Femme Fatale: The King's Deadly Temptress

Chapter 206: You Are Katherine Young

It's official. Katherine's officially calling this lunch meeting weird. She had only met Chairman Young once and now she's eating with him and his assistant Frank. The table was rectangular and she was sitting opposite the two friendly-looking old men.

She glanced at Chairman Young and wondered what was behind his smile. His hair was all white, even his beard and goatee. But one thing that Katherine noticed was his undeniable air of nobility. Even without knowing a lot about the old man, she felt that he was respectable and admirable. 

Katherine was stabbing the salad on her plate when Chairman Young called her attention. "How is your job at Crown Resort Group?" 

His question was so sudden that she was startled at first but immediately regained her composure. "Oh, it's great. The President is very hardworking and smart. He's quite authoritative but also very easy to work with." Definitely easy to work with. "It's a pleasure and an honor for me to be able to work alongside a person like him."

There was a smile on Chairman Young's face. He was amused to hear how she praised the young man especially after witnessing them holding hands yesterday.

"That's lovely. It must be nice to work for a young billionaire," he remarked in a calm tone.

"Ah" she smiled before continuing, "Yes But actually, I have already submitted my resignation. I only have a couple of weeks left before I leave." She continued to eat her food slowly. She didn't know why she shared that with a stranger.

Chairman Young knitted his brows in confusion. "Why did you resign? You seemed happy with your work. Why are you leaving?"

"Um I am going to study again" Katherine stopped herself. She was just about to tell the old man why she was going back to school. Why would she do that? She hardly knew him but for some reason, she was comfortable with him even with this strange setting.

Chairman Young nodded in response. A few weeks ago, he had read from the report about Katherine's medical history her 'accident' and 'memory loss'. He was baffled at what he had read regarding that but compared to his curiosity as to whether she was his long lost granddaughter or not was more compelling for him.

His thoughts were interrupted by the buzzing of Katherine's phone. She glanced at the screen to see Damien's name on it and turned to Chairman Young, "Excuse me. It's my boss. I need to take this." 

She got out of the private room and walked towards the end of the hall, near the fire exit, before she answered the phone call. "Hi"

"Hey What took you so long to answer? Were you busy?" Damien asked.

"I was eating" she carefully responded as she tried to figure out how to tell him what kind of situation she was in.

"Oh, we just finished our lunch. Where are you?"

Katherine bit her lip for a second before she began, "Damien I'm having lunch with Chairman Young."

"What?" 

His question was a mixture of shock and wonder. "How? Why?"

"Honestly, I don't know We met outside the building and they invited me for lunch. I declined at first but they said they had to talk to me about something." Katherine heard some noise on the other end of the line and a few voices calling Damien over.

"I'll be there in a sec." She heard him tell his friends before he turned his attention back to her. "What could they possibly talk to you about? Do you want me to come get you? Where are you?"

"We're at the restaurant at the end of the block. No, I'm fine I'm okay. You should get back to your friends. I'll see you in a few hours."

"Are you sure?"

She wasn't sure. And she would have loved to see Damien earlier than planned but she didn't think this meeting was all that bad. It was just... strange. Not wanting to worry him, she reassured, "Yes, Damien, I'm sure. I'll text you after this."

After saying their goodbyes, Katherine tapped the corner of her phone on her palm, chewing her bottom lip as she looked back towards the door to the private room where she came from. 'Let's get this over with,' she told herself as she walked back and opened the door.

Her eyes met Deborah Young's as soon as she entered. The latter was sitting next to her chair, her expression stoic and briefly surprised but she was quick to recover and plastered a slightly wobbly smile towards her. "Oh hello, Ms. Miller We meet again."

Katherine bowed to greet the older woman politely before sitting on her chair. The private room was spacious yet she suddenly felt stuffy, unsure of what to make out from this situation.

"Father, what is the occasion?" Deborah asked, glancing at the unopened bottle of champagne at the end of the table and then her gaze drifted to the woman next to her. "I didn't know you were friends with Ms. Miller"

Chairman Young smiled stiffly. He grabbed a glass of water and drank it before dabbing his mouth with a napkin. Instead of answering his daughter, he turned to Katherine and watched as she continued to eat with her head lowered. Sensing eyes on her, Katherine raised her head and saw the old man looking at her thoughtfully. She placed the utensils down and sat up straight, wiping her mouth with a napkin as she waited for the old man to say something.

"I had a son," Chairman Young started. "And he had a family" He didn't know how to start his story. Where was he supposed to begin?

"Oh Where is he now?" Katherine asked, her voice soft and careful.

"He and his family were in an accident a long time ago. No one survived," he lowered his eyes before looking back at Katherine who had an apologetic expression when she said, "I'm so sorry."

He formed a small smile on his face and continued, "He had a daughter. My granddaughter Katherine." He saw the young woman's brows raise in question. "My granddaughter's name was Katherine."

For some reason, Katherine felt a slight prick in her heart as she listened to the old man's words. There was an obvious longing in his voice and the way he was looking at her made her even more confused. She opened and closed her mouth to say something but no words came out. Her heart started racing as she watched Chairman Young pull out a folded paper from his inner coat pocket and clutched it in his slightly trembling hand.

She swallowed hard, anxious on everything that was going on at the moment the room temperature was cold but she was starting to sweat, the old man's eyes were gazing at her looking so thoughtful and nervous, her stomach was twisting and she didn't know if it was because of the food or the thought that whatever was in that paper had something to do with her somehow.

"When I saw you a few weeks ago, I had this strange feeling that I couldn't shake off. I had you investigated and I'm sorry for that. But I just had to do this..." Chairman Young slowly handed over the paper towards Katherine.

"Father, what is this? What are you talking about?" Deborah Young's voice raised, she watched as Katherine received the paper and she swore she felt like her insides were strangled when she saw the paper being unfolded. From where she was seated, she could see the words from the paper that Katherine was holding. A particular part was written in bold: Positive it didn't take her a long time to figure out what that paper was. And she gasped, "Oh my god."

Katherine scanned the DNA test result and saw her name and Chairman Young's. Her mind became blank and the only thing she could do was to look up at the old man in front of her.

Seeing her unreadable expression, Chairman Young breathed deeply and grabbed Katherine's hand, "My child Katherine You are my granddaughter. You are Katherine Young."