Chapter 478 Do You Plan On Getting Married
The exhausted young man couldn’t help but look around his surroundings of the huge manor in Westwind District. The air in the spacious living room felt oddly cold, and it was so piercingly chilly that he couldn’t hide the discomfort on his face.
Alex’s body sunk into the soft yet firm cushion of the leather sofa, and even though it felt extremely comforting against his fatigued body, he didn’t dare let down his guard in front of the man in a gray suit. At that moment, Alex put all his attention on the latter.
The man had a long, slender figure, and his pretty fingers were flipping through a set of documents. The frown on his face only made him look arrogant and unapproachable.
Alex continued to wait for the man to be done with his business. However, he couldn’t hold himself back after he had repeatedly counted the number of golden yellow lights on the chandelier above his head. He suddenly recalled a word that he had learned last night, and he gave it a go.
“Pardon me for asking,” he started. “May I know for what reason have you brought me here?”
Coincidentally, Elijah flipped to the last page of the document when Alex asked that. Then, Elijah leaned back into his seat while his cold gaze seemed to have traces of humor in it.
“Alex Ruben. Your mother is French, and she works as a doctor.”
After saying that, Elijah tossed a part of the document on the coffee table.
“Your father is an American who works as a professor in Colombia. You have 2 older sisters. One of them is married to an Alaskan, whereas the other is a doctor like your mother—”
Elijah continued to throw bits of the document in front of Alex. The calm Alex faked could be seen disappearing bit by bit until he eventually jumped up from the sofa in rage and fear.
“What are you doing?” Alex cut him off.
His fists were clenched so tightly that his whole body was shaking. The friendly expression on his face that he forced on, too, had been replaced by anger that looked as though he was ready to strike anytime.
“Well, aren’t you a young and spirited one?” Elijah mused. “I know that you took up boxing for 2 years, but I advise you not to throw a straw against the wind.”
Elijah looked over to the security guards lined up in the room as his scornful gaze seemed to be stepping on Alex’s bottom line.
Even though Alex was still enraged, he decided to keep his calm by loosening his fists and sitting back on the sofa. The humor on Elijah’s face was gone in that instant as well. With both elbows on his knees, Elijah leaned forward, and his scrutinizing eyes studied Alex.
“I am Angie’s father,” he announced.
The air suddenly fell silent at that.
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“I won’t stop you from dating my daughter, but your actions so far have really caused her trouble. It doesn’t seem to me like she has any intention to see you. If you are the type that pesters people to make them concede, I promise that I will do everything in my power to make life easy for my daughter,” Elijah hissed.
Those words were spoken fluently in Alex’s mother tongue. Seeing how pale the young man had gotten after that, Elijah switched back to warning him in Otharian.
“Don’t you dare try those dirty tactics you pick up from abroad on Angie. I want you to go back where you came from before tomorrow comes.”
As Alex felt wronged, his handsome face began to be filled with disappointment as he lowered his head. At that moment, his knuckles had turned white from the clenching of his fists.
“But it is Valentine’s Day tomorrow,” he muttered sadly before he turned his head to look at Elijah with pleading eyes. “Can I stay another day?”
Elijah stood up and his tall figure cast a gloomy shadow on Alex. The shadow seemed to seep into Alex’s chest when the older man growled in a low voice, “No.”
Elijah then instructed his guards to send Alex to the airport.
Following that, Elijah left the living room after tossing that sentence behind, but his authoritative voice seemed to reverberate in the room.
An hour later, a black sedan inconspicuously came to a stop by the roadside of a business hotel. Just by sitting in the backseat, the expressionless man’s very presence seemed to make the air too thick to breathe in comfortably. The man’s assistant in the front seat turned to look at him and asked, “Should I arrange for our men to escort him to the plane?”
Elijah’s expression further fell at that. With a wave of his hand, he looked out the window and muttered, “No need. Let’s go back.”
Even though Alex was chaperoned by a group of men to the airport, he managed to slip away when they were squeezing through the crowd in the airport hallway. He then hurriedly checked in to a nearby hotel. He was secretly happy he managed to escape, but what he wasn’t aware of at all was that everything, even his escape, was within Elijah’s control.
Angie hadn’t replied to any of his messages, and she even went as far as to delete him on social media. The last thing that Alex had told her was that he would be waiting for her at the airport. That was the reason why he didn’t dare leave the airport—he didn’t want them to miss each other.
However, it was impossible for him to continue waiting at the airport. His only hope now was to unceasingly send a friend request on social media.
He knew that it wasn’t hard for Elijah to check his record since the latter even managed to get all the information about Alex’s family members. Hence, Alex, who frequented police stations since the age of 14 was definitely not a favorable dating candidate.
He might still stand a chance to show a better side of himself if he had a better, more prideworthy past. Thinking about how he had heard that Otharians were strict with choosing an in-law, Alex’s mood only continued to drop.
As he lay in bed, dazedly staring at the ceiling, his head began to be filled with the stubborn face Angie always had on. He remembered how eye-catching she was in her loose riveted denim top and colorful dirty braids. Subsequently, he gradually fell asleep soon after.
After that, he woke up to aches all over his body. As he moved his stiff limbs, the computer screen in front suddenly lit up. Seeing the notification that popped out, he had to rub his eyes to make sure that he wasn’t dreaming.
——
After the commotion at the Duncans’ ancestral home, Courtney and Alexander took their chance to stay there temporarily with the excuse that it was easier for them to work, when their true intention was to keep Old Master Duncan company.
The Somerfield Family came to bring Josephine back home when evening came. Alicia held her hand as they stepped out of the Duncans’ place, and she started looking around before her eyes eventually fell on Angie.
“Come back with me,” she said. “Accompany Jossie for me tomorrow.”
Even though Angie was unwilling, she still automatically walked toward them when her Great-Aunt waved her over.
Alicia had been relatively unoccupied after her retirement, but because she was an influential figure in Melrose City, she had gradually accepted invitations to charity events. It was World Vision Orphanage’s summer break cultural activity day tomorrow, and the organization had sent her an invitation. She wanted to bring Josephine and Angie along with her.
At night, Josephine watched the television in the living room while Angie cooped herself up on the other side of the sofa and did her research on her college application. Josephine’s eyebrows knitted into a frown when the female lead of the show she was watching angrily yelled, “You cold-blooded, heartless, unreasonable prick!”
“Angie, do you plan on getting married?” she asked.
Angie’s aggressive typing on her keyboard immediately stopped after Josephine asked her question. She lifted her gaze to look at Josephine, only to see that she had her full attention on the television screen. She didn’t seem to mean anything by her question.
“I pity Ethan for having parents who are always arguing with each other,” the young girl continued.
Josephine finally turned off the television when the male lead of the show rebutted, “There is no one more cold-blooded, heartless and unreasonable than you are!” She then turned to Angie with a pitiful look in her eyes.
Angie couldn’t help but be entertained by Josephine.
“You are only 5. There are a lot of things that you don’t know about,” she said while standing up to go to the washroom. The disappointed little girl was then left alone when her eyes fell on the computer screen, and the sneaky glint in them disappeared as abruptly as it appeared.
