Chapter 793

"Thank you for telling me this. It's a complicated situation, and I'm not entirely sure of the facts myself. I'll have a proper talk with Steven later and let you know when I can."

Anneliese had no intention of prying into Steven's private life, so she offered a quick, polite smile.

"Oh, please don't feel like you have to. I'm just an outsider—"

Wendy reached out and caught Anneliese's hand in mid-air. "What do you mean by 'outsider'? I don't know what it is, but from the moment I met you, I felt such a connection—like we were kindred spirits. I've never thought of you as an outsider! Anneliese, I was serious when I mentioned wanting to adopt you as my goddaughter. Would you be open to that?"

This wasn't the first time Wendy had brought it up, but seeing how earnest and hopeful she was now, Anneliese hesitated for only a second before nodding.

"I'd love to, Madam Chalmont. I feel a strange sense of closeness when I'm with you, too."

Overjoyed by her answer, Wendy stood up and pulled Anneliese into a warm, tight embrace.

Anneliese stiffened slightly; it was the first time she had ever been held like this by a woman of Wendy's age. Wendy carried a faint, elegant scent, and though she was quite slender, her embrace felt peaceful and inclusive-tender, yet full of strength.

For a fleeting moment, Anneliese felt like she was a little girl again, being cradled and soothed by her adoptive mother when she was sick.

Slowly, her body relaxed, and she reached back to hug Wendy.

As Wendy felt the girl's subconscious lean into her, her own eyes began to burn with unshed tears.

...

In the study.

"Was your wife born and raised in Baytree?" Steven asked. He was sitting on the couch with his legs crossed, watching Jonathan methodically prepare coffee.

Jonathan moved with effortless grace as he handled a sleek, minimalist pour-over kettle. He tilted it slightly, a steady stream of hot water spiraling over the ground beans. A rich, dark aroma rose with the steam, swirling around his long, elegant fingers in a hazy mist.

He pushed a steaming cup toward Steven, seemingly unsurprised by the sudden question. When he looked up, his gaze was thoughtful and measuring.

"She was abandoned outside a Baytree orphanage under the cover of night when she was only a few days old. It was winter, and Baytree had just seen its first heavy snowfall. If she hadn't been found in time, my wife likely wouldn't have survived the night."

Steven hadn't looked deeply into Anneliese's past before, knowing only the broad strokes: that she was from Baytree, that the White family had mistakenly identified her as their daughter, and that she had a

previous marriage.

He hadn't known the specifics.

Hearing that Anneliese had been discarded at birth and nearly frozen to death,

Steven felt a sharp, sudden pang in his chest.

His breath hitched.

He reached for the coffee cup instinctively, but his mind was so preoccupied that he didn't notice the heat and scalded his hand. He pulled back subtly, rubbing the burnt skin with his thumb. The sting of the pain only seemed to sharpen his focus. Cóntent

"What was the exact date she was abandoned?"

Jonathan's eyes flickered toward Steven's hand. He lowered his gaze slightly and replied, "She was found and taken into the orphanage on the morning of December 7th, 2002."

When he saw Steven's fingers suddenly clench into a tight fist, the suspicion Jonathan had been harboring was confirmed.

Sure enough, a second later, Steven stood up from the couch, his composure momentarily shattered.

"What kind of blanket was she wrapped in? Are there any photos? Was she a premature baby?"

Steven fired off the questions in rapid succession, his breathing turning shallow and ragged.

The little sister he had never gotten to meet had also been born in the winter; the timing was less than a week apart from when Anneliese was left at the Baytree orphanage.

However, the place where Wendy's kidnapping had occurred was in the South— Baytree was practically on the opposite side of the country.

But Anneliese's resemblance to Ellie, combined with a birthday so close to his deceased sister's... it was too much to be a mere coincidence.

If Anneliese had a known family, Steven wouldn't be overthinking this, but it just so

happened that she had never found her biological parents.

Even the way the White family had "accidentally" claimed her as their own felt incredibly fishy.

"It's quite a coincidence," Jonathan

said. "The year the White family took her in, a fire broke out at the orphanage. It destroyed the records of many children, including my wife's. So, there is no record of the blanket she was found in, no photos of her as an infant and ng data. regarding her weight or health at the time."