Chapter 38 Was It Intentional, or Was It an Accident?
“You’re scaring him.” Courtney reminded Alexander with a frown. In no time, Jordan pulled his leg away and leaned his body closer toward Courtney. Alexander quickly felt a pang of regret when he saw his son’s pale little face glaring at him resentfully. He then took a deep breath before he tried to talk to his son again. “Are you blaming me because I didn’t take good care of you?”
Jordan didn’t seem interested in responding to Alexander; he turned his head and pressed himself into Courtney’s arms, his left arm gripping firmly onto the collar of her shirt. Courtney couldn’t help but feel sorry for Alexander when she saw the look of disappointment on his face. “Perhaps he’s still in shock after what happened last night. Just give him a little more time,” she said in an attempt to comfort Alexander. You’re so careless toward your own son; it’s no wonder that your son’s closer to others than he is to you. What else do you expect?
The atmosphere in the room turned rather chilly. Tina’s gaze flickered from one end of the room to the other before she quickly tugged on Alexander’s sleeve and spoke to him in a childish tone. “Mr. Alexander, can you please help me with this level? I’m stuck here.” Only then did Alexander’s tightly knit brows relax as the young girl had successfully diverted his attention. “Which level is this?” he asked as he turned toward Tina. “This! This one. I can never beat this evil boss,” she uttered.
As the tense atmosphere gradually dissolved, Courtney gently stroked the young boy’s hair as he lay in her arms. “Jordan, do you blame your father for your accident?” she whispered.
The boy shook his head in her arms before he looked up to meet Courtney’s eyes, his gaze filled with sorrow. “What is it?” Courtney was rather confused. Jordan’s arm—the one that had been dislocated—could barely move, and he only managed feeble attempts of shifting his arm up and down. Tears began to form in his eyes as he was frustrated by this.
“Do you want to write something?” Courtney quickly asked, upon which Jordan immediately nodded. “Calm down.” Courtney comforted him before she pulled a notebook and pen out of her bag and handed it to him. He held onto the pen with his left hand, and his words were all crooked and messy. Courtney barely managed to decipher his scrawls. ‘I don’t want Daddy to get married to another woman.’
Courtney unconsciously glanced toward Tina—who was sitting on the couch while playing mobile games with Alexander—once she read what Jordan wrote. She frowned a little. I think it’s inevitable for children to feel rather conflicted or displeased when their parents are getting remarried to another person. Furthermore, judging by how inconsiderate of a father Alexander is, he probably never thought about Jordan’s feelings. It must be harder for Jordan since he can’t speak. It’s depressing to think about this, but I don’t think I’m in any position to comment about their situation since I’m just an outsider. “Your father loves you a lot. Even if he gets married to another woman, he’ll still treat you well.” Courtney couldn’t do much apart from gently comforting Jordan in a hushed tone.
However, Jordan merely shook his head sadly in response to her words. “What is it? Do you not like Miss Price?” she asked as he placed her hands on his shoulders. Jordan seemed to hesitate a little before he then nodded his head firmly, as if he had just come to a decision. He hastily scribbled onto the piece of paper. ‘I want you to be my mommy.’
Courtney didn’t know whether to laugh or cry upon reading what he wrote. She had no idea how she could explain herself to a young boy. Being an adult and getting married isn’t as simple as it sounds; you can’t determine who you want your mother to be just because you like someone. Right then, Alexander got up from the couch after he finished a round of the mobile game he had been playing with Tina. “What did Jordan write?” he asked.
Flustered, Courtney immediately tore the piece of paper out of her notebook before she stuffed it into her bag. “It’s nothing. He told me what he wanted to eat for dinner; I noted it down so that I can prepare it for him later,” she replied in an uneasy tone. Alexander immediately eyed her suspiciously when he noticed how flustered she seemed. But before he could ask her any more questions, she hopped up onto her feet. “Well, I have to go back and work on the plan for the centennial celebration. I have to leave now. I’ll come back a little later; you guys can get some snacks to fill your tummies if you guys get hungry before I come back,” she said hastily. She practically charged out of the ward after that, leaving Alexander in the ward with the two kids the moment she shut the door behind her.
Tina was curled up on the couch. She was so immersed in the game that she didn’t even care that her mother had left her there. Meanwhile, Jordan stared at the door longingly, as if he was hoping for Courtney to come back. Alexander felt a sense of guilt building up in his chest when he saw the way Jordan looked. Maybe what Courtney said earlier was true. How terrible of a father must I be to have my own son being so dependent on a woman that he’s met only a while ago? How many mistakes must I have made to have my son dislike his own biological father so badly?
“Jordan.” Alexander calmly called out for his son. Once Jordan realized that Courtney wasn’t about to return to the room, he began to doodle in the notebook that Courtney had left behind without paying any attention to his father. Alexander groaned before he noticed Tina’s figure from the corner of his eye. He then recalled how Jordan had pestered him to invite Courtney and Tina over to their house in the past. “How about this, Jordan? We can have a small party at home once you get better, and we can invite Miss Hunter and Tina over, okay?” He was attempting to see if this would please the young boy.
As expected, Jordan immediately lifted his head up to look at Alexander with eyes full of joy. “Are you going to talk to me now?” Alexander stroked his son’s head. Jordan then wrote something in his notebook before handing it over to his father. ‘You have to apologize to me, Daddy.’
Alexander froze for a moment as he recalled how he had been too drunk the night before. I didn’t even hear Jordan falling off the stairs when it happened right outside my room. He’s right; it’s my fault for being so careless. “Alright. I’ll apologize. I’m sorry, Jordan; I’ll make sure that this never happens again in the future.” However, what Jordan had been asking an apology for was actually Alexander’s act of bringing Britney back to his house. Although they had been thinking of different things, Jordan assumed that Alexander had now promised him to never bring Britney back to the house. He therefore looked much happier than before.
Children were forgetful beings; Jordan quickly forgot about everything else as he began to play with Tina. Although he didn’t play any mobile games, he seemed entertained just by watching Tina, who was hopping around excitedly as she played her games.
Scott got up early that morning, right when his butler, Harry, had gotten back to the Duncans’ ancestral home. Scott had sent Harry over to the villa at Royal Park earlier to investigate the situation there. “Did you manage to find anything? Was Jordan’s fall from the 2nd floor an accident, or did someone intentionally attempt to harm him?” Scott asked.
“It looks like it was an accident. I’ve asked every single one of the maids there. The maid that was on duty to care for Jordan during that hour had gone to make him milk, so there wasn’t anyone else on the 2nd floor during that time,” Harry explained with a stern expression.
“No one at all?” Scott still felt rather suspicious. There are more than 10 maids working in the Royal Park villa; how can there not be a single witness to Jordan’s fall? His fall must have created a huge commotion then, yet no one realized anything until he landed at the end of the stairs on the 1st floor.
“Miss Price was there that night. She brought presents over, so the maids were distributing them at the time,” Harry continued.
“Britney?” Scott furrowed his brows as his face turned grim. “Where was she when Jordan fell down?” If someone had planned for this incident to occur, Scott couldn’t think of a person that had greater motives than Britney.
