The situation became quite tense at that moment. While Heather considered in her mind how to broach the subject with Leon, he was also trying to figure out what to do next. Both of them looked at each other while looking lost.
“Heather, as far as I’m aware, you recently seem to be overly close with a particular hotshot detective,” he asked tentatively. He was considering whether he should mention it since it was something private.
Meanwhile, she was slightly taken aback before she gave him a strange look. “Looks like you’ve been following my tracks,” she said this with a hint of annoyance.
Leon never expected Heather to say those words. I really need to be careful with my words around women. He felt like he had fallen into a trap once again. At that moment, he responded by looking at her with a dumbfounded expression “I swear I didn’t secretly trail you! Heather, someone took a photo of you with the detective.”
Upon hearing that, her expression slightly changed. She persisted and asked him, “When did this happen? Where’s the photo?” Zayne and I are usually careful, so how did that person manage to get a photo of us?
He raised both hands and replied in fear, “Heather, please remain calm for the time being. I only took a look at it, but I didn’t retain the photo.”
Heather was slightly doubtful as she didn’t trust Leon’s words. It was hard to trust someone once they’d broken that trust. He gave an awkward smile as he noticed her distrust and he acted as if a smile could conceal everything.
“Heather, can you please trust me? There’s no need for me to lie about this.” He felt quite dejected at being doubted by her because it was quite an uncomfortable feeling.
She reluctantly nodded her head because she was much more concerned about the photo. “Where did you see that photo?”
Leon looked at her with a torn expression and it seemed like he had qualms about mentioning it. However, Heather’s eyes bore into him and he had no choice but to speak the truth. “It was from a reporter. I don’t know how he obtained that,” he replied gingerly as it was something that happened a few days ago.
“Reporter? What’s his name?” She continued with her interrogation and was insistent on getting a conclusive answer.
Leon looked at Heather with a slightly ugly expression. “I don’t remember his name. All I can distinctly remember is his features.”
After all, his answer fitted with his personality; he was the type of person who rarely remembered a person and he could at most recall the person’s looks.
“Sketch it out for me. I want to seek him out.” Heather felt that she should resolve this issue before the family dinner. She didn’t want to encounter any blunders then.
“Heather,” Leon suddenly called out her name. “That issue isn’t the priority right now. We should focus on tomorrow night’s family dinner,” He tried to gently express his thoughts.
“You can’t provide any useful information for tomorrow’s dinner, so it’s a waste of time to continue our discussion on that.” She gave her justification since she was speaking the truth.
“Then, are we going to spend the rest of the time tracing this unknown little reporter?” A displeased Leon voiced out his thoughts since he felt that Heather had her priorities mixed up.
Meanwhile, she responded quite matter-of-factly, “This is quite important to me and it could have an adverse effect on tomorrow’s dinner.”
He looked her in the eyes. Since he was convinced by her words, he knew that he couldn’t seem to ever reject her request.
“Okay, I’ll show you where to find him.” Leon didn’t have anything urgent to do, so he decided to head with her to see the reporter since she was so mindful of that.
“Do you know where to find him?!” Heather suddenly felt slightly awkward as this hadn’t crossed her mind.
“Yes, I know his workplace. We should be able to catch him there at this hour,” he replied while he looked at the time. Tabloid reporters like that man usually worked overtime.
“Let’s go now!” Heather was suddenly full of energy. She didn’t know whether anyone else had seen the photo so she was worried about Matthias finding out. Actually, come to think of it, it doesn’t matter even if he realizes this. She wasn’t sure of the reason for her worries, but she maintained an apprehensive feeling.
“There’s no rush for that.” Leon wasn’t sure why she was so frantic. She’s normally the most level-headed one.
Heather then glared at him. Obviously, he wasn’t anxious about it, but it was a different story for her. She considered it for a moment before she decided to inform Zayne about this.
Based on Zayne’s professional acuity, he should have in fact realized this. By then, the list of suspects in Heather’s mind grew and Zayne’s name was included in it. She suspected him of hiding something from her.
After all, if Leon had lied to her easily, it would be quite plausible for others to lie to her as well. Right now, the general trust she had in people had greatly decreased.
“Leon, do you have something that you’re purposely hiding from me?” Heather was annoyed by Leon’s apparent calmness. She sensed that he was hiding something from her.
“Heather, I honestly haven’t hidden anything from you. I’ve told you everything that you need to know.” His brows were furrowed into a single line. How can I explain myself?!
“Right now, you’re rather low on my list of the people I trust,” she replied with a displeased expression. Upon recalling the things that he had done before, she felt a burst of anger
“Heather, I’ve only made one single mistake, so could you please not treat me like this?!” Leon’s expression was quite forlorn. He felt like he was banished into the dungeons with no sign of escaping at all.
“You deserve it! Think of all the things that you’ve done to me!” Heather mentioned angrily, “I used to trust you so much, but I didn’t expect you to lie to me. You made use of me and our relationship became merely a business interest in your eyes.” Her anger continued to rise as she aired her grievances and her expression turned quite savage. If looks could kill, he would have immediately dropped dead since she was quite disappointed in him.
