Chapter 2164 - 2172: Inconvenient

"Hello." Jane Sampson nodded distantly and returned a "hello" as a response.

She could understand where Stella Carter’s hostility towards her came from.

Because of her appearance, Stella Carter was demoted from the female lead to a stand-in, so it was normal for Stella to be angry with her.

"Brother James Carter, can I sit here and eat with you?" Stella Carter sensed that Jane Sampson’s attitude towards her was indifferent, so she didn’t continue speaking with Jane.

Stella assumed, given James Carter’s personality and their slight family connection, that James Carter wouldn’t object to her request.

But unexpectedly, the man sitting next to Jane Sampson, who had been keeping his head down and hadn’t looked at her, suddenly spoke up.

His voice coldly refused her.

"It’s inconvenient," said James Black.

James Carter saw Stella’s face change drastically and almost couldn’t hold back his laughter.

In the end, out of consideration for the girl’s feelings, he pointed to his own seat, "Go sit in my spot, it’s empty."

Stella came to her senses, nodded, then glanced at James Black and asked James Carter, "Brother James Carter, who is this?"

"Jane Sampson’s husband," James Black answered himself, "Have you finished? If so, move along, don’t linger here with endless small talk, bothering people who are eating."

Stella left with a pale face, and after she had gone far, Jane Sampson pinched James Black’s arm, "Why are you being so unreasonably harsh to the girl?"

If James Black dropped his demeanor and spoke to people in that icy tone, few could withstand it without feeling intimidated.

"It’s not without reason," James Black said, "James Carter is your brother, and she kept calling him Brother James Carter in front of you. What does she want? To disgust you or what?"

"She doesn’t even know my relationship with the Carter family, how could she intentionally say that to disgust me?" Jane Sampson asked James Black, "Are you stupid?"

"She’s calling him Brother James Carter just for you to hear, and also for the film crew to hear," said James Black, having seen many people; everyone has their own little schemes, it’s quite normal.

But he couldn’t stand someone putting on airs in front of Jane Sampson.

"She’s relying on that slight relation with James Carter, calling him Brother James Carter to let the crew know she’s James Carter’s relative, that she has backing, and saying it in front of you is to let you know she’s James Carter’s cousin. Even as your stand-in, she wouldn’t regard you."

After speaking, James Black turned to James Carter, "In your Carter family, do cousins call each other like this?"

"When elders would bring the younger generation to visit homes, that’s how they introduced the kids, ’This is your Brother XX, Sister XX,’ so the kids followed the adults’ lead. Later, we grew up and didn’t interact much, so if we met again, the younger ones would usually change to calling me cousin. Some would still call me Brother James Carter, I thought she might have gotten used to it from childhood," James Carter explained.

Jane Sampson nodded, "That’s also reasonable, that’s how I was taught to call you and Peter Gingery when I was very young."

She called James Black "Brother" for quite a while, but having gotten familiar with Peter Gingery, she didn’t stick to such formalities with him, always calling him by his full name.