It'll Come Naturally

Leena smiled indifferently to Louisa who entered the cue before her. She was generous and outperformed Louisa in both appearance and temperament. By not caring about trifles such as this momentary insult by Louisa, she was far outshining her. She won on personality and charm.

Richard seemed to have figured the situation out now. It turned out that in many cases, people were just pretending that they were getting along well with each other, while actually, they were secretly competing.

"Damn it! Where's my wallet? I can't find it." When it was Louisa's turn to pay, she suddenly became flustered and began digging frantically through her purse.

"Was there anybody suspicious approaching you just now, perhaps?" The cashier reminded her, trying to be helpful.

"No. I keep my wallet in my bag all the time." Louisa kept searching for her wallet, but she still couldn't find it.

"Then think calmly about it again. Maybe you forgot your wallet when you left home?" The cashier tried to calm her down by offering her possibilities for where her wallet was. "What's wrong? Have you lost your wallet?" Leena had been lost in her own thoughts, but when she heard the noise at the checkout, she went over to see if she could help.

"I don't know if I lost my wallet, or if I forgot to bring it." Louisa was very worried. At this point, the people behind her in the queue began to urge her to hurry up.

"What about your items? Will you take them or not? If you are not going to take them, then could you please give the other customers a chance to pay first? We don't want to hold up the cue. Please don't affect everyone with your crisis!" The cashier looked at the packaged things and spoke to Louisa with a tone full of disrespect. The customers behind her were already getting impatient.

"We'll take them! Swipe my card." Leena handed over her bank card to the cashier as she said this. She didn't mean to insult Louisa in this way, but wanted to help her out and save face for Commander Ye. After all, the people behind her were becoming agitated because of the hold-up.

"No problem." The cashier happily received the bank card. In this way, she did not have to cancel the transaction, which would have taken even more time.

"Well, give me your banking details later. I'll transfer the money back." Louisa felt very embarrassed now, but she could not be so foolish as to refuse Leena's help at this time. Compared with the disdain of the other customers, she would be more willing to accept Leena's help.© 2024 Nôv/el/Dram/a.Org.

"That's all right. Just take it as my gift for Connie!" Leena said softly as she signed the receipt with perfect penmanship.

"No. I'm not used to accepting favors from other people!" Louisa insisted. Anyway, she didn't want anyone to pity her. Even if the other party was really just being kind, she would still be burdened by the feeling of owing them.

"Well. Whatever. Let's rather speak outside." Leena knew that Louisa was an arrogant woman, and would continue arguing the point in front of the many customers, so she just gave up on persuading her. She told Richard to pay at the check out for their groceries, and then she followed Louisa past the cashier's desk to avoid bothering the customers further.

"Don't think that because you helped me today, I now owe you some debt of gratitude. That will never happen!" Louisa spoke as soon as they left the supermarket. Obviously, she was very unhappy about what had just happened.

"Rest assured!. I don't want you to be grateful to me. I did it only for the sake of Commander Ye." Leena knew that paying for Louisa would not win her any goodwill, so she didn't expect much for doing this.

"Send your banking details to my mobile phone, and I'll transfer the money to you as soon as I get home." Actually, when Louisa discovered that her wallet was missing, she could have chosen not to buy these things. But the other shoppers had begun gossiping behind her back in the cue, and they said that Louisa was obviously shameless to come to the mall while she didn't have any money. After hearing their whispering, she had no choice but to accept Leena's help to stave off embarrassment.

"Transferring money is such a bother. You can give me the money if we meet one day." The transaction was just a few hundred dollars, and Leena felt ashamed of such an effort to transfer such a small amount.

"I've got an idea! My husband will come to pick us up shortly. So could you please wait for a while? I'll ask him to give you the money then." Louisa didn't want Leena to meet her husband because Kevin was much more attractive than Louisa's husband. The alternative was to owe the money, but Louisa was unwilling to owe anyone.

"Well, since you are so persistent, then I'll wait a few more minutes!" Leena knew that Louisa had a strong sense of pride, so Leena chose what she said carefully, trying not to give further offense by accidentally humiliating Louisa.

"Thank you!" This time, Louisa answered politely, and her answer astonished Leena in its urbane tone.

"You're welcome. We've had a long standing friendship, haven't we?"

Leena's smile was somewhat forced, given the history which linked them together. If she hadn't played the trickster before, then Kevin and the commander would have gotten along very well with each other. Now they were just like strangers.

"How is Claire?" After ending her friendship with Claire, Louisa realized that she would never find such a loyal girlfriend like Claire again. Unfortunately, it was too late to mend fences now.

"Yes! She's fine. She has a son and

two daughters. She occasionally visits during the holidays." Claire and Gerard had also experienced a lot of hardships, but fortunately their feelings were strong enough to overcome these, and through their joint efforts, they were very happy now.

"She must be very happy now." Louisa flashed an envious look at Leena's comment. Though she was living a good life, she had not achieved her idealized dreams. "Mom, what are you doing? Come and help me!" Before Leena could answer, Richard began to complain as he struggled from the store loaded with many packets.

"Well, you said that you could carry it

alone, didn't you? Besides, you can just push them in the cart, instead of carrying them around!" Leena said pointedly, annoyed at being

interrupted. However, being a gre

mother, she still took a packet from his hand to lighten the load and

lessen his anger.

"Can we go to dinner now?" Richard had a helpless look on his face. He had planned on an evening of fine dinning, but had dutifully accepted the shopping trip first, but now they were just waiting here for no reason. He was becoming really fed up with the turn of events. "Of course we are going to dinner. Just wait a moment. Why don't you take the things to the car first? I'll be there very soon." Due to Louisa's presence, she didn't mention that she was waiting for her husband, as she didn't want to further embarrass Louisa again. "All right! I'll meet you at the car. But please hurry up!" "Women are too troublesome!" Richard murmured, and then struggled with his burdens to the distant parked car.

"Let's go! We're all going to the parking lot, aren't we? I'm sure that he'll be there by the time we arrive." Louisa was really embarrassed because she sensed Richard was getting impatient over the delay to his evening plans. They set off after Richard. "Well, you really don't need to be so polite." Now Leena felt embarrassed, because of Louisa's angst over paying her back swiftly.

Leena was shocked when she saw Louisa's husband. She looked at Louisa's husband with her mouth wide open in surprise until Richard touched her in concern. "Summer, is that you?" Leena felt that today was just too surreal. How did Summer marry Louisa? She was a few years older than him, wasn't she?

"Leena, long time no see." Summer was also surprised to see Leena. They had been on a blind date once.

"Long time no see! You look so grown up now." Leena hadn't heard anything about Summer since Patricia married Tom. She did not expect to meet him in such a way. "You are still so young and beautiful." Summer delivered his charming school boy smile.

"Thank you. But no, I'm already old." Leena shook her head, laughing helplessly.

"Do you know each other?" Louisa frowned at the two of them, and a dark thought occurred to her. Doubt began to worm its way into her mind.