Chapter 351 Extrication

Frances stared at the phone screen for quite a while. She understood clearly why Clara was calling in.
She must have noticed the online news report.

Taking a sigh, she didn't put through the call. But soon Clara gave her another call again.

She closed her eyes, and turned to the two elders "Excuse me, I got to answer the call."

Saying so, she got the call through, and answered in a delighted tone, "Hey, Clara! How's going? What
are you calling about?"

Her ordinary tone had obviously bewildered Clara.

With a deep voice, Clara asked, "Have you seen the report, auntie Frances?"

Frances' conjecture turned out to be right.

She then crackled, "What report? No, I have not seen it yet. Is that anything special?"

Somehow, Clara felt it was hard to make things clear via phone call. She then said, "Have you got time
by the moment, aunt Frances? There is something I want to discuss with you personally."

Frances thought it over, and agreed.

Though possibly she still got family waiting anxiously for her at home, she didn't feel like heading back
to the Masons' yet.

She was disgusted to imagine what kind of attitude her family would treat her with.

Hanging up the phone, she turned to the driver sitting aside, "Put me off down the cross road ahead.
There is something I got to deal with."



Old Mrs. Mason leaned on the back seat and said, "You are going to meet Clara, aren't you?"

Frances temporized with a simple nod, lowered to put the phone in her bag, and again heard the voice
of the old lady.

"I suggest you'd better keep a distance from her. Come on, just think about the identities of you two. "
Said Old Mrs. Mason.

Frances was brought up short by her words, looking up at the old lady speechlessly, who was staring
outside of the window with a frown.

For Old Mrs. Mason, what stuck in her head and remained desperately unsolved was the continuously
inflaming and wide-spreading negative effect brought by the affair that happened online, which she
failed to figure out any way to bring it to a halt.

What Grants meant to do was to publicly announce the divorce between Khalid and Frances.

However, for Old Mrs. Mason, she thought that it would bring the marriage between Frances and Khalid
to an end in a real sense if the divorce was really made public.

Across the whole planet, there would be no other man than Khalid to ever accept all Frances' flaws and
tolerate her capricious tantrum.

With her eyes shifted away from her mother, Frances murmured, "I don't care. I just like Clara. She is
hundreds, thousands times better than Katherine; she is well cultivated, and a girl who truly deserves to
be Marshall's wife. Katherine? That boorish wicked wench deserves nothing!"

Her words were some gall and wormwood to his father sitting in the front.

"The whole thing is none of your business, and clear enough, it is totally up to Marshall. How about you
take care of your own business before putting your hands on your son's affair?"



Speechlessly, Frances dared not to retort, since her dad would not go easy on her if she did so.

Just as Frances had ordered, the driver pulled up by the crossroad and put her off.

Before she left, her mother turned to her with a solemn look in her eyes, "Listen to me, and stay away
from Clara. For all these years, we have been spoiling you too much, and so does Khalid. Maybe that's
why you are more and more reckless... Well, I really need to save my breath now, just think over it
yourself."

The old mama took her eyes off her daughter, and said to the driver, "We are good to move."

The car was gone, leaving Frances standing by the road for quite a long while. Then, she raised her
arm, and stopped a taxi.

'What the hell does she mean by that? Does she mean that I should stoop to be at peace with
Katherine? Hell no! They are being all too blind to look through the essence of that bitch!' She thought
to herself.

After all, what remained lingering in her head was the indignity and rage of being knocked to the
ground by Katherine.

No. Definitely, for the rest of her life, she would never forgive the daughter in-law who dared to treat her
in that way.

Frances took a taxi and headed to a small café, where Clara was awaiting her inside.

Frances got inside with a bright smile, "Sorry, I'm late. There is a traffic jam."

Clara, in contrast, stood up in haste with a serious look on her face, "Are you alright, aunt Frances?"

"What? Of course I'm fine." Frances answered with a false composure of mind.



With panic, Clara then took out her smartphone and showed it to Frances — on the screen, it was a
short video clip, in which Frances was crying and rolling on the floor like a child.

