Chapter 153: Allow Me to Make My Case
Chapter 153: Chapter 153: Allow Me to Make My Case
Mr. Lynch was so startled he dropped the glass in his hand. He turned to his wife in astonishment, their eyes filled with disbelief.
"Eloise, what did you just say...?"
Eloise Donovan looked embarrassed. "Well, it’s like this. You’ve probably heard about my sister, Serena. On our birthday, many of our relatives and guests were scrambling to have her tell their fortunes. A lot of what she predicted has already come true, so her readings are pretty credible."
The couple nodded but still looked confused. "We have heard about that, but what does that have to do with what you just told us?"
"Actually, the last time Serena saw him, she discovered that even though he’s unmarried, he has a son."
Mrs. Lynch’s expression changed drastically. "What? You mean..."
"It’s exactly what you’re thinking. He has a child out there somewhere."
Mrs. Lynch gasped. "How... How is that possible? Zane... he hasn’t had a girlfriend in years. Aside from his cousins and Cassandra Lynch, it’s rare to even see him with any woman he’s close to."
As Mrs. Lynch spoke, her imagination suddenly ran wild. "The child you’re talking about... don’t tell me it’s Cassandra Lynch’s..."
Eloise Donovan’s mouth twitched, clearly blindsided by Mrs. Lynch’s wild leap in logic. "No, the child should be in kindergarten by now."
"What?" The couple nearly jumped off the sofa. "He’s... he’s that old already?"
"Yes. Serena just called me. She wanted to tell me she thinks she’s found his long-lost child. He’s at... at the same kindergarten my aunt’s kid goes to."
The two of them could finally no longer remain calm. Mrs. Lynch shot to her feet and began pacing back and forth, while Mr. Lynch couldn’t resist picking up his wife’s teacup and taking a sip to calm his nerves.
"This won’t do. We need to get to the bottom of this immediately. For the child to be that old and for us to know nothing... I’m calling Zane right now and telling him to come home at once."
Mrs. Lynch had calmed down a bit and sat back down next to her husband. "Hurry and call Zane. Tell him to get back here. His own child is that old, and he’s never said a word to us? That boy is just asking for a beating!"
Eloise Donovan sat across from them, watching as her uncle called her cousin—who was still slaving away at the company—and ordered him home immediately. She calmly took a bite of the melon in her hand, silently saying a little prayer for her cousin. ’I hope he doesn’t get beaten too badly when he gets back.’
Zane Lynch had just welcomed Caspian Rhodes to his company and hadn’t even managed to get through the pleasantries when a call from his father summoned him home.
Hearing the urgency in Mr. Lynch’s voice, Caspian Rhodes thought something terrible had happened and accompanied Zane Lynch home.
He never expected that the moment they walked through the door, they would be met by the grim, severe expressions of the two elders.
"Zane, you’d better confess. Have you been fooling around and gotten some girl pregnant?"
Zane Lynch was blindsided by the loaded question the moment he walked in, leaving him completely stunned. "Wh-what fooling around? Pregnant? I haven’t..."
"You haven’t? Then why would Eloise’s sister say she met your child out there? You’re still trying to lie to us! I... I’ll kill you today, you unfilial son! Seducing a girl and abandoning her, disgracing our family!"
The more Mr. Lynch spoke, the angrier he became. He pulled a rolling pin out of nowhere, ready to serve his son a dose of family discipline on the spot.
It wasn’t just Zane Lynch, the accused party, who was stunned—even Eloise Donovan and Caspian Rhodes were shocked.
Out of some semblance of friendship, Caspian Rhodes stepped in front of Zane Lynch. "Uncle, calm down, calm down. We can talk about this."
"Yes, yes! Dad, let’s talk this out, don’t get violent! Seducing and abandoning someone? Disgracing the family? I honestly have no idea what’s going on!"
"You brat, still trying to argue? You think Serena has nothing better to do than to frame you?" Mr. Lynch brandished the rolling pin, looking absolutely determined to land a hit on his son.
"Serena?" Hearing the key name, Caspian Rhodes’s move to intervene faltered.
Zane Lynch had moved too quickly to dodge and found himself out in the open, face-to-face with his father. In that split second of hesitation, he was rewarded with a THWACK from the rolling pin.
"Ow! Dad, I really didn’t do it! Stop hitting me, just stop! Let me argue—I mean, let me explain!"
"Err... it might not be a false accusation, you know."
"What? Bro, you..." Zane Lynch’s eyes widened in astonishment, never expecting to be backstabbed by Caspian Rhodes.
Caspian Rhodes shot him a disdainful look. ’I can’t believe it’s been this long, and this idiot still hasn’t found his first love and their child,’ he thought. ’I really overestimated him!’
"See? Look! Even he isn’t defending you. What else do you have to say for yourself?"
"I... But I... I really didn’t..." Zane Lynch was at a loss for words, feeling he’d been more wrongly accused than anyone in history.
"Have you forgotten?" Caspian asked. "I asked you before if you’d ever been in love, didn’t I?"
"You... Are you talking about..." It was finally dawning on Zane Lynch what this was all about. He whipped his head around to look at Eloise Donovan.
"Cousin, you..."
"Are you talking about my child with Juliet? Where is he? And what about Juliet? Is she also..."
Eloise Donovan was taken aback by his questions. After a long moment, she asked blankly, "Juliet?"
Mrs. Lynch glanced from her son to her nephew, her intuition telling her that Caspian Rhodes knew about this as well. Her expression grew even more severe. "Can anyone please tell me what is going on? Who is this Juliet you’re talking about? And how do you have a child with her?"
"Juliet... she was my first love."
"First love?!" the couple exclaimed. "When did this happen?"
"Back in college."
"You were dating someone in college? How come your father and I never knew?"
"...We broke up before I got the chance to tell you."
Mr. and Mrs. Lynch were speechless. ’Who gave him the audacity to say that so nonchalantly?’
"And you claim you weren’t fooling around? That you didn’t just abandon her? You dated for such a short time and broke up, but not before getting a girl pregnant! I... I..." Mr. Lynch got to his feet and started looking for the rolling pin again.
"No! We were together for a long time! I was even planning to bring her home to meet you, and then..."
Hearing this, Mrs. Lynch realized something wasn’t right. She knew her own son. If he had been planning to bring a girl home to meet them with marriage in mind, it meant he must have been completely serious about her.
’And the girl must have felt the same way about him,’ she thought. ’Otherwise, why would a young woman choose to have a baby and raise it all on her own?’
Once the dam was broken, the rest of the story wasn’t hard to tell.
Zane Lynch shifted uncomfortably for a moment before saying through gritted teeth, "And... and I wasn’t the one who broke up with her back then! Technically speaking, I was the one who got dumped!"
Everyone present: "What?!"