When Reuben and Renee reached the restaurant, they made their way to the private room that Felix was currently inside.
As they exited the elevator, they met a familiar face.
The man before them was tall and lean, he had sparkling black eyes and hair that reached up to his shoulders.
If people could compare Reuben with the man standing before him, then they would surely find certain similarities in their features.
Especially the same dark eyes and the same eyebrows.
"Well, how come my dearest brother is not busy with his CEO duties and has time to come out and dine?" The man who seemed to be in his early twenties sneered at Reuben.
"I see that aunt is here as well." He glanced at Renee.
"Mason, it has been so long since I've met you. How have you been?" She stepped forward to give him a hug but he swiftly evaded her hands.
Reuben sighed when he watched this and tried to talk to him.
"I couldn't talk to you at the auction. If you aren't busy right now, we can talk over lunch?" He offered but the man named Mason looked at him with a mocking smile on his face.
"I saw how busy you were. Some strange woman was more important than your brother." Mason scoffed.
'But Lina needed my help at that moment.' Reuben wanted to defend himself but he knew that he was at fault because he had ignored his brother back then.
"Anyway, I don't have time to waste with-" Mason's words were cut off when a woman emerged from one of the private rooms.
She was a petite woman who only reached Mason's shoulder. She had burgundy hair with soft curls and had delicate features.
"Honey, what's taking you so long?" The newcomer looked at Mason and spoke in a soft voice.
Then she turned around and found the two people staring at her and blushed.
"I'm sorry I did not see you there. President and Madam Ming." She bowed to them and smiled awkwardly.
Reuben's mood soured when he saw this woman who was standing beside Mason.
'She pisses me off but there's nothing I can do about it!' He looked at his brother who was holding onto the woman's waist protectively.
If Assistant Mathew was here then he would surely call her many fancy names.
A few of them would be The Witch or the project stealing rat at Ming Enterprises.
This woman with Mason was none other than Priscilla Lin, Assistant Manager of the Planning Department who was also his long time girlfriend.
This was the main reason why Reuben never fired her even though she had been stealing projects from the company.
"We don't have to bother with them, babe. Let's go." Mason pulled Priscilla along and entered their private room.
Reuben could only watch as his little brother strode away without giving him a second glance.
'Is this revenge because I turned away from him the last time he approached me?' He clenched his fists and felt an ache in his heart.
"Don't be sad, baby. He'll come around someday." Renee patted his back and walked to their own room.
He glanced at the closed door one last time before he made his way behind Renee.
"What took you so long? I've been waiting forever!" They heard a loud voice, the moment they entered the room.
The room that they had reserved was spacious and had a round table right at the center.
Sitting at the table was Felix who quickly got up and pulled a chair for his wife.
Pleased with the thank-you kiss that he received from her, he sat back in his place.
Reuben quietly sat on an empty chair and thought of the encounter he had with his brother.
The man they had met outside was Mason Ming, Reuben's younger cousin.
Their grandfathers were siblings and had a great bond with each other. But things went south after their generation.
Reuben's dad and his family were made the main branch while Mason's family was the side branch of the Ming family.
Just like any other family, the Ming's also had their fair share of family drama.
"What's wrong?" Felix observed their gloomy faces and received the answer from Renee who narrated everything that had happened outside.
"When will Fredrick stop filling that child's head with nonsense?" Felix was disgruntled when he heard about it.
Felix knew what kind of a person his cousin was, an ambitious man who would go to great lengths to get what he wants.
This was especially true when he did everything in his power to turn the pair of brothers who loved each other dearly into men who now could not see eye to eye.
"But Mason should try to understand everything before he just blindly follows his father's footsteps!" Renee banged her hand on the table to show her anger with this matter.
"Don't blame him. It's my fault for what happened in the past and I must bear its consequences." Reuben spoke up after a long time.
'I was not a good brother before so I will make it up to him by whatever means necessary!' He clenched his fists and narrowed his eyes.
His parents looked at his grim facial expressions and decided not to interfere in this matter anymore.
'I just hope that their relationship goes back to how it was when they were kids.' Renee prayed silently.
She remembered how Mason and his little sister would spend days at end in their house. Reuben would always be lonely as an only child so he got too attached with this pair of cousins.
But those happy days did not last for long because fate had different plans for their futures.
Felix noticed the sullen atmosphere in the room and tried to lighten up their mood.
He wasn't affected by this news because he had already given up on the side branch. But he couldn't stand by and watch his own family getting upset because of them.
"Reuben, I saw something interesting when I was surfing the net earlier." He called out to his son.
Reuben lazily glanced at his father and wondered what it might be.
"Someone posted a picture of you dancing with that masked woman at the auction and now people are speculating about your relationship with her." He rolled his eyes because the media would go crazy even if all Reuben did was to sneeze twice.
Renee and Reuben's ears perked up when they heard this and they both hurriedly searched through their phones to look at that post.
"Where is it? I can't find it anywhere!?" Renee questioned her husband when she found no trace of it even after searching for so long.
"Me neither." Reuben looked at his father suspiciously.
'Is he losing his memories or his sanity fading as he's growing older?' He was worried about his father's mental health.
Felix was not aware that he was just called a senile old man by his only son, he was busy searching for the post himself.
"Someone must have taken it down!" He looked up and resolutely declared.
'I remember seeing it clearly but now it has suddenly vanished?' His suspicions pointed towards his son who was famous for not allowing any pictures of himself to be circulated in the media.
"Did you order your men to do it?" He asked and watched as Reuben shook his head.
'I just found out about these posts so how could I have given out such an order?' Reuben himself was confused.
He wanted to see that picture, their first picture together. But it looked like it wasn't fated.
'If Reuben did not do it then who did?' Felix went back and checked all the posts.
After careful examination, he finally noticed a pattern in them.
'Only those images with that masked lady are missing.' This discovery made him curious about who she really was.
'It's a good thing that I had downloaded one of the images.' He was already planning to investigate who she was and the image saved in his phone would be the first lead he had about her.
Seeing his son dancing had given him a sense of crisis, what if she was someone who had ill intentions towards him. So when he saw that image of them together, he promptly saved it.
"Look, I wasn't mistaken. I have one of the images saved here." He pointed to his phone with a gloating look since they were not willing to believe his words.
"Let me see!" Both mother and son yelled at the same time.
Renee, who was closest to Felix snatched it away from him and they both looked at the phone together.
"Send it to me." Reuben whispered in his mother's ears and received a nod.
Renee was overjoyed when she saw his enthusiasm and quickly forwarded that image to him and then to herself too.
'We do look good together!' Reuben admired what he saw.
He was wearing all black and she was in a deep sapphire blue gown.
His right hand was on her lower back and left hand held her tiny palm.
The picture was clicked right when he had pulled her close and so there was little to no space between them.
'Was I really so bold that day?' He blushed when he thought about this.
'That's it! Look at how good you two are! Fall for her!' Renee chanted as though it was some magic spell.
Her eyes were glued to Reuben's face which was slowly turning red.
'Grandbabies, I can't wait to meet you!' She giggled. But it was more like an evil maniac's laughter to her husband.
Felix frowned when he saw their faces. One was blushing like a schoolgirl and the other had an eerie smile.