Before grabbing her chopsticks, Debbie called Carlos. Just as she guessed, he was too busy to come back for dinner. Despite feeling a jolt of loneliness, she understood why. He had already abandoned his schedule to pick her up from the Southon Village. Earlier, he had received quite a few business calls, even in the car. All his time was devoted to either flirting with her or dealing with work.
After reminding Carlos of his meal, Debbie hung up and dug into her dinner.
She had to admit one thing—without Carlos at the table, she was free to do anything she wanted. She liked to play on her phone, but Carlos rarely let her do anything other than eat and talk to him. And he did precious little of the latter. Sometimes, there was little to talk about, especially with a man of few words. And she did love to mess around with her phone…
Debbie had just opened her Weibo app when her phone suddenly rang. It was Kasie calling.
After quickly swallowing down a mouthful of tasty soup, she answered in a happy tone, "Hi, Kasie!"
"Debbie! Did you see the top trending topic on Weibo?" Kasie was obviously excited, and her words came out in a rapid-fire jumble.
"Not yet. I just sat down for dinner. I was about to get on Weibo when you called. Something happened?"
"Yeah. Your husband made the headlines again! Carlos seems to have become a newsmaker. I don't know what you did to him, but it's almost like he's craving the limelight now. He used to issue takedown notices for stories about him, but not anymore."
'Made the headlines?' Debbie tensed up. "What did he do this time? Anything happened to him?"
"Well, you'd better read the news yourself. You're involved. You'd probably know better than I would." Kasie had scarcely finished her sentence before she hung up the phone immediately. Debbie had no chance to say a word.
With a torrent of doubts flooding her mind, Debbie clicked the hot topics list on Weibo. The topic "Carlos Huo is married" ranked first. The story had gone viral—a lot of people had seen this, and the number kept ticking upwards.
'Carlos Huo is married? Has our marriage gone public?' Debbie thought.
Her heart jumped into her throat. Losing her appetite, she put down her chopsticks and glued her eyes to the headline for several minutes.
After a long pause, she took a deep breath and mustered the courage to click the title. There were a few photos posted at the end of the article. Instead of reading the article, she took a quick look at the photos first.
The first photo was a full body shot of Carlos attending an award ceremony this afternoon. He was holding a trophy with a thin smile on his charming face.
The second photo was a close-up picture of the hand holding the trophy. It was obviously meant to show the ring on his finger.
And the third one was an animated GIF. It showed what happened the moment he left the venue after the award ceremony. He was surrounded by a throng of reporters; his face had almost been buried amidst the microphones. Then, he was escorted to his car by many bodyguards without answering any questions.
The last photo was the same one that someone had posted on the Internet. That one was secretly taken by paparazzi when Carlos walked out of the hotel with Debbie in his arms.
Debbie scrolled down and saw a few click-bait headlines. "Better put a ring on it! Carlos Huo is a married man!"
"Married? Billionaire Carlos Huo sports a wedding ring at the First Philanthropist Awards ceremony."
The main thrust of the article was about how the photographers discovered this big secret.
They were observant enough to notice the ring on Carlos' finger and snapped pictures of it when he was on stage at the award ceremony. Even after the event, Carlos didn't answer any of the reporters' questions, but he didn't deny the allegations either. His silence seemed to be a tacit admission to the authenticity of his marriage.
After the photos were posted, a flood of Carlos' fans had written comments on both his personal Weibo account and the ZL Group's official account. Some of his crazy fans were heartbroken, while some blessed his marriage with the mysterious woman. They also hoped that Carlos could personally respond to the news.
A few smart netizens had even collected some information about Debbie's two confessions of love to Carlos at the university. They figured that Debbie was probably Mr. Huo's wife, and left comments to that effect. Tons of reporters wanted to interview the students of the Economics and Management School, but they couldn't, because the school was on winter vacation now.
But not long after Debbie found them, some of these comments began to disappear. It seemed like someone had them deleted.
