Chapter 507 This Is Our Secret
“Mom, did I sleep for very long?”
Not waiting for Courtney to reply to her, Tina had already hugged her and rubbed herself on her chest.
Courtney patted Tina’s head while mumbling, “Yes. You did. You slept for a long time.”
As Tina could no longer suppress her emotions, she silently cried on Courtney’s shoulder because she saw a familiar silhouette that made her a bit absentminded when she stood there earlier.
Gurgle. Gurgle.
“Mom, I’m hungry.” Feeling her own stomach, Tina smiled sweetly at her mother.
“I’ll call your dad to bring Jordan back. We’ll have dinner together, so do you have anything you want to eat?”
Pouting, Tina then ordered a restaurant’s worth of food.
When night came, the table was filled with all kinds of dishes as among them was grilled lamb chop, spicy beef soup and what not were all bought by the servants under Alexander’s order.
Tina, who was also the happy-go-lucky type, looked like everything that happened earlier was like a dream after she woke up since she was wolfing down the food.
Even though Courtney knew how Tina felt, she chose not to expose her daughter since a mother knew her child the best. She knew that Tina had fully inherited her stubborn trait.
“Why are you looking at me like that, Jordan?”
Holding onto a piece of lamb chop with an oily mouth, Tina saw that Jordan was looking at her with a weird expression, so she took a piece of tissue and wiped her mouth.
Jordan quickly looked elsewhere and continued his meal while seemingly blushing.
Even though the siblings did not share everything among themselves like five years ago, he still felt responsible for his sister as he had decided upon this when he was twelve.
“How about you stop attending university? Come to Sunhill. I’ll guide you.”
As he absentmindedly ate something, Jordan tried his hardest to make this important statement as casual as he could.
Tina, who could not resist the delicious lamb chop, refused him with a mouth full of meat. “I’m not interested in managing a company. I’m more interested in studying.”
Jordan did not continue to force her either as he replied, “Then, from now on, I’ll pick you up after school.”
“But—”
“No buts. Just finish your meal.”
Even though Tina wanted to reject Jordan, he had outrightly refused her. After that, she figured that it was rather nice to have her brother pick her up, so she stopped talking.
After dinner, Tina was resting on the couch while watching television with a huge belly and saying to Courtney lazily, “Mom, my phone was thrown into the river by Raymond. Could you get a new one for me tomorrow?”
“Sure.”
Pausing for a split second, Courtney then continued to arrange her documents before agreeing to Tina’s words. Not seeing anything wrong, Tina noticed Jordan’s head peeking from behind his laptop and looking at her in a daze.
“What are you doing, Jordan?”
She climbed toward him on the sofa, but before she could lay her eyes on the screen, he had already slammed the device shut.
“Stocks. You won’t understand.”
His proud demeanor was just like his father. Watching her brother head upstairs with his laptop in hand, Tina blinked before saying to Courtney, “Mom, is Jordan in a relationship?”
“Huh?”
“I feel like there’s some incredible secret hidden in his laptop,” Tina stated before she stood up and stretched, after which she headed to the study located in the back of the courtyard.
The whole study was illuminated by only a desk lamp as half of Alexander was shrouded in darkness while he stared emotionlessly at the neverending comments on his phone, anger filling his gaze.
Knock, knock, knock.
Tina suddenly came in, making him close his screen immediately and showing a gentle smile.
“I have something I want to talk to you about.”
Pulling a chair up, she then sat in front of his desk before drawing circles on it, not knowing how to start the conversation all of a sudden.
Taking his glasses off, Alexander looked at Tina’s pale face through the dim desk lamp before asking calmly, “Do you want to tell me the incident where you bumped into Susan?”
“Wow, Dad, can you read minds or something?”
Tina found this a bit hard to believe while nodding profusely as this father of hers became even more impressive in her opinion.
Tina’s sincere praise lifted Alexander’s mood a bit as he smiled unknowingly.
“I know that you saw Susan in the dessert shop just before you went missing. You two haven’t met each other in five years, though, so even if you did bump into her, you wouldn’t stalk her for no reason unless you overheard something.” Alexander went right into the topic as he wanted to know what Tina had heard to make her follow them.
“I heard that she was talking about Grandpa’s insurance payout back then. They seemed to have said that Grandpa had bought accidental death insurance, but the insurance company did not pay them due to Grandpa dying of sickness. I think they were planning on how to take the money.”
Thinking back, Tina frowned as she could remember that the company had paid the money, but she thought that she might have thought it wrong due to her still being so young at that time.
“They kept discussing how they could claim the money, but they suddenly left in the middle of the conversation. I wanted to hear what else they would say, so I followed them. It was when I followed them into an alleyway that I was rendered unconscious. When I woke up, I found myself in that old house.”
Alexander’s gaze darkened. “So, the one who made you unconscious was Susan, but the one who kidnapped you was Raymond. You and Susan happened to bump into each other, but Raymond had been waiting for you.”
Remembering that Raymond was dead now, Alexander loosened his fist and comforted Tina. “I’ve already made quite the progress on the investigation, so I think that I’ll be able to solve this puzzle soon. You just need to keep this secret between us and not let your mother worry any further.”
Tina blinked in acknowledgement. “Don’t worry. This is our secret.”
She then stood up and exited the study.
Heading back to her room, Tina found herself tossing and turning, unable to sleep. One of the reasons was because she had slept for too long while the other was terrible memories would come to her once she closed her eyes, making her very frustrated.
Tossing and turning some more, she sat up from the bed and took her blanket and pillow out the room.
Knock, knock, knock.
Jordan closed his laptop immediately upon hearing someone knock on his door.
“Who is it?”
“It’s me, Jordan.”
Getting off the bed, he then opened the door to be greeted with Tina holding her pillow and blanket while looking at him pitifully.
“Jordan, can I sleep in your room?”
Looking at the pitiful Tina, Jordan was unable to reject her as he went inside to open his wardrobe, taking out a spare blanket and setting it on the floor before moving his own pillow to the said blanket and laying on it.
“You should sleep on the bed,” he said stuffily.
