Ch. 411..415: The Secretly Rich Man Chapter 411-415

Chapter 411

Gerald Crawford:The Secretly Rich Man Novel (Invisible or Poorest) Chapter 411 “Gerald, did you come here to have lunch?” Morgana enquired, with no small amount of disbelief.

At the table sat Morgana, her boyfriend, Cameron, and several others. Everyone was smiling his way.

Mead Hall was unmistakably an upper-crust establishment, and you paid by the head here, from a starting minimum of thirty dollars per pax. After accounting for drinks and so on, each meal could easily cost hundreds.

Everyone knew Gerald wasn’t rich, so this was a fairly peculiar circumstance.

Gerald smiled back at them. “That’s right! I’m meeting with some friends, and I thought I’d treat them all to lunch here! Who would have thought I’d run into you guys here, too!”

“Pfft! We eat here all the time!”

“Ah, Gerald… It’s nice that you’re treating your friends to something, but do you know they charge at least thirty dollars per person here? Are you sure this is a good idea?” This was coming from a girl seated beside Morgana, who had also gone to the same high school with them.

Sully was her name. Not a bad-looking girl. She pursed her mouth as she gave him that warning.

This was a high-class place, after all, meant only for people like her, who already held a certain standing in society. It wasn’t as though she took especial pride in eating here, but… come on, a hobo like Gerald taking his lunch here? That just put her off her palate.

People like him ought to just stick with fast food joints and hot dog stands, that sort of thing.

It was downright disgraceful. Did Gerald presume to being their equals?

That was why she’d taken such an acrimonious tone with him.

“Hey now, Sully! You shouldn’t talk to Gerald like that—he’s got his pride, too! If he wants to eat here, then that’s that. Anyway, this is a chance for us to get to know the friends he’s made! Hahaha!” Cameron sneered as he said this.

Whether in terms of family background or career prospects, he was indisputably the alpha at this table, making him the keystone of the group.

Sully cackled. “Goodness, Cameron… The sort of friends a guy like Gerald would make—are you sure you’d like to shake hands with them? Anyway, I only said that for his own good: Without taking stock of his own capacities, thinking to eat wherever he pleases… are appearances all he thinks about? Living beyond his own means… no one respects a person like that!”

She had disliked Gerald since high school: some impoverished bum prancing about before her… Pathetic! She could hardly care less about his feelings.

Anyway, for Gerald to be eating in the same restaurant as her showed that he didn’t care about her feelings, either.

“Alright, Gerald’s friends will be here any moment. Pipe down, you guys!” Morgana couldn’t bear to watch any longer.

Gerald gave her a smile and a nod.

“Cameron, who’s this guy? A classmate from high school?” An exquisitely made-up girl beside Cameron inquired curiously.

“That’s right, ahahaha! Think he’s cute? If he’s your type, Gerald’s still single—you could be his girlfriend!” Cameron burst out laughing.

“Hey! Cameron, you’re the worst! Keep this up, and I’m not talking to you anymore!” The girl pinched the tender portion of his arm.

Everyone chuckled. Gerald kept quiet and continued nodding away.

“Hey, look! Gerald’s blushing! I know… he must really like the idea of Maybelline becoming his girlfriend! Otherwise why would his face be turning red like that? Haha!” Another one of the guys decided to join in.

“Yo! Serious offer, Gerald. If this girl’s to your taste, she’s all yours. My word is good!” Cameron guffawed again.

“That’s alright—I already have a girlfriend!” Gerald replied in exasperation, although he understood that they’d only been making fun of him with that. It had been the same back in high school. Gerald knew it was best to just keep quiet.

 

Chapter 412

Gerald Crawford:The Secretly Rich Man Novel (Invisible or Poorest) Chapter 412 He couldn’t very well go around telling everyone that he was rich, like some fool who’d just won the lottery, and try to show up everyone, right?

Feh. What would that achieve?

“Heaven have mercy! Gerald’s actually found himself a girlfriend?” One of the guys exclaimed. “Holy hell, this is big news! We’ve got a high school reunion coming up in a few days, right? Everyone will be floored when they hear about this!”

