Chapter 307 He Lied
“You need to stop drinking.”
Courtney grabbed the flask of alcohol and placed it aside. When she tried to pay the bill after that, she was even stopped by Leon who’d insisted on paying with his card.
“I have to do this… I can’t let a woman pay…”
Courtney felt both troubled and amused. She had the waiter help Leon into the car before she personally drove him back to his hotel.
Glancing at the red-faced young man through the rearview mirror, who was leaning against the back seat groggily and still rambling on under his breath, Courtney shook her head.
“My goodness, you really can’t hold your liquor, can you? You didn’t even drink that much.”
Leon hugged the cushion on the back seat and mumbled, “I promise… I won’t drink anymore… Kirsten…”
Courtney let out another sigh.
A short while later, the car came to a stop in front of the hotel. A few lobby attendants helped take Leon upstairs while Courtney took his room card from the pocket of his jacket and opened the door.
“Just put him on the bed.” Courtney turned on the lights and instructed the attendants on where to put him down. Then, she walked around the room and pulled the curtains together before turning on the air conditioner to 78 degrees Fahrenheit. Before she left, she even put a glass of warm water by his bed.
The entertainment industry was a complicated place that was filled with people from all walks of life. No one knew for sure how their lives were before fame.
What Leon told her was indeed a little twisted; it sounded as if life was simply playing tricks on him. However, it wasn’t completely unbelievable either. After all, why would anyone make up such a story for no reason?
After leaving the hotel, Courtney stood by the roadside to hail a cab. She wasn’t planning to expose anything that Leon had just told her. Just then, she noticed a familiar figure quite a distance away, but she couldn’t believe her eyes even after taking a long look.
Alexander was wearing the black long coat that she’d picked out for him in the morning. He’d just gotten down from a cab, and she couldn’t see him clearly since she was a street away.
Courtney immediately ran to the zebra crossing. Just as she was about to cross the road, the traffic police blew his whistle—the light was still red. So, she could only stand and wait. In the meantime, she picked up her phone and prepared to give Alexander a call.
The moment she called his number and looked up, she saw a woman getting down from the cab opposite. She was heading toward a shopping mall with Alexander right by her side.
The dial tone rang in her ear as she waited for her call to be picked up. Even a street away, Courtney could clearly see Alexander taking his phone out of his pocket and looking down at the screen. The woman beside him even leaned in slightly to take a look at who was calling.
Beep— Before long, her call was answered. Courtney couldn’t recover from what she saw even when Alexander spoke into the phone. She only responded after a long while. “Where are you, Alexander?”
On the phone, Alexander’s voice was as calm as ever. “I’m working overtime in the office. Why?”
Courtney’s grip around her phone tightened at the sound of that. “Ah, is that so? But why do I hear traffic noises in the background?”
“Oh.” His voice remained its casual tone. “I came downstairs to get dinner.”
“You haven’t had dinner?”
“Yeah.”
“Why don’t I pick you up from the office? It’s getting late; you should get some rest.” Her other hand clenched into a fist as she racked her brains to find a good reason for his behavior. However, she couldn’t think of any.
“It’s fine. You should go to sleep first. I’ll be a little late tonight. I’m still busy, so let’s talk tomorrow, alright?” With those words, he hung up without a sliver of hesitation.
Courtney held her phone in her hand as she watched the two figures on the street, her expression going stiff.
She didn’t want to assume the worst of things, but Alexander had indeed lied to her today. People only lied when they wanted to hide the truth, but she couldn’t think of anything he would want to hide from her.
Just then, the traffic police blew his whistle again, and the crowd started to cross the road at once. Courtney rushed through the crowd and quickly made her way to the shopping mall that Alexander had just entered.
The Pinnacle Shopping Center was huge. After going through the entrance, Courtney didn’t know where to go from there. She stood by the door and stared at the escalator, feeling flustered and confused inside.
Her phone buzzed endlessly in her pocket. She stood stunned for a moment until she realized that the people around her were all staring in her direction. Only then did she hastily pick up the call.
“Courtney, where are you? Are you in Melrose City?”
“Yeah, why?” Courtney looked around with a frown, trying to find the familiar figure in the mall.
“I’ve been thinking for some time, and there’s something I need to tell you.” Cameron’s voice sounded rushed at the other end of the line. “I heard from Gale that Alexander found Jordan’s biological mother.”
Courtney’s face darkened at once. She couldn’t believe her ears, and her voice even went an octave higher. “What did you say?”
“I can’t believe it too. Didn’t you tell me that Jordan’s your son? But Gale told me last night that Alexander has found Jordan’s biological mother. He even said that he’s already met her. Apparently, the woman had come to him herself because she wanted to see Jordan.”
“That’s impossible.” Courtney’s frown deepened. “She must be an imposter.”
“What if she’s not?” Cameron sounded a little perplexed. “Can you confirm that the man from all those years ago really was Alexander just because of a pendant? Didn’t you tell me that he’d lost the pendant a long time ago? Even he doesn’t know when exactly he lost it.”
Courtney rubbed her forehead. At that moment, she felt like her mind was in a mess. “That can’t be right. Let me think… Jordan should be my son—I’m sure of it.”
Back then, the salesgirl from the jewelry store had told her that the pendant belonged to Alexander, so she was certain that Jordan was her son who had been taken away all those years ago. Furthermore, Alexander had indeed found a surrogate mother to deliver his baby. But what if Alexander had lost the pendant long before that night? She didn’t seem to have more evidence to prove that the man back then was indeed Alexander.
“Don’t panic, Courtney. What about your paternity testing report? Have you and Jordan done a paternity test?”
“A paternity test?” Courtney slowly calmed down. “Yeah, we have. I have a copy of the report with me.”
The test wasn’t done on her own will, though. Mikayla had secretly got it done behind their backs to confirm Courtney’s relationship with Alexander back then. The results proved that Alexander and Tina were father and daughter. Overwhelmed with immense panic, Courtney had almost forgotten about this.
“That woman must be an imposter, then.” Cameron gasped. “You need to be careful, Courtney. I’ve been having heart palpitations lately for no reason. I just knew something wasn’t right when Gale told me about this. He said that Alexander had told his assistant to look for Jordan’s biological mother, and his assistant ended up discovering a problem with the surrogacy from back then.”
“What’s the problem?”
“That’s where it gets weird. Gale wouldn’t tell me anything else after that. He said that it’d ruin your relationship with Alexander.”
Courtney gave it a thought for a moment. She could feel her hands and legs slowly getting colder.
If Alexander had really found a problem with the surrogacy from all those years ago, perhaps what he discovered was that his child’s surrogate mother wasn’t who he thought it was. Then, when he was just a step from the truth, a woman who claimed to be Jordan’s biological mother appeared all of a sudden.
It was as if there was an invisible hand behind the scenes that was pushing them toward a direction that was filled with chaos and danger, as if someone who knew the truth was watching them from above, toying with them just for fun.