Meanwhile, Leon was quite aware that he had mentioned the wrong thing. “I’m sorry, Heather.” Right now, other than apologizing for his bad behavior, he knew it was a wise idea to keep his mouth shut. The more he said, the more there was a chance he would be at fault.
Heather focused her eyes on his face and there were a lot of words that she wanted to say but couldn’t. She merely shook her head at him. “Stop apologizing to me. I don’t need your apology.”
Upon hearing his apology, her mood worsened. She knew that he was quite good at understanding women, so she wasn’t sure whether his apology was sincere or simply perfunctory.
“Heather, I have honestly realized my mistake. Could you please forgive me and stop being mad at me?” Leon was close to tears. Previously, he had thought that Heather was different from the women he generally met but right now, he realized that women were essentially similar.
She didn’t answer his question and was reluctant to do so. Obviously, Leon is just being perfunctory. He’s not the least bit sincere.
“Get in the car.” They arrived at the garage and Heather didn’t want to continue wasting her time talking about irrelevant stuff with Leon.
He removed the car keys and unlocked the car. She then opened the door to the passenger seat and climbed in. Soon after that, he hopped into the car as well and by then, she had already buckled her seatbelt.
There was a slight noise being generated from the car as he started the engine. Meanwhile, Heather glanced at her watch; she was quite worried about the current traffic condition at this time of the day.
Indeed, as per her expectations, the road was quite congested. The traffic at this time of the day was horrible beyond words. She then furrowed her brows. Unfortunately, it was the peak traffic after work that they encountered and the incessant car honks increased her frustration.
“Heather, it’s winter right now, but why is your temper so fiery like you’re in the peak of summer?” Leon looked at the slightly testy look on Heather’s face. She seems to be turning more bigoted in her ways. Furthermore, he suspected that perhaps this was her true personality.
In response, Heather shot a cold look at Leon. “Focus on your driving!” She finally understood why the cab drivers were generally quite foul-mouthed. Surely one would not be able to control their temper while being stuck in such congested traffic.
“Hey, since we’re stuck here anyway, why don’t I tell you a joke then?” He tried to lighten the mood, but she didn’t seem to buy it.
Leon decided to continue with his jokes despite noticing her impassive look. “One day, two tomatoes went shopping together. The one in front kept turning back to talk to the tomato at the back, but the latter didn’t respond. Suddenly, as the skies darkened, she finally mentioned coolly, ‘I thought we’re tomatoes, so we’re not supposed to talk right?’”
Upon hearing his joke, Heather merely replied, “Hehe.” In actual fact, she hated gags as it just wasn’t funny to her at all. Meanwhile, he finally turned to glance at the congestion in front of him after noticing her look of annoyance. I thought it was quite funny.
“The car in front has moved,” she reminded him kindly. Actually, she was quite tempted to switch positions with him. Under such congested traffic, it was important to sneak in between cars, but his old-fashioned way of driving would obviously waste a lot of time in getting to their destination.
As soon as The Apple Gazette came to her mind, Heather couldn’t seem to control her anger. She seemed to be at odds with this tabloid ever since she returned to Bradfort City, but never expected that they had the guts to secretly take photos of her.
She decided that as soon as she arrived, she would first identify the reporter to learn more about the details. Then, she would destroy the company. In fact, she harbored an intense dislike of The Apple Gazette. I wonder who gave them the guts to go against me over and over again.
“Heather, based on the snail speed we’re going at, it might take us at least two hours to get there.” Leon estimated the time. They were currently stuck in the outskirts of town and it was generally difficult to head into town at this time of the day.
“You’re exaggerating. It will take us about one hour to get there,” Heather responded while she glanced at the time. She estimated that the congested traffic would clear soon and the drive would become much easier then.
“Heather, actually there’s something else I forgot to mention.” Leon hesitated for quite a while before he decided to be honest with her.
She glanced at him and asked, “What is it?”
While slowly driving the car, he mentioned, “Actually, I’m not too sure about the reporter’s actual identity. He was the one who told me that he worked for The Apple Gazette, but I didn’t confirm that information. I was thinking earlier that if he was actually lying about it, we would be wasting our time by going there.”
Heather gave Leon a searching look. “Why are you only mentioning such a piece of important information now? I told you to sketch his looks for me!”
“You wouldn’t be able to find him right now with just a sketch!” Hr felt that her plan would take longer to execute, so it was much easier to head to The Apple Gazette to have a look for themselves.
“Zayne’s the expert in this. He’ll be able to find that reporter in the shortest possible time.” Heather wondered, Why didn’t I notice this dumb side of him before?
“I’ve tried the way you mentioned, but I couldn’t come up with any information.” In fact, Leon had previously taken a photo of the reporter and searched for him on the computer database. As his efforts were futile, this was the reason why she came to this conclusion.
Nevertheless, he no longer had the photo of the reporter on his phone; he wasn’t sure when he had deleted it, but if he hadn’t succeeded in identifying the person with an actual photo, using a sketch to search for that person sounded like an impossible mission!