“Gosh, what sort of girl would take a fancy to him? Oh, no… who’s grandma is it?” Sully shook her head, and took a sip of her juice.

This elicited a round of merry laughter from everyone at her table.

Morgana watched Gerald with a growing sense of disquiet. Then she said, “Gerald, today we’re actually celebrating my promotion at work—to the Reserve Department, no less. Cameron’s my guest here today. How many friends of yours will be coming? I’d be glad to have them join us.”

“No, I can’t accept that. There may be seven or eight of them!” Gerald said with a laugh.

So Morgana had finally settled that problem of hers. He remembered bumping into Zack Lyle, there. However, Zack hadn’t followed up with him on that matter, probably because he considered it too minor to be worth his attention.

As for her recent stroke of good fortune… Gerald couldn’t say if that was thanks to him, or Cameron. As such, he didn’t offer any comments, only nodded. Then he took a seat at the next table.

Honestly, he felt embarrassed to be here, too. However, the restaurant was packed right now, and there were no other tables available further away—even if there were, it would be too awkward to switch places now. Neither could he just walk out of here…

He could only sit there and sweat.

Just then, Giya and Tammy entered. Following after them, besides Tammy’s cousin, were also two other guys and girls each—presumably Tammy’s aforementioned distant relatives.

“Wow, wow, wow! Babes! Hot babes!” Cameron and the other guys had noticed the new arrivals, and were too stunned to do much more than gape. Such beauty as had suddenly graced this hall!

“Who are they? They’re smoking hot! Absolute, top-tier charisma!” One guy beside Cameron noted.

“Hmph! They’re not that hot. They’re just really tall and sorta skinny. Pah!” Sully actually thought Giya and Tammy looked like celebrity supermodels, and had been moved by envy to speak.

As for that girl in the heavy make-up, sitting on Cameron’s other side… Compared to the girls who’d just walked in, she looked like a party clown.

“Anyone got the stones to go ask for their numbers? Whoever steps up, I shall know him as my lord!” The guy who said this was positively drooling.

And then, all eyes turned to Cameron.

After all, whether in terms of family background, or career prospects… he was the alpha!

Cameron was already getting up from his seat. He cleared his throat, smoothed out his shirt…

“Watch this. I’m going in!”

“Oh, yeah! Cameron rocks!”

“All our hopes ride with you, my lord!”

But Cameron had already intercepted the targets. “Hey there, sweet things… Here for lunch? Found a table yet? Maybe I could be of assistance—I come here all the time!” They were even more dazzling up close. Cameron’s heart was racing out of control.

“We’re fine, thanks!” Giya and Tammy calmly deflected his advances. Something about him just put them off.

Cameron fished out his phone. “Ahem… Could I ask you ladies for your numbers? Call me Cameron. You may have heard of my family—”

“He’s over there! Come on, let’s go!” Spying her target across the hall, Tammy completely ignored Cameron, and led her entourage straight towards Gerald.

Chapter 413

Gerald Crawford:The Secretly Rich Man Novel (Invisible or Poorest) Chapter 413 “Hmph! Gerald, don’t you even know how to wait for us outside once you’ve got a table?” When Tammy reached him, Giya was by her side. The first thing that spewed out of her mouth was abuse.

Gerald put down his phone and smiled faintly. He’d been preoccupied with reading investment reports coming in from Zack Lyle.

Meanwhile, Sully and the others were staring as though their eyes might pop out of their sockets. “What? What! These are the friends Gerald was going on about?”

Cameron still stood there, phone in hand, his face now turning blue.

They ignored him, but yet, they were so friendly to Gerald? Blast! It was indeed a vicious slap across the face!

“Huh? Gerald, happen to know those people at the next table?”

Giya had taken a seat beside him, and she now wondered why everyone at the adjacent table seemed to be gawking strangely in his direction.

“Hey, hey! Gerald, why don’t you introduce your friends to us? When I went up to welcome them, those ladies just brushed me off, you know?”

