The Secretly Rich Man

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.

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.

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.

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.

best. A hundred per

was what he’d been planning

tried to hold

per head, plus drinks—the final bill would add up

conclusion: Gerald was a complete fool. Anyone could see that Cameron was up to no good, provoking him

lack of affluence was hardly news to Tammy. She’d already agreed with Giya not to allow Gerald

most expensive

what we want. Something simpler will

hundred it is. Go on, then!” Gerald was losing his temper under the

he pleases. We’ll see what he does

best food in the house was brought to their table. Cameron’s table deliberately ate as

already,

waved when

full view as he waved back. “That lady’s a good friend of mine,” he pointed

exquisite tea set and our best compliments! Each set is worth quite a bit, and it’s just a promotion

than Cameron, beamed as

good times

but Cameron continued to hang around—Gerald would be

of yours, Mr.

she’d have to

pretended he didn’t hear

cashier understood what

be nine hundred and seven dollars in all. Cash or credit card?”

leave him out in the cold if it were

resting idly on her palms, the cashier responded

open to haggling. Seven dollars or seven cents, you’ll have to pay it all, just

their line. It was apparent the man didn’t have much in the way of money. There was no need to be too

a thirty-percent discount! Now

after seeing how

his head. “Forget about it, Giya. We’ll just pay for our food and

be offering us a tea set too, at the very least? We’ve spent over a thousand bucks

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

own little sister was currently in the Laver Academy. The cashier knew that

Bring me the

the hall. Someone strode up and slapped a hand

when the cashier, Cameron, and friends

Novel (Invisible

murmured. He suddenly felt silly for waving his watch around earlier. He stood at attention, much like a misbehaving student before the discipline

Mr. Lourdes did you mean?” the

and heir to the Lourdes family mining conglomerate!

“So, it’s that guy!”

know he was that handsome in

Sully, and the other girls gazed

seemed afraid even to breathe too

her feet, displaying the most

not even bothering to look at Gerald or his guests as

“My bill!” Louie barked.

Your bill this time comes up to one thousand, two hundred dollars. To this, sir, we are pleased to offer you a

cleavage. Who knew… perhaps her

your discount? I’ll pay the full price!” Louie hurled a wad of money on

your fancy, sir? We will provide you with anything

of that hogwash! Just give me

so this is the real Mr. Lourdes! What commanding aura he

Cameron was about

Morgana and Sully were exchanging stares from the corner of their eyes, wondering when they’d

Tammy simply wasn’t in the mood to play games between Gerald and his stupid friends. Seeing somebody cutting the line,

serve? Don’t you

come, first serve. I’ve been waiting in line for

could still see the fresh scars on his face. What a pounding he must have been given

a couple of days later, here he was,

its way

welcome. If Mr. Lourdes is here, you’ll all

abandoned all gestures of courtesy toward them.

side. “Don’t you know Mr Lourdes? He’s obviously in

cashier had started ridiculing Gerald. Louie, on the other hand, pretended to have heard nothing.

foot hard

Whack!

wounds searing

smacked the counter hard. “God d*mn it;

Gerald actually dared to strike Mr. Lourdes?

to retaliate, his

“Cr… Crawford?”

Louie was paralyzed.

same Gerald Crawford who’d summoned all those guys to clean his clock at the

fighters. The beating he’d taken from them nearly crippled him, yet, they left no incriminating

ended. That very same night, his dad had been summoned

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

Crawford:The Secretly Rich Man Novel

father had even told him that

him up was none other than

felt chills run down his

great

being beaten up was a good thing after all. Maybe it could even get

cocktail of surprise, fear, and joy at the same time the moment he saw

you were eating here as well!” said Louie with a chuckle as he patted

‘What.’

thing. They had all been eager for some drama but Louie’s

know Gerald? He even addressed Gerald in such a

‘How is that possible!’

you cutting the queue?” replied Gerald with a faint smile on

was wondering if he had not beaten Louie

not having to queue! But don’t you worry Gerald! Your meal’s on

lower the price by a dollar for me. We aren’t being given any special gifts either. I’m afraid that this will be the last time I ever come

me

had offended Gerald, Louie turned to glare at her. She

Louie, so this gentleman here is your

began thinking up excuses in her mind as cold sweat dripped

me too! He told me to make it difficult for

family works in the health department so of course I wouldn’t dare disobey

that Gerald guy looked like a loser so I didn’t think twice

explaining herself, a slap was

enjoy a meal? How dare you bully a customer you’re not even familiar with! I better hear about your resignation the next time I come

only did it

left cheek was swollen and red and in pain as she looked toward

before she looked at him. He simply pretended as if the

but the situation was a difficult one so with a great

regretted his actions

Gerald, he exchanged a few pleasantries with Louie before finally leaving with

Louie was just a rich and useless brat so he didn’t want to get too

caught sight of Cameron and the others standing not

and the others had wanted to enjoy

especially true for Cameron who had

on earth does Gerald

for Gerald had

who paid the bill in the end! It’s only a matter of respect. Don’t you know who Louie is? He would never befriend a person like

brimming

up a story regarding him and Louie to casually explain what had just happened to Giya

then left and returned

Gerald staying in such a

the little cousin was shocked

also knew a lot of people. Tammy and the other distant relatives

up immediately the moment they

they got into their room, Gerald put his phone

Tammy come look! Look at the

show her, an

Tammy was equally stunned.

phone could easily amount to two to three thousand dollars… Why would

his phone

the little cousin as she looked at the caller ID. She was dumbfounded

Man Novel

this ‘most beloved’ Mila? Doesn’t he like you most Giya? Let’s see who she

stop her, the little cousin had already answered Mila’s

is this?” asked the little

You’re definitely not Gerald’s girlfriend.

she said that,

looked toward Giya before saying, “Giya! This girl’s saying that she’s

enough, Felicia! Hand me the phone

phone from her

Mila was. She was Gerald’s girlfriend who was in a long-distance relationship

curious about what Mila was like in person

would be inappropriate for her to say

did you say? What did that other girl say again?” asked Tammy as she confirmed with Felicia

asked her who she was and she said that she was

if she had

know that girl?” asked Tammy as rage brewed

and yet look at him!

you all talking about? I have some fruits

back, holding a plate

with the fruits! Who’s this Mila, Gerald! You better

and held on

how to begin

actual girlfriend

were such a vile and disloyal man! How dare

already knew about this and… And let

use hiding it anymore so Giya simply shouted the truth

you living with him if you’re not his girlfriend?” asked Tammy,

that no one would get suspicious! I needed Gerald’s cooperation to lie to my dad, otherwise, he

It’s a little hard to believe that since Gerald’s been treating you

vile and disloyal

Gerald had

to promise to keep this a secret for me. Please don’t meddle with Gerald’s business!” said Giya in a persuading

Giya managed to persuade them to

Gerald and Giya were left in the room

Novel (Invisible

Gerald a while to explain the

he was done,

for that crazy girl to actually pick up and answer

was stuck in an

something I want to ask you,” said

standing. What’s

you really like

do!” replied Gerald without

in a deep breath before continuing. “Then, if that’s the case, why did you give me such an expensive gift in the first place? In case you weren’t aware, when