At nine o'clock that night, after leaving the hospital, the father and son did not choose to talk in the study at home. Instead, they went to the chairman's office at Harrington & Co. International. Both of them feared that Victoria might kick up another unreasonable scene and disrupt the conversation they had agreed to have tonight.
"What I'm about to tell you may shock you," Jonathan began, his voice heavy. "But you have to let me finish. I think… the time has come for you to know."
"Yes," Ned replied calmly.
Jonathan fell silent for a moment, his thoughts drifting far away before he pulled himself back. "I…" He paused, then forced the words out. "I may have a child. A child I never knew existed for more than twenty years."
He stopped again, his eyes fixed on his son. "If it's true, then she is my biological daughter."
Ned's face remained expressionless.
"I can't confirm her identity yet, but I felt I had to tell you first." Jonathan knew full well that the impact of his words was far greater than Ned's calm exterior suggested.
"This child… if she really is mine… she came from a time when I was young. Back then, your mother and I… our marriage was already bad. We fought constantly for all sorts of reasons. I was in a lot of pain. And that woman—she came into my life because of her gentleness and kindness. Naturally, she became part of it." He explained carefully, painfully aware of how shameful it was to confess an extramarital affair to his own son.
Ned's eyes narrowed almost imperceptibly, but he said nothing, listening without the slightest change in expression.
"That child—if she truly is my daughter—was born to me by that woman. She is my flesh-and-blood daughter." Jonathan finished, his voice barely above a whisper.
"So what you're telling me," Ned said with quiet certainty, "is that the woman you had the affair with was Sarah, and her daughter—Sophie—is your daughter."
His unflinching, affirmative tone left Jonathan feeling utterly ashamed, with nowhere to hide.
"So you're telling me I've been dating my own biological sister… and that I even wanted to marry her and have children with her." Ned voiced the words that caused agony to both him and his father.
In the heavy silence, Jonathan finally spoke. "Does that mean… you accept what I just told you?"
"No. I can't accept it." Ned's voice carried a trace of hurt. "You're not even sure yourself, so how can you expect me to accept it? You still haven't confirmed whether Sophie is your biological daughter, have you?"
A beat passed. Then Ned continued, piecing it together. "So Mom has known about your affair all along? That's why she lost her mind at the hospital—not because Sophie is my girlfriend, but because Sarah is back… and she thinks the two of you are together again—"
"It's not like that!" Jonathan cut in hastily. "We will never be together again. Sarah rejected me twenty years ago…" His voice cracked with old pain. "She was pregnant at the time. She left for Manchester without a word. I searched for her for years—until you were born…"
He paused, then went on. "It wasn't until this year, when I was visiting an old friend at the clinic and ran into her on the way back, that I learned she had returned to New York with her daughter."
Ned's expression remained perfectly calm.
"I pressed her about the child, but she always just smiled and never gave me a straight answer." Jonathan looked at his son, his eyes filled with complicated emotions. "Only once, when I pushed too hard, she told me Sophie was adopted."
"Father, what do you plan to do next?" Ned asked, as if he were listening to someone else's story. "If you need a DNA test, I can help arrange it. That's the simplest and most reliable way, isn't it?"
"I need to investigate a few things first," Jonathan said. "About Sophie's background." His shoulders slumped; in an instant he seemed to age ten years. "I can't put it off any longer. I have to start digging and find out the truth as soon as possible."
"You want to look into the orphanage that handled Sophie's adoption? Or start with Sarah's relatives and trace everything back?" Ned analyzed coolly. "Why take the long way around? The most direct method is a DNA test. Going about it your way is far too slow and inefficient."
"But I—" Jonathan hesitated, his voice faltering.
Ned's expression remained utterly calm; in fact, he showed no expression at all.
It suddenly struck Jonathan that, apart from business matters, he and his son had never truly opened up to each other. He had never once taken the time to understand the boy—no, the man—standing in front of him.
"Father, you really are getting old," Ned said evenly, cutting straight through the hesitation. "On something this straightforward, you're still wavering left and right." He paused, then added, "Whether you have this daughter or not, nothing in our family actually changes right now."
Jonathan jerked his head up and stared at his sharp, young son who had just exposed his cowardice with surgical precision. "And you're not afraid? If she really is my daughter, then the two of you will forever be brother and sister. You can never be lovers."
"So Mother knows about this?" Ned kept circling back to the same point.
Jonathan nodded, then shook his head. "In the past, she only knew Sarah existed. But we hadn't seen each other for over twenty years."
"Yesterday she caused that scene at the hospital. From what we can piece together now, she knows Sarah is back," Ned observed, his father's answer sounding strangely distant.
"And by now she must have realized Sophie is Sarah's daughter—realized they're mother and daughter." Jonathan forced the words out, his voice heavy. "When we go home, you and I are walking straight into a storm. Neither of us can escape it."
Abruptly, Jonathan changed the subject. "I'm going to arrange for Sarah to be transferred immediately—or better yet, have her flown to the States for treatment. As long as she stays in that hospital, your mother will keep showing up and making trouble. The consequences would be disastrous."
Ned gave a solemn nod of agreement.
"That leaves Lara." Jonathan rested a hand on Ned's shoulder. "I'll persuade Sophie to go to America with her mother and continue her studies there. That way Lara can't keep harassing her or stalking her anymore."
"As for the marriage between you and Lara—" Jonathan stopped, waiting for Ned's response before continuing.