Cameron, smiling stiffly, tried again.

He thought Gerald perhaps hadn’t moved to receive the girls, hoping that Cameron might get some humiliation there.

He continued in an aggravated tone, “How are you doing, ladies? We went to the same high school as Gerald! How lucky we must be to meet such gorgeous girls today… Really, this isn’t right of you, Gerald—the ladies have already taken their seats, so why aren’t you ordering anything to eat? How could you bear to watch these beauties starve?”

Desperate to salvage his dignity, Cameron was now hovering beside Gerald’s table, trying to assert himself as someone handy, hoping to attract the attention of those girls.

“Indeed, they’re my ex-classmates from high school. What a small world we live in!” Gerald reluctantly admitted.

Giya laughed merrily.

“That’s great! You ought to introduce these old friends of yours to me! After all, as your girlfriend, I can’t possibly not know who your friends are.”

To her, it was simple: Gerald’s friends were her friends and though they were just masquerading as a couple, it was becoming more real to her with each passing moment.

However, that last thing she said left everyone at the next table wholly disconcerted.

What? Really? This epitome of loveliness was Gerald’s girlfriend? Seriously?

Fires of jealousy flared in the eyes of the other guys.

Who were they? Uptown boys they were—filthy rich, set for life.

Who was Gerald again? Some loser who couldn’t even rub two pennies together.

Not all of them had even found their own girlfriends, yet here was Gerald, a supermodel by his side. Who wouldn’t be jealous? Without a doubt, Cameron was turning viridian green with swathes of envy

oozing out of his chest.

“So you’re Gerald’s girlfriend, I see! How do you do? I’m Cameron. My parents are in the Health Bureau. I do hospital work. Ahaha!” As he made clear his superiority, Cameron reached out to shake hands with Giya.

With a flick of his wrist, a watch with the commanding price tag of well over a thousand dollars slid into view.

Giya considered this fool before her, one who felt the inexplicable need to introduce not only himself but his parents as well. What an odd way to go about things.

She decided not to take the hand he was offering her.

Anxious not to embarrass Cameron too much, Gerald shook his hand instead, at least so he wouldn’t be left hanging there.

“Haha! Who would have thought: Gerald Crawford, the renowned tramp of our year, back in high school… reviled and loathed everywhere he went…” Cameron went on. “Who could have possibly imagined that he might have caught himself such a ravishing beauty of a girlfriend?”

As he said this, he shot a meaningful look at one of the other guys back at his table.

The indicated henchman slapped the tabletop hard! “That’s right! Gerald,” he shouted. “I can’t believe your luck! Do you all still remember that one time when Gerald almost couldn’t pay his own tuition fees because he was just six bucks short or something? Great Scott, our teacher chased him right out of the classroom! Hahaha! And guess what—I think it rained heavily that day!”

“Of course I remember,” Sully sneered. “Gerald trudged through the rain looking for trash to sell and somehow managed to scrape together those last six dollars, just so he could stay in school. Hahaha!

No one in class cared to lift a hand to help him! He’s sure come a long way, hosting his own table at Mead Hall with that doll at his side… Well done!”

There was a strange parade of veiled hints getting passed around here. They were digging up all manner of dirt from Gerald’s past, all to be stripped bare before Giya and her friends.

Predictably, Tammy’s cousin and several of her friends were already peering at Gerald’s askance. Thus far, he sounded all but a sorry loser.

“Never mind that, Gerald!” one of the guys hooted. “To commemorate your girlfriend’s first-ever visit to Serene County, you can’t start lower than sixty dollars each, right?”

Cameron frowned.

“What nonsense are you spouting over there? Only sixty dollars?! This pair of goddesses are worth far more than that! Gerald, if you don’t go straight for the best quality at a hundred dollars per person, you don’t deserve the company of these ladies! Haha! But worry not, Gerald—if you’re strapped for cash, I’ll pay for you. It’s important to keep up appearances, after all!”

Just then, the waiter arrived to take their order.