Debbie entered Carlos' Weibo page and looked at the comments. There were hundreds of thousands of comments more than the last time. This was the second time people had gotten a look at his private life. It seemed that people were hungry for this. There were already more than five million comments under Carlos' two posts.
Shocked, Debbie couldn't believe that a ring on Carlos' finger could make the Internet explode. Once again, it proved that he did have a huge fan base. He might be more popular than a lot of A-list pop stars.
Debbie's heart was racing as she looked at the crazy amount of comments. Her train of thought was interrupted by Carlos' call. As soon as the call was connected, she asked bluntly, "Hi honey. How's it going?"
"You read the news?"
"Hmm…"
"What do you think?" Carlos asked. He wouldn't mind announcing their marriage to the whole world. He wanted everyone to know that Debbie was his beloved wife. He had expected the news to get out.
In fact, the gossip had already spread like wildfire, which was more serious than last time. Carlos felt so helpless. The PR department of his company had gotten a flood of calls about the viral posts. They were understaffed for that sort of thing, so the phone lines were all lit up, and many callers were on hold. The best way to stop all the chaos was to post an announcement with his personal Weibo account.
Carlos didn't know the netizens would be following his life this closely.
"What? Why ask me?" Debbie was confused by his question. 'Shouldn't his PR department be doing damage control?' she wondered.
Carlos sighed inwardly, feeling annoyed that they hadn't announced their marriage. "Do you think we should post our marriage certificates or continue to keep it a secret?"
Debbie hesitated. Thinking about the waves of rumors spreading on Weibo, she knew Carlos couldn't keep silent anymore. He had to post something. "Then tell everyone you are married. But you're so popular, especially among the girls. I bet a lot of your fans will be heartbroken this time," she joked.
Carlos didn't give a damn what anyone else thought. They had nothing to do with him. "So should I just post our marriage certificates?" he asked again.
"No, no no…" Debbie couldn't voice her disapproval strongly enough. She thought it was a bad idea. She was still in school, and she didn't want people trying to get close to her just to get close to Carlos. She didn't need the added stress and attention. School was hard enough, and with tons of eyes on her, she's be extremely nervous. she'd be hounded by paparazzi, and never have any time of her own. And even when she did, inevitably, there would be a hidden reporter, with a hidden camera, ready to sell his pic to any tabloid that would pay him.
A few minutes later, as netizens were anxiously waiting for any new clues or gossip to spring up, they were excited to see a new post on Carlos' personal Weibo account.
It was a photo
of a couple kissing
inside a luxury car.
A man, dresses in a dark grey blazer, squeezed a woman in a white sweater into a corner of the back seat, and kissed her passionately. The man looked really manly the way he handled all this.
The female netizens felt a thrill in their heart when they saw the photo. 'Oh, Mr. Huo is so hot!
Oh, his legs are long and slim. That car looks luxurious. What a romantic scene! I wish I were her!' they all exclaimed in their minds.
But their curiosity was not satisfied, because the woman's face was covered by Carlos' back. They could only see their fingers entwined tightly.
The truth was, Emmett has taken this romantic photo. The car was stopped at a red light at that time. He initially wanted to send this secret photo to Debbie to make fun of her, but moments ago, he accidentally overhead Carlos' phone call with Debbie.
Knowing Carlos wanted to let people know he was married, Emmett felt this photo would come in handy to solve this.
So he sent the photo to Carlos. Emmett suddenly felt regretful when Carlos shot him a cold glance as thanks.
He realized he had pried into his CEO's private affairs.
As a clever man, Emmett instantly excused himself saying, "Mr. Huo… I still have work to do. Excuse me." Then, he fled away as quickly as he could without waiting for Carlos' response.
Around seven p.m., Debbie had finally finished her dinner, but it hadn't help her nervous mood. Taking a deep breath, she opened the Weibo app again. She was shocked to see the hottest post in the news feed.
It was Carlos' post, and there were already more than five millions "likes."
She looked at the new photo carefully. Yes, that was certainly Carlos, and the woman in the photo was her!
