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.

been planning for

Cameron and company tried to hold

A hundred dollars per head, plus drinks—the final bill

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

to Tammy. She’d already agreed with

was going for the most expensive option available? Argh!

we want. Something simpler will do

Go on, then!” Gerald was losing his

pleases. We’ll see what he does when the bill

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

already, Mr.

and waved when she saw

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

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

Cameron, beamed as she answered

good times

continued to hang around—Gerald would be next to

of yours,

tell that they were acquainted, meaning she’d

didn’t hear it, peering at his

cashier understood what

nine hundred and seven dollars in all.

off the last seven dollars,” Gerald chuckled. Cameron could leave him out in the cold if it were what

on her palms,

dollars or seven cents, you’ll have to

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

You gave that bunch a thirty-percent discount!

her patience after seeing how everyone ganged

shook his head. “Forget about it, Giya. We’ll just pay for

least? We’ve spent over a

“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

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,

Bring me

that moment, a hoarse voice boomed across the hall. Someone strode

was a young man, and when the cashier, Cameron, and friends

Crawford:The Secretly Rich Man Novel (Invisible or

waving his watch around earlier. He

you mean?” the girl beside him

could I have meant? Louie Lourdes, scion, and heir to the Lourdes family

“So, it’s that guy!”

was that

girls gazed

guys, meanwhile, seemed afraid

already on her feet, displaying the most professional smile she

him, not even bothering to look at Gerald or his guests as he cut in

“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

she spoke, she also leaned forward, inviting gazes at her cleavage. Who knew… perhaps her figure might

I’ll pay the full price!”

promotional gifts tickle your fancy, sir? We will provide you with

of that hogwash! Just

the real Mr. Lourdes! What

girl standing beside Cameron was about

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

play games between Gerald and his stupid friends. Seeing somebody cutting the line, her

ever heard of first come, first serve? Don’t you know you’ve interrupted us right in the middle of

right, bro. First come, first serve. I’ve been waiting

into Louie here. He could still see the fresh scars on his face. What a pounding

days later, here he was, coming out

its way across Gerald’s

quiet, you. Your comments are not welcome. If Mr. Lourdes is

of courtesy toward

“Don’t you know Mr Lourdes? He’s obviously in a foul mood today… this Gerald

other hand,

his foot hard into Louie’s

Whack!

his wounds searing with pain once

counter hard. “God

actually dared to strike Mr. Lourdes? The only

around to retaliate, his

“Cr… Crawford?”

Louie was paralyzed.

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

fighters. The beating he’d taken from them nearly crippled him, yet, they left

definitely hadn’t ended. That very same night, his dad had been summoned by

fury and leaving the men bowing and scraping like a winded dog. Afterward, Louie’s father had come away from that meeting, practically

Man Novel

that he deserved to be

father explained that the person who had beaten him up was none other than

felt chills run

great trouble upon

being beaten up was a good thing after all.

possibility in mind, Louie was faced with a cocktail of surprise, fear, and joy at the

So you were eating here as well!” said Louie with a

‘What.’

the others were all thinking the same thing. They had all been eager for some drama but Louie’s

Louie know Gerald? He even addressed Gerald

‘How is that possible!’

seen you cutting the queue?” replied Gerald with a

his mind, he was wondering if he had not beaten Louie

quite a bit in this place before. Because of that, I’m used to not having to queue! But don’t you worry Gerald! Your meal’s on me today! Actually, scratch that. All of your meals

be necessary. This lady here won’t even 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 here,” replied

Give me

glare at her. She had been standing beside them all

this gentleman here

was terrified now. She began thinking up excuses in

me too! He told

family works in the health department so

a loser so I didn’t think twice about it. To think that he

she could even begin explaining herself, a slap was

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

I only did it

cheek was swollen and red and in pain as she looked

already been nervous even before she looked at him. He simply pretended as if the incident had nothing to do with

coward, but the situation was a difficult one so with a great reluctance and unwillingness in his heart,

regretted his actions

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

that Louie was just a rich and useless brat so he didn’t want

shop, they caught sight of Cameron and the others standing not too far

beginning, Cameron and the others had wanted to enjoy Gerald’s misfortune, but

was especially true for Cameron who

does Gerald know Louie?!” said

for Gerald

little respect! He said all that but Gerald was still the one 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

brimming with

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

then left and returned to the

Gerald staying in

Tammy and the others had not entered the hotel earlier, the little cousin was shocked when they stepped through its

on the meal they were treated to earlier. He also

affection. However, they gave up immediately the moment they knew that they

his phone on the coffee table to wash some fruits for

Tammy! Tammy come look! Look at the

up to show

Tammy was equally stunned.

could easily amount to two to three

his phone

cousin as she looked at the

Crawford:The Secretly Rich Man Novel (Invisible or Poorest)

surprise turned into a sneer. “Who is this ‘most beloved’ Mila? Doesn’t he like you most Giya? Let’s see who

before she could stop her, the

Who is this?” asked the

You’re definitely not Gerald’s

she said that, the little cousin

“Giya! This girl’s saying that she’s

Felicia! Hand me the phone

phone from her

knew who Mila was. She was

She had been quite curious about

be inappropriate for her to say anything else at the

again?” asked Tammy as she confirmed with Felicia

again. “I asked her who she was and she said that she was Gerald’s

as if she had just

know that girl?” asked Tammy as

f*ck! How sleazy is this guy! To get Giya to be his girlfriend is no easy feat and yet look at him! How bold and absolutely disgusting! To

talking about? I have some

back, holding a plate of fruits in his

Gerald!

on to it as she glared daggers at

how to begin

was his actual

such a vile and disloyal man! How dare you treat Giya this

knew about this and… And let

no use hiding it anymore so Giya simply shouted the

a couple? Oh god, then why are you living with him if you’re not his

I needed Gerald’s cooperation to lie to

hard to believe that since Gerald’s been

vile and disloyal

had

enough, Tammy. Didn’t your mom call earlier? Asking you to go home immediately? And you need to promise to keep

managed to persuade them

were left in the

Rich Man Novel (Invisible or

definitely took Gerald a while to explain the entire situation properly

time he was done, Mila was no longer

had never anticipated for that crazy girl to actually pick

an extremely awkward

do have a seat… I have something I want to ask you,” said Giya as she looked toward him. On

fine standing.

like Mila that

I do!” replied

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