Chapter 414

Gerald Crawford:The Secretly Rich Man Novel (Invisible or Poorest) Chapter 414 “What grade will you select today?”

Across all tables, all eyes turned to Gerald.

“Give me your best. A hundred per pax!”

It was what he’d been planning for all along, anyway.

“Pfft!” Cameron and company tried to hold in their laughter.

What an imbecile! A hundred dollars per head, plus drinks—the final bill would add up to a thousand dollars!

Tammy’s side of the table was equally shocked by the turn of events. They reached the same conclusion: Gerald was a complete fool. Anyone could see that Cameron was up to no good, provoking him intentionally. Yet, Gerald walked straight into his trap. Really?

Gerald’s lack of affluence was hardly news to Tammy. She’d already agreed with Giya not to allow Gerald to foot this meal’s bill.

Now, Gerald was going for the most expensive option available? Argh! May the heavens help her!

“I beg your pardon—that’s not what we want. Something simpler will do just fine,” Giya interceded.

“Nope, a hundred it is. Go on, then!” Gerald was losing his temper under the barrage of jeers from Cameron and the rest.

“Hmph! Let him order what he pleases. We’ll see what he does when the bill arrives,” Tammy’s cousin declared.

And so, the best food in the house was brought to their table. Cameron’s table deliberately ate as slowly as possible. As Gerald’s table was being cleared, both parties rose in unison to pay.

“Oh? Leaving already, Mr. Laver?”

The cashier smiled and waved when she saw Cameron.

Cameron made sure his wristwatch was in full view as he waved back. “That lady’s a good friend of mine,” he pointed toward Morgana. “Please set a good price for her!”

“No problem, sir. 30% off! In fact, please accept this exquisite tea set and our best compliments! Each set is worth quite a bit, and it’s just a promotion we are running at the moment.”

The cashier, clearly older than Cameron, beamed as she answered him.

“Aha! Hanging out with Cameron Laver means good times all the way,” cheered one of the other guys.

Morgana settled the bill, but Cameron continued to hang around—Gerald would be next to pay.

“Another friend of yours, Mr. Laver?”

The cashier could tell that they were acquainted, meaning she’d have to extend certain courtesies to Gerald as well.

Cameron pretended he didn’t hear it, peering at his watch.

The cashier understood what it meant.

“Hello, sir. That will be nine hundred and seven dollars in all. Cash or credit card?” she asked smoothly.

“Surely, you can round off the last seven dollars,” Gerald chuckled. Cameron could leave him out in the cold if it were what suited him. One meal wasn’t something worth fretting over.

With her face resting idly on her palms, the cashier responded indifferently.

“Forgive me, sir. Our prices are not open to haggling. Seven dollars or seven cents, you’ll have to pay it all, just the same.”

She saw it all from behind the counter—Cameron had deliberately coerced that fellow into going for the top of their line. It was apparent the man didn’t have much in the way of money. There was no need to be too nice to him.

“Hey! You gave that bunch a thirty-percent discount! Now what’s all that ‘no haggling’ about?”

Giya was first to lose her patience after seeing how everyone ganged up to give Gerald a hard time. Gerald shook his head. “Forget about it, Giya. We’ll just pay for our food and leave.”

“Hmph! You’ll be offering us a tea set too, at the very least? We’ve spent over a thousand bucks at your place!” Giya hissed icily.

The cashier replied without the slightest sincerity, “We’d certainly like to—but you must forgive us, miss… These gift sets are only limited to fifty pieces per day—and the fiftieth has just been given to Mr. Laver. Perhaps if you come again tomorrow, I’ll make sure I reserve a set just for you!”

At the end of the day, these were only one-time customers. It made more sense to appease a big spender like Cameron Laver. Furthermore, her own little sister was currently in the Laver Academy. The cashier knew that if she kept playing for this side of the field, her little sister would have a smooth sailing journey in the future.

“Hey… Bring me the bill!”

Right at that moment, a hoarse voice boomed across the hall. Someone strode up and slapped a hand on the countertop.

