Tim could not believe what he heard. Leonardo had said it twice, but Tim still thought he had a hallucination.
“Young Master…”
He wanted to double-check with Leonardo again, but Leonardo put up his hand, motioning him to shut up. He was stupefied for a second, then turned to leave.
After Carl and Jessica parted on bad terms, he returned and saw Tim coming out of Leonardo’s office. He went up quickly to Tim.
“You found Summer?”
Tim furrowed his brows and nodded.
Carl saw his concern-ridden face and was puzzled. “Did Leonardo stop you to from bringing Summer back, or does he want to bring her back personally?”
Tim shook his head. “Neither. The young master…” He paused, trying to find a word to describe Leonardo. “I sense that something isn’t right with him.”
“Isn’t right?” Carl’s mouth twitched.
“He has not asked us to bring his wife back, but he does not want to bring her back personally either. He just asked us not to spook her.”
Carl was just as dumbstruck as Tim now. After a while, he asked, “What happened to him?”
Tim shook his head with a confused look on his face. Having followed Leonardo for many years, he could guess what Leonardo was thinking most of the time, but Tim was none the wiser this time.
Carl had the same thought.
…
Summer had checked out from the hotel, but she did not let her guard down. After spending a night at the homestay, she had a makeover the next day and went to the café opposite the hotel, chose a window seat, ordered a fruit juice and sat there for the entire afternoon.
She had only one purpose of being there: to see when Leonardo’s men would track her to the hotel. Judging by Leonardo’s capability, she thought he would detect her at the hotel. But she had been sitting at the café and looking at the hotel for three days until her three-day booking at the hotel had passed. Yet there were no signs of Leonardo and his men.
Could it be that his men could not find her? But she quickly dismissed this possibility. With Leonardo’s capability, he could not have failed at locating her.
Stirring the fruit juice in front of her, Summer had an uneasy feeling. She should have felt happy when Leonardo did not come, but she was not. She felt disappointed.
Was it just like what Jerome said: Leonardo had forgotten about her? But it was not even two years. Leonardo had given up on her?
Pressing her lips together, she took off the wig and hat, then walked out of the café. She even made a walk-by in front of the hotel entrance before returning to the homestay.
After having a meal with the host, she went back to her room. She checked her email again. Eliza had sent her an electronic copy of the agreement. Taking a quick look and finding everything was in order, she replied to Eliza’s email.
Summer was not sure if Leonardo had given up on her. The next early morning, she booked a flight and flew out of Sydney to another city.
After that, she called the host of the homestay to say hi, but she was actually sounding them out to see if there was anyone from Z Country looking for her. But judging from the reply of the old couples, the answer was negative.
Had Leonardo really given up to search for her?
…
A month had passed. She and Eliza had sent their signed agreement to each other by courier, yet Leonardo seemed to have not traced her down and come looking for her.
An unloved child usually matures quicker. Her past had nurtured her ability to stay level-headed. At this time, it was clear to Summer now that Leonardo had no intention to look for her. Since this was so, she did not have to play seek and hide with him anymore.
She changed her telephone number and contacted Jessica. When she was back in Sydney again, she rented a house by the sea and settled down.
She had thought of returning to Hoover City, but she thought better of it. She had sacrificed so much to escape and she was not going to go back there like this. Also, there was nothing that she looked forward to in Hoover City now. So why would she go back?
Yet, somehow, deep inside her, she had an inexplicable feeling that Leonardo was not letting her off just yet. He may not be looking for her now, but it did not mean that when she gave birth to the baby, he would not come for the child.
After weighing her options, she thought that it was better to stay in Sydney.
…
Eliza liked the script that Summer wrote, so she and Summer had frequent video-meetings discussing the script. Since it was a fiction, there were many things that sounded illogical and did not conform to reality. But when the script was eventually made into a web series, it needed to look and sound convincing in the eyes of the audience, get the approval from the broadcasting regulator, and withstand the scrutiny of common sense.
The script had gone through several revisions. When it was finally ready, it was already April. Summer’s expected due date was July.
“This is the last chapter.”
“Take a look. If everything is all right, we will make it final, and I will have to take a rest while waiting for my confinement.” While speaking, Summer pressed the Send button to email the last
chapter of the script to Eliza.
She then moved her neck and rubbed her belly that now looked like a large balloon. Eliza saw it through the teleconferencing and hesitated for a while before she asked, “You are going to give birth there?”
“Yeah.” Summer nodded.
She and Eliza had been keeping a close contact for the past few months, always arguing about the script when there was a disagreement. No one had wanted to back down. But it was also because of this that their relationship got closer.
Eliza asked, “Did Leonardo go looking for you?”
Summer was silent for a moment, then said, “No.”
“You two—”
“That’s it for today. I am tired now. I’ll see you around.” Summer turned off the camera without waiting for Eliza to finish.
Summer sat at the desk and fell into a daze. After a while, she opened the net browser and typed in search words: Leonardo. Her eyes landed on a line of tiny text on the top of the search page.
“Your search has about 14, 7000, 000 results.”
Below the text was Leonardo’s personal details, and further down was the latest news about him.
Each search result was about Leonardo, with some discussing him, and some the Emerson family. Since Leonardo took over the helm at Emerson Corporation, and also because he was personally newsworthy, all major media would scramble to get a hand on his news, no matter how small the story was.
It was far too easy for Summer to know about his current situation.