows and stared out at the night view, she couldn't help thinking of hermother and what kind of person she might be.

Abigail didn't have much of an impression of her own mother, even when she was a child. Now that sheknew her mother was alive and she had information about her, she was terrified. She wondered if hermother hated her and if that was why she had never visited in all these years. She wanted to know ifthere was some other reason for her absence.

Jonathan had mentioned that she was living a good life right now. But if that were the case, why didn'tshe ever look for me? Abigail thought bitterly.

The questions clamored and snowballed in her mind. She didn't know if her mother had ever remarriedand started a new family or if her mother simply didn't want to acknowledge her existence.

The anxiousness that came with these thoughts made sleep evade her, and it wasn't until the first lightbroke that she realized she had stayed up the whole night by the window.

She stretched and rubbed her aching shoulders, then put on a change of clothes so she could head outfor breakfast. However, she had only just thrown open her front door when she saw that Greg was alsoleaving his house.

There were pale shadows under his eyes, and the full-body yawn that escaped him was proof of hissleepless night.

"Did you stay out last night like the hooligan that you are?"

"For your information, I was on my best behavior," he replied with self-deprecating humor. Then, hestretched and asked, "Where are you off to?"

"To get breakfast," she said as she made her way to her car.

"Forget that. I'm making breakfast in a bit, and you're welcome to join us," he offered. After that, hecracked his neck to loosen it.

Abigail thought about how Emma had waited for her outside the community gates not too long ago andpaused in her tracks. Changing her mind about grabbing breakfast outside, she said, "Okay, then." Shespun on her heels and crossed over the yard to Greg's place.

He was admittedly surprised by her agreement to his offer. It seemed as if she had stopped talking tohim about owing favors and money these days.

He followed her back into his own house, by which time the servants were still asleep.

Abigail staked out a seat on the couch, and Greg noticed that her eyes were red-rimmed. "Roughnight?"

"I couldn't sleep."

"Then try to get some shut-eye before breakfast. What do you feel like having?" He rolled up hissleeves so he could get to cooking.

Abigail wasn't sure what was happening to her. She had had a tough time falling asleep in her ownplace, but her head was growing heavy now that she was at Greg's. "Whatever's fine. I'm going to thegirls' room to take a nap," she mumbled as she stood up from the couch.

"Go up to my room instead. The girls are sleeping soundly now; I don't want you to wake them up."

She did not object to this and obligingly went into his bedroom, and she dozed off as soon as her headhit the pillow.

It was only then that he remembered he had left his pajamas on the bed. He hurried into his room toretrieve them, only to replace that Abigail had fallen asleep.

He wouldn't judge her for her sleeping posture, but he was baffled to see her hugging his pajamas tosleep. Frowning, he made to pry the clothes out of her arms, but the woman had a vise-like grip thatmade the task all the more challenging. Just as he was about to double down on his efforts, his phonerang.