Chapter 336 Who’s Your Baby?
While the country was celebrating the new year, someone was bored to tears in a therapy center in America.
It was a sunny day, and she leaned against the windowsill lazily while snacking and casually swiping through Facebook. Besides celebrities posting warm wishes about the new year, there was no other bigger news on the Internet, and it bored her to no end while reading this.
‘Baby, do you like this? I’ll buy it for you.’
A text from Gale popped up on her screen, attached with the picture of a dessert.
Glowering at the picture in annoyance, she typed in furiously, ‘Who’s your baby? Get lost!’
Early in the morning, Gale had gone out to buy food and would send her a picture of anything he saw. In fact, he was using this live-stream shopping method to let her have a sense of involvement so that she would feel as though she was shopping in the supermarket, jewelry stores, malls, and dessert bars.
To this, Cameron merely wanted to tell him to get lost. Not only did she not have any sense of involvement, she simply felt that he was showing off to her that he was a free man.
And this was sparked by her attempt a week ago to break out of the center to spend Christmas outside, but alas, she was caught by Jameson, a doctor in the center. Because of this, she had been depressed until now, fantasizing about the sun outside every day.
As the therapy center was an enclosed area, she couldn’t come and go as she pleased before she was fully recovered. For almost a month, she had been pestering the blue-eyed, strict psychiatrist just so she could make a trip outside for Christmas. In the end, the old man refused to give her the green light no matter what.
While browsing Facebook, she saw a trending topic—‘Wealthy Businessman From Melrose Booked Out the Entire Commercial Circle for a Proposal’.
The word ‘Melrose’ attracted Cameron’s attention, and she tapped on the link. When she saw the pictures posted by the netizens, the potato chips broke into pieces in her hand.
“What the…”
Infuriated, her anger almost brought the roof down, and after staring at the screen for a long while and making sure that she hadn’t seen it wrongly, she made a call.
Her best friend had been proposed to, and she only found out about it through some stupid netizens. This was simply too much!
Am I not her best friend? Alexander hasn’t even impressed me yet, but he has already made that little lass, Courtney, his! she thought, fuming mad and unable to think rationally.
“Sorry, the number you have dialed is temporarily unavailable.”
The robotic voice of the operator tapped on Cameron’s eardrums, and she remembered that it was midnight now in Melrose; nobody would pick up her call at this time.
Courtney must be in the man’s arms now, enjoying some tender loving, she thought, and blood rushed to her head in anger. Why do I feel like I’ve been betrayed? I want to have some tender loving as well!
While she was thinking about that, her cell phone dinged lightly as she received another text from Gale. ‘Baby, does this top look good? I’ll buy it for you. Which color do you prefer?’
She stared at it for a couple of seconds before replying, ‘I don’t like any of it. Come back quickly. I’m tired.’
‘Take a nap if you’re tired. Don’t wait for me.’
There must be a hole in an honest man’s head. Jerking the therapy center pajamas she was wearing, she exposed her left shoulder, tilted her phone upward at a forty-five degrees angle, bit her lip, and snapped a selfie.
When she saw that it was sent, she added, ‘Okay. I’m going to take a nap, then.’
After hitting ‘Send’, she tossed her phone aside and went to the bathroom while humming, completely ignoring her phone, which was bombarded with texts and ringing like crazy on the windowsill.
She bet that Gale would definitely make it back within half an hour.
——
…
The news that Alexander, the CEO of Sunhill Enterprise, spent a huge amount of money to book out the commercial plaza for a marriage proposal was trending for almost a week.
According to the company’s usual low-key style, the PR department would have taken this topic off the trending news a long time ago, but the instruction they received was merely three words—leave it alone.
“Are we really leaving it alone?” The manager of the PR department confirmed it again with Josh, who had come to deliver the instruction. “Our company name has been on the trending topic for almost a week, and it seems like there’s no signs of dying down. Is this appropriate?”
Shrugging, Josh said, “Why don’t you ask President Duncan yourself? These three words were the only thing he told me.”
Hearing that, the manager hurriedly waved his hands. “Please, no. I don’t want to seek trouble for myself. President Duncan must have his reasons for doing this.”
As Josh happened to have some free time, his words sparked his interest. “What reasons, then?”
“I studied our company’s stocks on the market recently, and ever since President Duncan’s proposal was on the trending topic, our stocks have been on the rise. The people on the Internet complimented him for being loyal, and the company’s reputation shot up. I must really hand it to President Duncan. Even his marriage proposal is so in line with the needs of business development.”
Josh sighed. “They say that the people in the PR department have a glib tongue, but I think you’re overthinking things. President Duncan’s proposal isn’t as profound as you think.”
“No? Then why did he buy so many diamond rings? Girls all over the world are dying of jealousy because of this.”
Casting a look at him from the corner of his eyes, Josh uttered, “That’s because he’s rich.”
An awkward silence clung in the air, and the PR manager let out a sigh of defeat silently. Okay, so that’s the truth. It’s all because he’s rich.
After leaving the PR department, Josh went to Alexander’s office with some documents. “President Duncan.”
“Come in.”
Alexander was in the midst of reading the annual summary report of each department. Every department was at their busiest this time of year, especially the finance department, which had been working over time the past couple of days. In turn, Alexander became busy as well, and for every day the past week, he had been leaving the house early and returning late.
Seeing it was Josh who had come in, he lifted his head. “How are the preparations going for the merger? Have you set up a team for that?”
Previously, Courtney had transferred the shares in her name to James, but now that he was locked up in jail and there were some obvious unreasonable terms in the agreement, the contract thus became invalid.
In fact, this matter had already passed, but recently, Courtney heard from an experienced employee in Hunter Group that Susan wanted to sell the company, which prompted her to tell Alexander about this.
Since it would be sold anyway and it was her father’s lifetime work, she felt more at ease to sell it to Sunhill Enterprise.
“It’s almost done,” Josh answered with a nod. “But the person who can lead this project is busy at this time of year, so this matter has to be postponed for a while. I think it can only begin around the mid-winter break.”
“Okay.”
“Also, there’s something you have to take a look at.” Wearing a serious look on his face, Josh continued, “We got someone to recover the surveillance tapes from Louis’ house in Oreus. It captured the customers who were staying at his hostel during that period of time.”
The screenshot of the surveillance had been printed out by him, and Alexander took it from him. With his head lowered as he flipped through the file, the expression on his face gradually turned solemn. There was a young man wearing a black baseball cap in the screenshot; the entire side profile of his face was visible, and he looked very familiar to Alexander.
“I thought he was someone who looked alike,” Josh said, his brows knitted tightly together. “But I checked Oliver Ford’s tracks during that time, and he did purchase a bus ticket from Melrose to Oreus before that. Before you told me to look for Louis, he had already stayed at Louis’ place for a month.”
Slowly, Alexander lifted his head. “Go on.”
“I also found out that when I went to look for Louis, which was the night before his house caught fire, Oliver was also staying there, but nobody knew where he went after that night.”
