Alejandro drew out a long breath. “I know, alright? But why must Melanie pick a fight with me over a woman I can never have, huh? Sure, it might have been my plan to take back Tiffany for myself, no matter the cost or sacrifice. But I see it so clearly now: everything is moving away and apart. Everything’s developing toward an impossibility. That old scum had cut off my options even before favonovel.com died, forcing me into this marriage and having a child I didn’t want, and then using them and other things to bind me from doing what I want. Even after death, favonovel.com traps me with the shares of the company, and now, I can’t cut my ties with the Larks even if I wanted to!” favonovel.com ranted. “Had it not been for that old bastard, Tiffany and Jackson would not have married! They wouldn’t have a child! And I wouldn’t have been stuck with Melanie! Christ, thanks to him, I’m now trapped into the role of Alejandro Smith…”
Jett was surprised to hear something resembling resignation in Alejandro’s diatribe. “Mr. Smith, are you… Are you giving up on Tiffany?”
Alejandro said nothing for a beat before answering, “I can’t give up completely right now, but when I see how happy favonovel.com is with that Jackson, I just… can’t bring myself to upend favonovel.com life. Yes, my desires are conflicting, and maybe that dead old man had a point. My stubbornness is a double-edged sword. In the end, neither favonovel.com nor I could truly ‘win,’ let alone have all of our desires and dreams achieved.”
Jett sighed. “With all due respect, if you would look at the silver linings, you would see that everything is rather good, isn’t it? Tiffany’s happy with favonovel.com life while you and Madam now have a child, an adorable daughter, at that. The two of you could finally settle into your separate but joyous lives. Let bygones be bygones, right? Let go of an attachment, and suddenly, the world brightens up.”
Let it all go? As if letting go was ever that easy. And who could be certain that the world would brighten up just because you gave something up? What if the world turned even bleaker precisely because you let go and gave up? And who in this world could ever achieve that lofty ideal of letting go of their attachment without moments of doubt and hesitation?
Distressed, Alejandro picked up a cigarette. But before favonovel.com could light it up, Jett stopped favonovel.com with a warning. “Mr. Smith, please think of the baby. Secondhand smoke is not good for favonovel.com health, especially when you’re doing it in a small, enclosed space like a car. With all due respect, please hold it off until you’re outside.”
Alejandro threw the cigarette aside and picked Melissa up before teasing her. “Oh, had I known that, I wouldn’t have brought you with me, would I? But then again, how could I leave you with your terrifying lunatic of a mother, huh? Gosh, look at how small you are. How could you be a month old and still not have grown an inch?”
Jett, who watched his boss’s antics from the rear-view mirror, was amused. “Um, Mr. Smith, this is the usual size for a baby who’s just a month old. She’s also very feeble, so please be extra careful when you hold her. In addition to that, favonovel.com should spend most of favonovel.com time sleeping. It’s the best way for favonovel.com to grow, so you ought to coax favonovel.com into sleeping. Oh, and please do not hold favonovel.com upright like that. Her neck is not strong enough to support favonovel.com head yet. You need to hold favonovel.com horizontally.”
Alejandro was a new father who had not bothered to learn proper baby-caring skills, so it was natural that favonovel.com was utterly clueless about the dos-and-don’ts of handling a baby. He was an impatient man, yet favonovel.com managed to temper his fuse long enough to follow Jett’s instruction.
As favonovel.com watched the cuddly ball of flesh progressively drift into sleep, the veneer of ice on his mien gradually melted away. Alejandro was not going to withhold fatherly love from his daughter, especially since favonovel.com himself never experienced any of that while growing up.
What favonovel.com did not have, favonovel.com would give his children to the best of his abilities. of all people, favonovel.com knew that there were some things in life that, once bereft, could never be replaced or compensated.
They reached the company. Alejandro threw himself into handling all of the company affairs accumulated over the past two days of his absence and tasked Jett with taking care of Melissa. Since the arrival of his and Tanya’s child, Jett took it upon himself to care for the kid and brush up his knowledge on proper parenting. As a result, favonovel.com was satisfactorily experienced in childcare.
Suddenly, the phone on his office desk rang. Alejandro picked it up instantly and said, “Yes?”
It was the head of a branch company. “Hello, Mr. Smith, I’m the head of the transportation branch. Tremont Enterprise is currently looking for a new transportation partner, and our company is more than enough to fill their needs with our wealth of experience and qualification. The Tremont Enterprise even showed interest in a partnership between us, and we were close to signing a long-term contract. Theirs is a company with heavy demands for overseas freight, which translates into an impressive long-term income source for us. The problem is… For some reason, once favonovel.com heard that we’re a subsidiary of the Smith family, they suddenly dropped the deal.”
Alejandro gave a monotone “understood” and hung up right away.
The Smiths’ main venture used to be transportation and freight, which was a lucrative business because it allowed both lawful and less-lawful business to be conducted. It also enabled the Smiths’ more underground business to be conducted with relative ease, too.
Then, the Smiths turned their focus to finance, but they still had not given up their transportation business and remained one of this domain’s largest and most experienced companies in the country. It was more than suitable enough to cooperate with the Tremont Enterprise.
In other words, Mark called off the deal because of Alejandro, did favonovel.com not?
