Chapter 54 A Car Rental Company
Chapter 54 A Car Rental Company
"Jonas, why are you investigating Alan in private?"
"Something doesn't seem right with Alan's story. I would advise you not to invest yourself too much on this relationship," said Jonas coldly.
He really didn't take into account Yulia's feelings or care that she had found out that he was investigating her boyfriend. Furthermore, reports from his investigations indicated that something was wrong with Aner Electronic Technology Company, but he didn't have sufficient time to dig deeper and pin point the issue, so he couldn't get any useful information within such a short time.
"Jonas, he is my boyfriend, my future husband for goodness sake, you can't treat him like a common criminal."
Yulia was head over heels in love with Alan and whatever Alan did or said was law. So she didn't like that her brother was slandering his name and didn't even want to give him time to explain himself.
"I am not trying to be unnecessarily mean to you or him," Jonas said indifferently.
'It's such a tragedy to have such a brother who handles sensitive issues so casually,' thought Melinda who had been sitting beside Jonas, quietly listening to their exchange. She felt pity for Yulia.
"Jonas, I will not allow you to do this to my future husband anymore. I want you to stop the investigation immediately."
Yulia was so angry that she had completely forgotten that Jonas didn't like threats. Her warning had no effect on him at all.
"Yulia, you have to realize that you are a member of the Gu family. That means that you get to enjoy all the honor and benefits that comes with the Gu name, but you also have to be responsible and protect the name. You can't go picking up any Tom, Dick and Harry and bring garbage to this house."
While listening to their confrontation, Melinda realized that Jonas must been very polite to her, considering that he was now unapologetically referring to Alan as garbage.
"How can you be so rude and abuse Alan? Jonas, I will only marry Alan and no one else as long as I am alive. You can't stop us."
Melinda looked at Yulia, and her determined look reminded Melinda of when she was blindly in love.
"Whatever."
The atmosphere was suddenly tense as Jonas dismissed his sister's concerns and abruptly ended the discussion. Yulia stomped out of the living room and went back to her bedroom throwing her belongings haphazardly into her suitcases in anger.
Everyone in the Gu's mansion was shocked by the dramatic scene. When they saw Yulia struggling with her luggage and stuffing them in the car, Jonas said nothing, but with closer examination, Melinda noticed that it looked as if he was thinking his sister was making a "stupid" decision.
Feeling sorry for Alan and wronged by her brother, Yulia went to Alan's home with her luggage. The moment she saw Alan, she cried,
"Alan."
"What happened, my little Princess? Why are you in such a state? Come on, don't cry."
Alan gently rubbed his thumb across Yulia's cheek, trying to wipe her tears which were trickling like a waterfall, before removing his handkerchief and wiping her face. Then he tagged her hand by the elbow and pulled her to the house. Yulia cried more when he showed her kindness and told him everything that had happened, in between hiccups and wailing. It was a wonder that Alan actually understood
what she was saying. She, however, did not inform him that Jonas was carrying out an investigation on him.
"Silly girl, am I really worth quarreling and having a disagreement with your family?"
Alan had expected that this would happen at any time, but he didn't expect that it would happen so soon. Seeing that Yulia trusted him so much, Alan felt relieved.
As long as he had control over Yulia, he didn't have to worry about the future. Everything would work out fine.
"You are worth everything."
Yulia looked at Alan with teary eyes sincerely showing how much she cared about him. The man in front of her had been so kind to her that she had never received so much attention in her whole life.
"Don't worry, this is your home now," said Alan. He directly took Yulia to the master bedroom while carrying in her luggage. His house was not big by rich people's standards, and there were two bedrooms and one living room. The entire house was not much bigger than Yulia's bedroom, but she was still very happy just to be with him.
"Thank you Alan for your hospitality," said Yulia.
Alan comforted her, and then advised her not to be too angry and stiff with her family.
"Alan, I'm scared."
Seeing that Alan was busy transferring his clothes to the guest bedroom, Yulia reached out and grabbed the ends of his shirt tails. Alan stopped and looked at her helplessly.
"Yulia, you must be tired. Have a good rest and then we can talk afterwards."
Yulia held on to Alan's hand tightly, not willing to let him go.
"Come on, be a good girl."
Yulia believed that Alan would never consummate their relationship, because she assumed that he was a very principled person. She thought that he would never agree for them to cross that line before they got married, which convinced Yulia even more that he was the perfect husband.
"Alan, shall we get married?" asked Yulia out of the blue.
Girls were rare bold enough to propose marriage, but Yulia was different. She didn't even realize that it was something that was frowned upon within society. She only thought that as long as she married him, Alan would completely belong to her.
"Yulia, I can't afford to provide for you a comfortable life like the Gu family does."
Yulia hugged Alan tightly and didn't care about money or any of the things he was talking about as long as she was with him.
"I don't mind living a poor life. Alan, marry me. I want to be your bride."
"Okay."
Yulia moved into Alan's home and after staying with him for a while and getting over her anger with her brother, she wanted to take Alan to the Gu family again. But there never seemed to be good time. Alan was always busy at the company working for long hours. He explained to Yulia that the company was still trying to create a niche for itself within the market, and therefore he was always busy attending one meeting after the other.
