Love Began with the First Meeting
Chapter 882 Extra Story 26 Of Aaron The Dream

The air in the luxurious ward of the private hospital owned by the Leng's Corporations was filled with extreme tension.

Helen was lying in bed, staring coldly at her three sons. Over the past years, she had tried her best to fight off Aaron and his mother to win back her husband's heart and the control over Leng's Corporations. She had never imaged, however, that her sons would help her enemies to defeat her. "Mom," Gale said, "What has happened cannot be changed now."

"Shut up!" Helen yelled, glaring at him. "All of you are stupid and useless! You sold your shares to Aaron! Do you know what this would mean for the Leng family?" She gasped as she yelled. She was going out of breath.

Ted leaned against the wall with his arms across his chest. He had retained his posture and had kept his silence ever since they had stepped inside. His only response to his mother's yelling was a nonchalant sigh. James shook his head helplessly and spoke in a low voice, "Mom, it is clear that the current situation is the best we can hope for."

"This is the best you can hope for?!" Helen grew more enraged at her son's words. Her eyes spit furious fire as she looked at him and roared, "You have become timid ever since your accident, James. Where's your former ambition? All you are capable of doing is growing your little flowers and plants. How could you possibly lead a comfortable life like that without financial support from the Leng's Corporation?"

"Mom!" Ted shouted in anger hearing her words. The furious expression on his face was exactly the same as James'. The twins resembled each other so much. "Do you really think that you had nothing to do with James' accident? Let me make this very clear to you. James doesn't need any financial support from Leng's Corporations or the Leng family. Gale and I will always be there for him. We're brothers!"

Helen stared at her youngest son with her eyes wide open in astonishment. His words were completely beyond her expectations. She murmured like a puppet, "Are you blaming me for James' misfortune? Is this how you treat your mother?"

"Hmph!" Ted sniffed and continued, "Are you still planning to make James carry my name and live in my shadow for the rest of his life, Mom? I'm not James, I'm Ted! I can never be the James whom you were so proud of. I can never be the person you want me to be!" His words were harsh and undeniable; Helen was dumbfounded. She lost her ability to speak and stayed frozen in bed. She was afraid to see the truth behind his words. She had been living a lie which she had fabricated for herself. And now, Ted's brutal words had started to shatter her illusions. It was true that James used to be her pride. But thanks to her enmity with others, her most beloved son had suffered the disastrous accident in her place when he had taken out her tampered car that fateful day. She looked at James in the wheelchair, who was now known to everybody as Ted. Tears rolled down from her eyes.

"Even though that might be true... you had no reason to hand over the corporation your father had built up from scratch." Her voice was coarse, concealing the trace of remorse in her tone.

"Mom," James said flatly, "I could never stand as an equal with Aaron. There's no way for me to compete with him, even if I was still my former self." He let out a defeated sigh before continuing, "You have to accept this reality if you don't want Leng's Corporations to be ruined." He paused to calm down the emotions in his heart and spoke in a more peaceful tone, "Aaron is smart. It didn't take him much time to win control over Leng's Corporations. Besides, he has great influence in the government. If he wants this island country to exist independently for as long as possible, he needs to try harder to keep his status in the country and climb even higher. Isn't this good? And the Leng's Corporations is still under control of the Leng family."

"He is not one of us!" Helen screamed at the top of her voice, her chest falling up and down as she tried to steady her breathing.

"He is!" James said clearly, "He's our brother, our father's oldest son. Though we have different mothers, we have the same father. No one can deny that." Helen was so shocked that she looked like she was about to pass out. But James continued, although he had noticed his mother's pale face. "Everybody knows it, although you and Daddy are unwilling to admit it."

"No!"

Helen let out a piercing roar and the quiet night shattered. It was raining outside; the sky was shedding tears for Helen. She had spent all her life trying to fight and hold onto something which had always belonged to another woman. The things that she had been trying to protect had never been hers from the beginning.

*

Aaron pushed open the door and stepped into the room. The room was brightly luminated. But he heard nothing except for the sound from the TV and the pattering of the rain against the window pane.

He looked around, his eyes searching for someone in particular. Finally, his eyes settled on the woman sleeping on the sofa. A glint of softness flashed in his eyes.

He walked towards the sofa and stood in front of her, looking at her delicate face which was like a masterful painting. He couldn't remove his gaze from her sleeping figure. She looked peaceful, her lips moved slightly as she pouted in annoyance. Something was upsetting her in her dreams. The childish expression added charm to her mature beauty.

Aaron just stood there, watching silently all the while. Time passed as he stood staring at her face. Today, his long-time aspiration was finally realized. But he wasn't satisfied at all.

The Leng's Corporations was completely under his control now. But the way he had won it disgraced and enraged him. Rather than being a booty he had earned through his smartness and skills, it ended up being a gift from his brothers. Besides, it had been relentlessly raining all day; he hated it. "Hmm..." Ximena moaned and murmured something unclear in her sleep.

Aaron bent down to observe her face more clearly. He reached out his hand and slowly tucked behind her ear a strand of her hair which had fallen onto her forehead. He bent down further and his lips touched hers gently.

It was a soft kiss with a trace of loneliness in it. A cord vibrated as soon as their lips touched, and the coldness in his heart collapsed. Ximena's defiance and fearlessness startled him and even provoked his admiration towards her. The things she had spoken before him were secrets he had kept hidden deep in his heart. She was either too naive or too brave to say such things in front of him. Didn't she understand what the consequence might be if she defied him? Aaron wondered what kind of woman she was to be so daring. Even though she was fully aware of his purposes, why had she begged his mercy for those kids? He had only wanted to get the information he wanted from their parents by threatening to hurt their kids, but he would have done nothing to those kids in the end. She was too naive to understand this sophisticated part of life.

In fact, he would have kept those kids and trained them to work for him rather than hurt or kill them. They had much potential. That was how he thought of it.

"Hm..." Ximena moaned again before opening her eyes slowly. She blinked her sleepy eyes, and closed it again.

The lovely expression brought a glint of a vague smile in the bottom of Aaron's eyes. He slowly moved his hand away from Ximena's forehead and said, "Having a nice dream, are you?"☐☐☐☐☐☐☐☐☐☐☐☐☐☐☐☐