Chapter 333 My Mom Would Never Have an Affair
The distant look in Courtney’s eyes made Oliver wriggle in discomfort. Then, he tightly clenched his fist and decided to reveal everything after hesitating for a while. “Okay. Courtney, if you trust me, can you follow me somewhere?”
“Where do you want to go?”
“Once you arrive there, you’ll understand what I’ve done all these years to approach the Duncans. You’ll have all your answers there.”
As a result of the snowfall, it caused the roads in Melrose City to be muddy. She drove carefully and entered a housing estate that was close to the Public Security University campus. Then, she alighted from the car and trailed behind him, after which they took the stairs and entered a unit on the fourth floor.
It was a studio unit that came with bare furnishings. Apart from the bed and a study table, the room was filled with stacks of books, which were scattered all over the floor. However, there was a shelf on the wall that contained files and journals with labels on them.
“This was my home when I previously worked as a private investigator.” Oliver yanked off the blanket that covered the bed and instantly, there was dust all over the place. “I haven’t been back here in ages, though.”
Then, Courtney looked around the place. Indeed, there was a thick layer of dust in the room and it looked like it had been empty for at least half a year. Furthermore, it was also likely that no one had set foot inside for the longest time ever.
“That bookshelf there contains all the information that I collected on the Duncans. If you go by sequence from the left to right, you’ll see everything that I have gathered since I was thirteen. My mom has never mentioned a word about the Duncans, so this came from my own investigation.”
Upon hearing those words, she was significantly stunned and hesitantly walked toward the bookshelf. Then, she randomly selected a hardback journal from the shelf. The date on the journal itself showed that it had been recorded three years ago when he enrolled in university as a freshman.
The first page of the journal was a newspaper clipping where it read, ‘The chief executive officer of Sunhill Enterprise—James Duncan—has stepped down from his position, paving the way for the only son of the Duncan Family—Alexander Duncan—to be his successor.’
There was also an exclamation mark highlighted in red next to the news heading with the words—‘Family feud of the upper echelons’. This particular tabloid newspaper seemed to have adopted the bad habit of sensationalizing each piece of news.
Courtney continued to flick through the pages and found that most of them contained articles with interviews of Alexander. On some of the pages, Oliver made his own annotations and also included some of his own analyses on Alexander’s character.
His initial analyses were mainly confined to words such as, ‘callous’, ‘shrewd’, ‘a flair for business’. However, over time, it gradually included terms like, ‘protective’, ‘not too unfeeling after all’ and ‘can be annoying’.
All these came from a teenager’s murmurs over time as he had no one else to share this secret with. He had silently focused his attention on his elder brother, who had the same blood coursing through his veins, on his own all these years.
In fact, Courtney was quite moved by what she read as she finally flipped to the last page. She returned the journal to its original position on the bookshelf and turned to look at Oliver. She maintained her gaze on him before asking, “What was your initial purpose of doing all these? There must be a reason. You’ve never met Alexander before, so why did you suddenly think of getting to know him?”
“Because of my mom,” he replied without hesitation. “When I was young, my mom kept crying whenever she looked at a specific photo and she would often call out his name in her dreams. Initially, I didn’t know what was going on and I wasn’t sure what she said either. However, I slowly realized that there was such a person called Alexander Duncan. He was her son and he had kicked her out of her home when he was thirteen.”
Each individual had their own different perspectives for every matter that they handled. Courtney could accept Oliver’s stance of standing up for his mom. However, she also had to observe things from Alexander’s perspective and acknowledge the pain he had suffered as a result of Fiona’s actions in the past. It is an unresolvable matter.
“Do you plan to help your mom and Alexander reconcile?”
“Yea.”
“That would be quite difficult to achieve,” Courtney immediately responded. “There are some matters that you might not be aware of, so that’s why you have such a notion. However…”
“My mom would never have an affair,” Oliver suddenly interjected.
Meanwhile, her expression took a turn as her eyes met his confident expression.
“I know what you’re about to say. My mom would never ever have anything to do with another man.”
Then, she frowned. “Oliver, your mother has admitted that you and Alexander aren’t from the same father, though.”
Those words were something that she found arduous to say, but he was overly stubborn and didn’t seem to be easily convinced. If Courtney didn’t manage to discourage him from the notion of reconciling Alexander and Fiona, she was worried of the consequences that could arise. In short, the boy’s actions might lead to a catastrophe.
After all, in an attempt to approach Alexander, Oliver even resorted to becoming a private investigator and learned so much information about the Duncans, which made him a ticking time bomb.
“Courtney, do you think that I’m an illegitimate child too?”
Oliver’s expression gradually darkened as he tightly clenched his fist. “Since I was a kid, my mom said that my father’s name was Jeffrey Duncan.”
Courtney was taken aback by the sudden revelation.
Jeffrey Duncan was Old Master Duncan’s only son and Alexander’s dad. When Alexander was thirteen, Jeffrey had died in that car accident, which also caused Fiona to be kicked out of the house as a result. From then on, Fiona and Alexander had never crossed paths with each other for the next twenty years or so. Yet, Oliver was claiming that Jeffrey was his biological father?
“Courtney, do you know why I was given the last name of Ford?” Oliver gradually calmed down as he stared at Courtney. “My mom was told by the Duncans as she left the house that she was no longer part of the family, so her unborn child wasn’t allowed to bear the family name. As she was an orphan adopted by the Duncan Family, her last name was also Duncan. Besides, she didn’t know of any living biological relatives, so what other last name could she give me? In the end, she chose Oliver Ford. It doesn’t sound that great, but when I asked her for the reason behind such a name, she said that she got the idea from her favorite hang-out spot when she was a kid: the ford of the river.”
Oliver Ford. That’s a very meaningful name. She suddenly had mixed emotions.
There was no way for Courtney to validate everything that occurred in the past. Besides, Fiona clearly refused to divulge anything too. However, she felt that there was something else that they were unaware of. “If that’s the case, why did Madam leave back then?”
As soon as Courtney brought this question, Oliver frowned. “I’m still investigating this matter, but I’m confident that it wasn’t because of an affair. The allegation of an affair was fabricated.”
She was tempted to trust his words, but she also felt a strong obligation to stand by Alexander’s side. After pausing for a moment, she glanced at Oliver. “Oliver, have you ever thought that maybe your mom has a reason for adamantly refusing to say a word about the past? Perhaps it was a difficult decision that she was forced to make and she had no choice but to leave the Duncan Family.”
He was slightly shocked. “A decision that was forced?”
“I trust your words that there are no issues with your parentage, but do you realize that this is such an easy thing to validate? However, she chose to leave with you, deny you the Duncan Family name, and never set foot in Melrose City all these years either. Why is that so?”
Courtney was quite confident that he would not lie to her since the situation was already at this stage. Her first instinct was that Fiona was telling the truth and based on all of the information she had on hand, she made a bold assumption, yet she couldn’t quite bring herself to mention it aloud.
As he was clueless about what was going on, Oliver stared at her with a confused expression.
“Let’s leave it at this for now. There’s nothing much we can do about this for the time being. Anyway, at this point of time, don’t let Alexander know about you and your connection to Madam. That’s the safest option right now.”
She couldn’t bring herself to explain further, so she could only advise him as much as possible while fervently hoping that the adverse situation would take longer to manifest.