So they delayed the meeting.
Melinda was going to a small party on that day, with several new writers from several websites. The party was very lively. A group of people talked about their writing, and then proposed that they should have dinner at a nearby shopping mall.
"Melinda, would you like to join us?"
a young woman asked Melinda. She had started writing about the same time as Melinda although she now had a massive following since she wrote novels that focused on immortal martial arts which were very popular.
"Okay, I'll wait for you there."
The woman's car was parked in the parking lot right where Melinda was waiting for her with something in her hand. It was the bustling downtown area which was very crowded and everyone seemed to be in a hurry. Nôvel(D)ra/ma.Org exclusive © material.
Melinda liked to observe life, but her eyes suddenly concentrated on one single individual and paid more attention to him than she usually would.
The man was wearing a black suit, a pair of well-polished leather shoes, and waxed hair. Wearing glasses on the bridge of his nose, he looked like a refined scholar. At a glance, Melinda recognized him as Yulia's boyfriend.
Yulia had bitterly argued with Jonas, and even ran away from home for this man.
Alan walked hurriedly and got into the sports car. Although it was a convertible, the top wasn't open and there was a man on the driver's seat. His clothes looked like a uniform.
At first, Melinda thought that he was an employee of Alan's company, but the conversation she vaguely heard was strange.
Alan was talking with the man and asking about the price.
"I have been your regular customer. Can't you give me a discount?"
Recently, Alan had spent a lot of money trying to hook up Yulia and so he had no more liquid cash. He had planned to get money from Yulia after reeling her in and giving her a few days.
As for his going to the Gu family, he had decided that he would stall as much as possible and not go there for now. The last time he had gone there, he was scared into a cold sweat and nearly got caught. Jonas had been his greatest fear. The expression on Jonas's eyes was really frightening clearly indicating that he doubted him and he asked very sharp questions, causing he to nearly give himself away.
For the last few days, he had been living on egg shells, afraid of being found out. He was very relieved when Yulia came to him with her luggage and left her home. It at least gave him more time to put his plan into action.
"Mr. Lu, you are just going to borrow the car and try to put on an act. Why do you care how much it costs? We are old acquaintance and you know the rules of our store," said the man, pouting, not very impressed by Alan's questions.
Alan was indeed a regular customer here, but he was not a good person. The man often saw him carry different girls in the various kinds of cars that he rented posing as if he owned them.
He was basically a refined scum.
"Okay, that's enough. Can we go now?" Alan said impatiently.
The man slowly started the car and drove into the underground parking lot. Seeing this, Melinda put away her mobile phone and quietly followed them. She had taken a lot of pictures because she felt that
something was not right based on their conversation. Thinking of Jonas's suspicion, she felt that there was indeed something fishy about Alan.
Today Alan needed to use the car urgently, so the location of the transaction changed temporarily. They had already come to an agreement on the terms and conditions so for now it was just the handover procedure. Alan, who had to pay hundreds of thousands of deposit, was distressed and he was acting up taking out his anger on the driver.
The person didn't mind and he wasn't bothered much, as long as he was getting his money. After getting all the procedures done, he gave Alan the key and left. He even put some business cards in the rear view mirrors of other several ordinary cars in case they would ever need his services.
It was not until Alan started the car and drove away that Melinda came out from behind a pillar aside. She picked up a business card at random. When she saw the company name on the card, she opened her eyes as wide as a marble, shocked.
A car rental company? Alan rented his car. Didn't he say that he had his own company? Moreover, he said that his company's prospect was prosperous. Why did he need to rent a car?
Melinda was lost in thought, when she heard a car horn from the left side which startled her out of her reverie. It was from the former author.
"Why did you go downstairs and we had agreed on the ground floor?"
"Sorry, I have something to deal with urgently, I don't even think I can join you guys for dinner. Please pass my apologies to the others."
Full of doubts, Melinda just wanted to figure out the truth. Seeing that Melinda was really in a hurry, the author asked if she needed any kind of help. Melinda shook her head and only let her pass her sincere apologies to the group.
Melinda searched the location of the car rental company online and then took a taxi to their offices. The location was not big, and the cars were usually packed in the garage behind their offices.
"Miss, how can I help you? Do you need to rent a car?"
The receptionist greeted Melinda with a sweet smile. Seeing that she was dressed up in expensive clothes, the receptionist became curious. 'She must be a rich woman. Her clothes are expensive enough to buy a car. Why does she need to rent a car when she looks like she can comfortably afford her own?' the receptionist wondered.
"I want to talk to your boss about an important deal,"
Melinda spoke as if she had a wealth of money, pretending to be very rich, but in her heart, she was worried how she was going to broach the subject about Alan. The car rental company was very popular, with a lot of traffic. There were many people receiving different services.
She had planned to look for a sales clerk and ask them a lot of questions to help her investigate, but now she felt that the issue was bigger than she had originally thought and so she changed her mind temporarily.
With such a big business, everyone was busy trying to attend to all customers. Melinda soon saw the owner, a plump middle-aged man.