Summer handed two pieces of paper napkins to Jessica. She had not told Jessica about Leonardo, hence her shocked reaction the moment she heard what Douglas said.
Douglas, clueless about the twists and turns of the matter, was apparently stunned by Jessica’s reaction. As he sat down, the perplexed Douglas asked Summer, “What’s wrong with my name?”
“Nothing, your name’s alright.” Summer patted him on the head.
Acknowledging with an “Oh”, he just sat there quietly, totally unlike his talkative nature. It seemed that the Emersons were all good actors.
“This is Douglas, Leonardo’s cousin,” Summer said after she organized her thought. With Jessica’s eyes still on stalks, she continued, “The Douglas you’ve met before is Leonardo.”
“Huh?” Jessica nearly lost the thread. A long while later, her brows were knitted together. “You mean the previous’Douglas’ is Leonardo, and this cute kid is the real Douglas?”
“Yeah.” Summer nodded. She then noticed that Douglas was blushing.
“What’s wrong with your face?” she asked, a little shocked.
“He’s shy.” Jessica still looked confused. “Why did Leonardo want to disguise himself as Douglas? Does he have schizophrenia or DID (Dissociative Identity Disorder)? No, that’s not right. That’s not the most important thing. The fact is, not only is he not disfigured, but he’s also super handsome!”
Douglas, who was still in the dark a while ago, finally put two and two together. He looked at Summer, frowning.
Summer poured him a glass of water. “Good boy, have some water.” She then looked over at Jessica. “Keep your voice down.”
Jessica covered her mouth with her hand and mimed a zip-up motion. She was trying to digest the news that “Douglas” was Leonardo and that he was very handsome as well as presumably not impotent. She did not say this in front of the kid, instead, she took out her phone and sent a text message to Summer.
“So he isn’t a limp d*ck, I suppose? Have you tried doing it?”
Summer, on the other hand, did not want to answer her lewd question. So, Jessica turned to Douglas, all smiles.
“Hey, handsome boy, how old are you?”
“Fourteen.” He blushed again.
“Oh, fourteen, and you’re already this tall. You’ll be a handsome man when you grow up.”
“I suppose, yeah,” Douglas replied matter-of-factly.
His narcissism was no surprise to Summer; she was immune to it. But Jessica was amused, laughing her head off.
Summer looked over at him. “Handsome boy?”
“Stop calling me that…” He was still blushing.
“He’s feeling embarrassed?” Summer could not believe that Douglas was capable of being embarrassed.
Jessica’s happy-go-lucky personality and Douglas’s talkativeness turned the atmosphere into a lively affair. Halfway through, when Douglas went to the washroom, Summer finally got the opportunity to tell Jessica about Leonardo.
“There’s something I haven’t told you before. Leonardo was shot before. When I removed the round from him, he did not even bat an eyelid or pass out.”
She saw the changed expression on Jessica’s face. The Emerson family had the wealth and social standing to command respect, but their family affairs were also complicated as hell. Besides, not every Tom, Dick, and Harry had access to firearms.
“Who is Leonardo, really? How could he have gotten shot?” Jessica frowned.
Summer never thought of those questions before. She was probably still in awe of Leonardo’s mental toughness. Why did someone shoot him? What was he doing, actually?
“It looks like things are a lot more complicated than we think. A wealthy family like the Emersons is supposedly very conscious of their reputation, but they’ve done virtually nothing to curb the negative news about Leonardo all these years. They even got him into an arranged marriage with Vicky, but he ended up marrying you. Even if Leonardo’s a cripple, logically speaking, they wouldn’t have allowed him to marry a Jarrett.”
Summer did not mind what Jessica was saying since they were as close as sisters. Summer nodded, agreeing with Jessica’s analysis.
“I have the same questions in my mind, but I can’t figure out why. They agreed on the marriage arrangement when my grandpa was still in the country. I heard that he left the country a few years after that. That’s as far as I can still remember.”
“I heard about it too. When Leonardo and his mother were abducted back then, the Emersons had sent a rescue team to look for them. By the time they found them, the mother was dead and Leonardo was found alive but disfigured. Later, he allegedly suffered from ED (erectile dysfunction). Then news of his arranged marriage with Lynn’s daughter came about.”
Someone from Jessica’s family was a politician, and that was why she had a little insider information about the case. Back then, Summer had heard about the case from the mouth of her family members, but it was nothing too in-depth.
“That means the marriage arrangement between the Emersons and the Jarretts probably has something to do with the kidnapping case?” Summer analyzed.
“It’s possible,” Jessica said.
Summer fell into deep thought. There was more to the marriage arrangement between Leonardo and Vicky than met the eye. Grandpa Jarrett’s sudden departure abroad had to have something to do with this.
“What’s your plan now?”
At first, Jessica was still happy for Summer when she heard that “Douglas” was Leonardo. But after she heard what Summer said, she became worried. Behind the glamor of the wealthy families was some funny business going on. For the heir of the Emerson family to be able to stay under the radar for so many years, it spoke volumes of him.
“I don’t know. Let’s just wait and see,” Summer said self-deprecatingly.
Since the day of her marriage, she had lost control of her life. Most of the time, people had to succumb to fate. You could neither stop nor go back; you could only move forward in the tide of fate. There may be light at the end of the tunnel. Who knows?
Jessica did not know what to say, and all of a sudden, there was silence. Just then, Douglas returned with someone behind him. When he stepped aside, a familiar face appeared.
“Summer, this is my elder brother.”
Summer looked up and saw a gentle face she recognized.
“Adams!”
“Adams!”
Jessica and Summer called out in unison.
“He’s your elder brother?” Jessica asked.
“Yeah, that’s right,” Douglas scratched his head as he answered.
“But his surname is Wilson while you’re a Emerson…” Summer had met Adams several times but never associated him with the Emerson family.
“My elder brother adopted my mom’s maiden name while I, my father’s,” Douglas explained.
Adams smiled at Summer. “Thank you for taking care of Douglas all this while.”
“You’re welcome.” Summer was now a little confused.