Chapter 16 Glimpse-1

    Lena’s sleep had gotten better recently.

  The day Angela came back from the park, she brought a toy teddy bear with her, and then handed it to Lena.

  “It’s a gift from Lucas, Mommy. Lia hasn’t grown strong enough. The bear will protect you in the replacement of her,” the little girl said with seriousness in her beautiful green eyes.

  Lena took the bear and said “Thanks” to her little angel. Lia was the name of Angela’s toy wolf. Lena always felt a bit odd that Angela named the wolf a girl’s name.

  At night, Lena placed the bear on the nightstand before she went to sleep. Normally, she wouldn’t take gifts from strangers into her bedroom, but that bear gave her a different feeling. Maybe because it came from a boy who had the same name as her son. Whenever Lena saw that bear, she felt it was incredibly endearing.

  That night Lena magically didn’t have any nightmares and had a really good rest. She got up early the next day to send Angela to her new kindergarten, and then went to her workplace.

  Yesterday, right after Angela left for the park, the musical tickets she booked from a friend about four months ago arrived in the mail. Vincent’s secretary, Sophia, was a huge fan of music dramas. Those tickets should bring her closer to Sophia.

  It was a little bit difficult for Lena to be Sophia’s friend as she had to pretend that she was a normal person, having a perfectly normal life.

  That morning, she “ran into” Sophia at the coffee shop again and then presented the tickets to this surprised girl. She then asked Sophia out for lunch, on the excuse that she was a complete foreigner in this noisy city, without any local friends.

  Lucky for her, Sophia was an introverted girl but with a kind heart. They soon became friends who had lunch together and started to talk about things that weren’t work-related.

  “A client of mine back in Europe has to bring her five-year-old daughter to New York due to her work. She wants me to recommend to her little girl some really good kindergartens. I wonder if you could help me with any suggestions?”

  About a week later, after they became “close” friends, Lena started to dig into the Lanton Family’s private information from Sophia. She felt sorry for tricking the young girl like that, but if she couldn’t see her son soon, she would become an insane person.

  At lunch, she lied to Sophia, trying to find out which kindergarten Vincent had enrolled her poor child.

  To her surprise, Sophia replied to her with a shrug.

  “I’d like to help, Lena, but sorry, I don’t have any children. And my young relatives aren’t in New York. I have no clue about kindergartens or any other kid stuff.”

  Lena clutched the fork in her hand. That was an unexpected answer. She thought Vincent would have at least had Sophia look up suitable kindergartens for her poor child. That was what the secretary was hired for, wasn’t it?

  She for/ced herself a smile, and then said in a casual tone, “It’s alright. I just thought you might know where those rich kids go to study. It’s a really wealthy client, kind of famous in Europe.”

  Sophia realized why Lena was asking her about kindergartens. She said “Sorry” again, and then explained, “I wish I knew. I truly do. But my boss is very…different.” She paused for a few seconds to pick up the right word and then continued, “You know what? Actually, not only my boss, but his entire family is … different. They are extremely secretive about their private life and don’t allow anyone to know about it, not even me. And they are all very….distant.” It took her a few more moments to come up with that word.

  It made Lena curious, but mainly worried about how her son might have been treated.

  “What does that mean?” she kept that smile to hide her eagerness and asked in a curious tone.

  Sophia’s look became serious. She checked around the diner first before she lowered her voice and explained, “Well, just between you and me. I think my boss, including his younger brother, Samuel. They don’t like actual humans. I mean, they are both very handsome and cute. But I always feel there’s some sort of wall around them, refusing others to get close. And they are doing it deliberately. I think it’s their eyes. Even when they are smiling, you look into their eyes, you get chills all over your back like they are monster’s eyes,” she said, and then suddenly shivered as she had just recalled Vincent’s cranky, angry eyes.

  Lena clutched the fork even tighter. It sounded like Sophia’s delusion. But after what Vincent had done to her, Lena was sort of convinced that Vincent was actually a cold-blooded monster, but only metaphorically, of course.

  Lena then lowered her head to poke the salad in her plate while replying to Sophia in the same faked surprised tone, “Wow, that’s…scary. If they were real monsters, I couldn’t even imagine what their children would be like.”

  “Actually, I knew what my boss’s son was like,” Sophia suddenly lowered her voice again, and leaned a little closer to the dining table.

  She was a quiet girl who didn’t have many friends, but had seen too many secrets. Thus, when she finally got a friend, it was really difficult for her not to gossip. She clutched the fork in her hand too, eager to share the exciting news she had overheard.

  Lena heared her heart start pounding like a drum the moment Sophia mentioned Vincent’s son. She put down the fork to hide the trembling in her left hand, and then asked Sophia with a curious tone, “Really? What is the kid be like?”

  Sophia looked around the diner again before she answered in a deliberately lowered voice, “Well, I’ve never met the boy in person, but I heard about him a few times because they had fights about the boy in the office.”

  Lena asked, “You mean … your boss and his…wife?” She couldn’t help but stick her fingernails into her palms while asking that question.

  Sophia surprisingly shook her head. She rolled her eyes when she mentioned the “wife” of her boss.

  “Of course not. My boss’s wife is a … unique woman. I heard she wouldn’t even look at her son. How come she fought for him? It’s impossible,” she said, recalling what Samuel had accused Talia in Vincent’s office.

  It was about one year ago, when Sophia had just gotten the job, and Vincent had just come out of the coma. Samuel tried hard to persuade Vincent to get rid of Talia, but Vincent refused to listen. Eventually, the college student gave up and stopped arguing with his brother. But before that, Sophia had already picked up a lot of information she shouldn’t have.

  “It’s my boss and his brother, Samuel,” Sophia continued, without knowing that she had already s/lashed a huge wound on Lena’s heart by her unmindful comment on Talia.