It was a young man, and when the cashier, Cameron, and friends included, saw who it was…

Chapter 415

Gerald Crawford:The Secretly Rich Man Novel (Invisible or Poorest) Chapter 415 “Mr. Lourdes…” Cameron murmured. He suddenly felt silly for waving his watch around earlier. He stood at attention, much like a misbehaving student before the discipline teacher.

“Cameron, which Mr. Lourdes did you mean?” the girl beside him wondered aloud.

“Who else could I have meant? Louie Lourdes, scion, and heir to the Lourdes family mining conglomerate! The big kahunas!”

“So, it’s that guy!”

“I didn’t know he was that handsome in person!”

Morgana, Sully, and the other girls gazed with ardent admiration at the legendary character.

The guys, meanwhile, seemed afraid even to breathe too loudly.

Not mentioning the cashier, who was already on her feet, displaying the most professional smile she could muster.

Louie had a handful of people with him, not even bothering to look at Gerald or his guests as he cut in front of them.

“My bill!” Louie barked. The cashier’s smile didn’t falter. “Of course, Mr. Lourdes. Your bill this time comes up to one thousand, two hundred dollars. To this, sir, we are pleased to offer you a 70% discount!”

As she spoke, she also leaned forward, inviting gazes at her cleavage. Who knew… perhaps her figure might entice the interest of the great man?

“Bah! Who needs your discount? I’ll pay the full price!” Louie hurled a wad of money on the counter.

“Understood, Mr. Lourdes. Any of our promotional gifts tickle your fancy, sir? We will provide you with anything you want,” the cashier responded reverently.

“None of that hogwash! Just give me my receipt!”

“Gosh, so this is the real Mr. Lourdes! What commanding aura he has!”

The girl standing beside Cameron was about to go cross-eyed from amazement.

Even Morgana and Sully were exchanging stares from the corner of their eyes, wondering when they’d be able to find a man his equal.

Meanwhile, Tammy simply wasn’t in the mood to play games between Gerald and his stupid friends. Seeing somebody cutting the line, her temper instantly flared up.

“Hey, now… haven’t you ever heard of first come, first serve? Don’t you know you’ve interrupted us right in the middle of our turn?”

“That’s right, bro. First come, first serve. I’ve been waiting in line for a while now too.” Gerald hadn’t expected to run into Louie here. He could still see the fresh scars on his face. What a pounding he must have been given that night.

Barely a couple of days later, here he was, coming out looking for trouble again.

A wry smile worked its way across Gerald’s face.

“Hmph! Be quiet, you. Your comments are not welcome. If Mr. Lourdes is here, you’ll all have to wait then.”

The cashier had utterly abandoned all gestures of courtesy toward them. She rolled her eyes at Gerald.

“Good lord, this blind fool!” Cameron cackled from the side. “Don’t you know Mr Lourdes? He’s obviously in a foul mood today… this Gerald is really tempting for misfortune today!”

Now, even the cashier had started ridiculing Gerald. Louie, on the other hand, pretended to have heard nothing. Now, it was his turn to get angry.

He planted his foot hard into Louie’s butt.

Whack!

“Ow!” Louie cried out, his wounds searing with pain once again.

Louie smacked the counter hard. “God d*mn it; I’ll kill you!” Cameron and the others couldn’t believe their eyes. Gerald actually dared to strike Mr. Lourdes? The only thing that could happen next was him getting beaten to a pulp.

As Louie whipped around to retaliate, his fist suddenly halted mid-air.

“Cr… Crawford?”

Louie was paralyzed.

Wasn’t this the same Gerald Crawford who’d summoned all those guys to clean his clock at the karaoke bar the other day?

Those men were skilled fighters. The beating he’d taken from them nearly crippled him, yet, they left no incriminating marks.

His misery definitely hadn’t ended. That very same night, his dad had been summoned by a few who demanded to speak with him.

On the other hand, Louie had been expecting his father to respond with all his wrath and fury and leaving the men bowing and scraping like a winded dog. Afterward, Louie’s father had come away from that meeting, practically skipping with delight.