Marry My Billionaire Second Husband - Chapter 174

Chapter 174: All Saints Orphanage
Michael Kentwood blinked in surprise, but there was a faintly wary expression in his eyes. Amelia was immediately suspicious; her father’s reaction would have made more sense if she had asked something about her nasty uncle. Why was a simple question about an orphanage triggering such wariness, especially after her father had brought it up?

“Oh, that’s it?” her father asked, voice deliberately blasé. “Why do you want to know?”

“I don’t remember anything about it,” Amelia confessed honestly. “Before working with Hope for Scholars, I had no experience with orphans at all! I was very surprised last night when you brought it up.”

Her father suddenly looked like he sucked on a lemon. He sighed deeply. “I knew my tongue would get me into trouble someday.”

“What trouble? What are you not telling me?” Amelia demanded. “From your words, I must have gone to the orphanage when I was a child. Did the both of you abandon me or something? Or am I adopted?”

Vague horror filled her veins. Oh god. Maybe she was adopted. Maybe she had no blood relation to her parents at all.

“Of course not!” Michael Kentwood caught sight of his daughter’s stricken look and hurriedly held her hand to reassure her. “You are definitely my biological daughter.”

“Then why was I at the orphanage? Was I so disobedient you left me there as a punishment?” Amelia asked with morbid curiosity. She didn’t think she was ill-behaved as a child, but perhaps her parents thought differently and wanted to teach her a lesson.

“I can’t believe you’re saying the same thing decades later,” her father said with wry amusement. “I guess there are some things that won’t change after all this time.”

“What things?” Amelia asked, feeling like she was going in circles. She demanded hotly, her eyebrow twitching in irritation. “Dad, can you just give me the full story? What on earth did I do?”

Did she beat up a whole orphanage’s worth of kids? Surely she wouldn’t be such a terrible child, right?

Beside her, Dimitri ate his toast placidly, his eyes darting between the both of them.

“When you were around seven years ago, I brought you over to the All Saints Orphanage to volunteer, since I needed something to occupy your time while your mom wasn’t feeling well.” Her father began with a sigh. “You hated it at the start because you thought I was abandoning you while your mother was ill. You had quite a vivid imagination back then, and you would scream the whole way there.”

“Well… you must admit that’s something natural to think,” Amelia mumbled. She had no recollection of this, but she still felt the urge to defend her child-self. “Why were you volunteering at the orphanage to begin with?”

“They always need a pair of helping hands,” her father said. “There are hardly any men around to help with heavy lifting, or with the fixing of household appliances, or with painting the walls… There was no reason not to refuse if I had the time. Your mom also knew about it and supported bringing you there. She wanted you to learn from the less fortunate.”

That made sense. Her father had a heart that bled for everyone but his brother. And she remembered enough of her mom that she knew Elaine Hawthorne did love to impart life lessons whenever she could.

Beside her, Dimitri had the faintest frown on his face.

“Why would Amelia not remember anything though?” Dimitri asked, curious. “At the age of seven, there should be some memory imprint of past events, even if the details are fuzzy. Unless…”

Then he glanced quickly at her father and fell silent with a thoughtful hum.

“Unless?” Amelia prompted.

“Unless nothing. I was just thinking to myself, pay me no mind,” Dimitri said, drinking the last of his tea.

If Amelia believed him, then she was a fool. Clearly, he was respecting her father’s wishes, and her father was determinedly keeping mum about this. But that was fine. Now that Amelia had gotten the location of the orphanage and a rough timeline of events, she could do her own research. She discreetly began to type into her phone’s search browser.

‘All Saints Orphanage incidents.’ If she was seven years old back then… that would be nearly two decades now, so she expanded the search. She clicked on the first link that appeared.

It was simply a website for the orphanage. Amelia scrolled all the way to the bottom and had to stifle a sigh; the website was only created five years ago, which wouldn’t be useful in her search.

Well, at least she had an address and phone number now. She continued her search, oblivious to the way her father shot her an alarmed glance.

She keyed in, ‘All Saints Orphanage old news twenty years’.

There had to be something there. But the search results were a dead end, so Amelia tried again.

‘All Saints Orphanage children girl accident’

Back then, the internet wasn’t as well developed as things were now, but hopefully, the news reports would have some news. Surely some of the news would have been archived online. Amelia had a niggling feeling that whatever caused her to forget the happenings at All Saints Orphanage wouldn’t have been ordinary.

It should have made the news.

To her surprise, there was nothing. Amelia changed the search parameters, but it seemed as though all information on All Saints Orphanage was seemingly wiped off the web. It was as though the orphanage had sprung into existence merely five years ago, with a fresh website.

How very strange. But Amelia comforted herself with the knowledge that perhaps it was simply too insignificant to be transferred online. The local libraries should still have news articles saved. All she had to do was to pay them a visit later.

“Millie, why are you suddenly so curious about this?” her father asked, a wan expression on his face.

“Why would I not be?” Amelia retorted. “Dad, if you found out you forgot an entire incident for years, wouldn’t you want to find out more?”

“Perhaps… not,” Dimitri chimed in. “The human mind is a wondrous thing that has the capability to protect itself from harm. Your lack of memories about that place might be a coping mechanism your brain has used to suppress horrifying memories.”

“But…” Dimitri had a point, but Amelia thought about Matteo’s reaction and shook her head. “I have to know. Matteo might be involved.”

Now Dimitri was genuinely perplexed and her father was stunned. “Matteo? At the orphanage? No, that is impossible. I don’t recall any boy with that name. What would he even be doing there?”

“That’s what I’m trying to find out,” Amelia said grimly.