Inside the video clip, the situation seemed messy and chaotic, and the crying sound of Frances was
heard off and on and clear.

Frances stared at the screen, with a calm expression on her face, "Oh, it's not a big deal."

Clara put her smartphone back, and looked at Frances, "Have you really divorced, aunt Frances?"

For Frances, although she did have given many false information about her son and his ex to Clara,
she was not intend to do so.

She was an awkward liar, and all the information and conclusion she gave to Clara were nothing but a
bulk of misjudgments underlaid by her subjective assume.

Now, confronting the sharp question posed by Clara, she found herself pale to find any excuse to cloak
the truth.

Then, with her mouth pursed, she nodded after a pause of silence, "Yes, I divorced my husband."

As she said so, she left Clara with no chance to cut in and continued in haste, "But what I have done in
the hospital today was only part of my plan. I will make them regret, since they leave me no choice!
Now, the Grants are definitely scratching their heads and figuring out how to deal with that. This is my
way of dealing with that brute!"

With a pause, she ran her fingers through her hair and continued, "However, I don't really care a scrap
about that shit. Indeed, I divorced my husband, but so what? I can still lead a happy life without Khalid."

Firmly, Clara stared at Frances with a solemn look in her eyes.



Now, she could understand why Frances declined with any sorts of excuses every time when she
requested to pay a visit to her.

At the end, Frances seemed to give up, and told her the truth that she had been living with her own
family for a long while. Possibly, she had already divorced by that time.

Originally, the reason why Clara got close to Frances and played up to her was purely to get herself
together with Marshall.

But now, it seemed that things had changed.

Without noticing the stiff expression on Clara's face, Frances was still murmuring nonsense, such as
that she would never turn to Khalid again even if he came up and begged for her forgiveness, and that
she could find another one much better than Khalid did after divorcing him.

Clara, remaining silent, was just sitting there and listening to Frances' everlasting complaints.

Indeed, grievance and resentment filled in every corner of Frances' mind, and what was stuck in her
head were the firm attitude of both Khalid and the Old Mrs. Grant and their determination to make the
divorce public.

For Frances, she clearly knew that she would be brought into disrepute if the divorce were really made
public.

Though her parents had expressed their wish that Grants should think over it before they really put it
into practice, it seemed that the Grants had already made up their mind.

Bitter and frustrated though she was, Frances could only comfort herself by giving vent to Clara, since
there was no way for her to turn the situation around.



Not until she continued murmuring for quite a long while did Frances realize that Clara had been
keeping silent for sometime now.

Frances looked at Clara, "What's wrong, Clara?"

Clara squeezed a smile as a response, remaining silent.

Frances pondered, and said, "But don't worry, Clara, I'm still on your side, and I will do anything I can to
get you and Marshall together. Remember, you will be my only daughter in-law no matter what."

Clara had already been fed up with that.

She had heard something alike from Frances a thousand times, but not once had this ever actually
provided any substantial assistance, and the relationship between her and Marshall still remained
moribund.

With her fingers kneading between her eyes, Clara asked, "aunt Frances, is that you and uncle Khalid
are just driven by impulse or…?"

"No, we are serious," said Frances, "and I have long sensed that something about him is not right! He
had been messing around with that bitch out there years before, and I bet that he is keeping in touch
with her! Anyway, I don't need such kind of jerk to be my husband!"

Clara forced a pale smile on her face, "Well, I see."

At this moment, her phone rang, and Clara took it up and put through the call immediately.

Frances could not figure out what the guy from the other end was talking about to Clara, since the
sound was too obscure. With a few hums, Clara hung up the call.



She turned to Frances and said, "I'm sorry, aunt Frances, but I have to head back to the company now.
You know, duty's calling."

Frances didn’t notice anything wrong with Clara, "That's OK. Just go, head back to your work, since it
counts the most."

"Bye. Let's keep in touch, aunt Frances." Said Clara, standing up with her bag under her arm, without
even looking at Frances.


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