496 One Of A Kind (1/2)

”I'm glad you finally decided to have this dinner with your father. From your reaction yesterday, I thought you would reject it.”

Darren only glanced at Paige but said nothing. He might have thought of not having this dinner but last night after talking to Ying, he didn't have any other choice. It wasn't that he was estranged from his father but he still would be the last one to find out anything related to his health. And the blame was on his father who would share everything else with him except for his worries.

As he stood at the entrance of the private room, two men standing guard at the door bowed to him respectfully and opened the door for him to enter. While Paige stood outside, he entered the room.

The man inside was standing close to the window looking out but turned around when he heard the sound of the door. Darren hadn't seen him in a year or so, and now he seemed to have aged a lot more. Dylan's father and his own had almost the same age but why was it that his father was looking older?

”I hope you're not planning on just standing there,” he heard that gentle voice and his trance broke. His father walked over to him and hugged him. When he pulled away, he looked at his son up and down and nodded, ”You look good. I wonder if it has something to do with love.”

”You heard that?”

His father smiled at him, ”You announced it to the whole world. It does feel bad to realize that I was the last person to hear about it but yeah, I'm really happy for you.”

”It's not like I wanted to hide it from you,” said Darren as he followed his father to sit down. ”But you seem to be hiding a lot from me.”

”Me?” His father frowned slightly. ”What did I hide from you?”

”You had a heart attack,” stated Darren keeping his voice leveled. ”And you didn't even bother telling me about it.”

Darren's father stared at his face carefully. Although Darren's physical features were all inherited from his maternal family, his temperament and nature were just like his father's.

”It wasn't something big and even if I informed, would you come to see me?”

”Of course, I...” Darren stopped mid-sentence with his internal struggle visible on his face.

His father smiled slightly as he said, ”I know you wouldn't. I didn't want to put you in any difficult situation. I know if you knew about my condition you'd certainly want to come to see me but...” He shook his head and sighed, ”Anyways, I'm absolutely fine now. It doesn't matter.”

”Shouldn't you be resting? Why are you here?”

”As I just said, I'm absolutely fine now. Besides, I wanted to meet my son. He might not miss his father but I can't help missing him.”