Jac and Jacqui had looked at each other, smiling at everyone's surprise except for Madison and the two young children. Madison was the only person that Jacqui had told about her true feelings about Jac.
Lola Agnes voiced out an inquiry that made them lose eye contact, “When did the two of you meet?”
Jac explained to everyone, “We bumped into each other in December 2010 at Pinnacle Bank in Vienburg one morning. Then in the afternoon, we met again in my fitness gym near Pinnacle Tower. After that, we still met several times. When she left for France in January 2011, we were on the same flight as I was scheduled to visit Mom's relatives back then. Then we met again at the airport in France last June. I do intend to pursue and court her as she has returned here to the country for good. But I was just waiting for the right moment to approach her. She was still too young back then when we first met and she still had to pursue something that she is so passionate about, so I let it slide. When we met again last June, I have already made the decision to pursue her. I just was not able to do it right away because I had to attend on a series of business trips abroad for JI Pinnacle Corporation,” he then looked at Jacqui’s parents, stood up and bowed as he stated, “Tito, Tita, I would like to take this opportunity to formally ask your permission to court your daughter.”
Jacqui was shocked by the words that came out of Jac's mouth – Am I really hearing this? He wants to pursue me. Am I dreaming! Oh no! I am not! This is real! He is really standing here in our living room and asking my parents' permission to court me."
Lola Agnes and Lola Consuelo were so delighted with what Jac had just stated. Their real intention was to really match the two of them and it seemed that Jac had taken the initiative even before they revealed the truth to the two of them.
Senator Jack Avila responded, “Please sit down, Jacob. There is no need to be too formal. Our families have long been friends. I personally know your parents. This dinner was specifically arranged by your respective grandmothers so the two of you could meet. What can happen next is solely up to you and Jacqui. You are both adults already. Take time to get to know each other. As a father, I just have one request…that you treat my daughter with the utmost respect.”
Jac agreed, “Please be assured that I will treat her with the utmost respect, Tito.”
Jacqui felt like melting – How could he possibly ask my father’s permission to court me? Is it for real? Or is he just faking it to make our grandmothers happy? Why am I suddenly doubting his sincerity? But then I really need to make sure that his intentions towards me are real and serious.
The dinner went smoothly. They all casually talked. Jacqui just spoke up whenever she was being asked.
Then Jacqui’s smartphone suddenly rang. She excused herself.
When she returned to the dining table, her mother asked, “Who called?”
She answered, “It is Alyanna. Manong Rod won’t be able to fetch me because Manang Alma was hit by a car. I have already contacted Kuya Maynard for legal assistance. I will drive there after dinner.”
Lola Agnes then said, “Jacob can drive you back. His driver will be the one driving for me to my son’s home here in Beaunne anyway.”
Lola Consuelo stated, “Then it is settled. Jacob will drive you back to Vienburg City tonight. You are both going home to Vienburg anyway.”
Jac gazed attentively towards Jacqui. He felt that she was somehow uneasy about the turn of events. She had not said much at all throughout the dinner.
When it was time for them to leave, they rode in his brand new blue Maserati Levante, the car driven by Arman when he was following him and his grandmother.
Jac opened up the car door for Jacqui and then he settled down in the driver's seat. She was still silent, so he put on her seat belt for her, put on his seatbelt as well and started driving.
As they left the compound, she was still silent, so he broke the silence that surrounded them.
Jac asked her thoughtfully, “You barely talked all throughout dinner. Are you mad?”
Jacqui felt the need to know if he had any ulterior motive in pursuing her so she answered, “I am not mad. I just did not expect that the family dinner would actually be a matchmaking meeting. You seem to be very capable of finding a lady for yourself. So why did you agree to matchmaking?”
Jac’s response was, “I was not also aware of it until your Dad confirmed it. Although Belle had somehow warned me that my Lola might be planning to be a matchmaker. I have always declined my parents' matchmaking plans. I was merely being filial to Lola, driving her here to Beaunne when she made the request to me this morning.”
Jacqui stated, “I don’t have any problem finding a boyfriend as well. A number of men had already tried to pursue me. I was not just interested in them. Anyway, you did not have to fake it just to make your grandmother happy.”
Jac stopped the car by the side of the road and then faced her, “So you think that I lied about my intention of pursuing you.”
She looked into his handsome face to assess his sincerity, “Why would a man like you pursue a lady like me?”
He intently looked into her beautiful, thick-lashed light brown eyes complimented by perfectly arched, medium, thick brows, and asked back, “Why would I not?”
She could not manage to look into his greyish blue eyes for long and so she looked in front of the car, then answered, “I know nothing about dating.”
He declared, “I will be very honest with you, Jacqui. Aside from my casual one-night stands back when I was still studying in US, I have only seriously pursued one lady since I returned in early 2010. My initial plan was to court you upon meeting you, but then you still have to pursue your dreams and I did not want to get in the way of that. I also don't like long-distance relationship. Going back to this lady, I met her when you were in Paris. She had only agreed on a few dates before finally deciding that it would not work.”
She looked into his face again. Surprised with what he said, she asked him for confirmation, “She rejected you?”
He answered, “Yes. At first she was really uneasy when I declared my intention to court her, but I was able to convince her to go out on dates with me before making a decision about whether to accept me or not as her boyfriend.”
She asked further, “Why did she not accept you?”
He gave the answer, “Her words were – she does not fit in to my world.”
She inquired, “What is your world like anyway?”
He summarized, “It is a world full of work and lots of social gatherings.”
She shared, “I work a lot too, but I do not attend social gatherings that much,” then recalled, “You still have not answered my first question.”
He responded, “You may not believe it but when we first bumped into each other, I already felt attracted to you. But I did not pursue you back then. The timing did not just seem right. You went to Paris to study so you will be able to pursue your dream of becoming a fashion designer. I did not want to disturb you. Then, when you returned from Paris, I did not get much opportunity to interact with you. I want to do things formally and the old-fashioned way, because I am aware that our families have long been friends. So I cannot just casually ask you. Everything I said to your parents as I asked their permission was the truth.”
She had looked into his face as he answered and she had seen the sincerity in his face. Her cheeks blushed. “So you are really serious about pursuing me.”
His answer, “Did I not ask your parents’ permission already? That is how serious I am with you, Jacqui. So will you allow me to court you?”
Her answer was, “If I agree, what will happen then?”
He responded, “We will get to know each other much better. I want us to go out on dates and do activities together exclusively. If things work out, then we can define our relationship as boyfriend-girlfriend. Afterwards, if we want to level it up, then we can get married and spend the rest of our lives together.”
He did not expect her next move. She handed her phone to him and said, “Your private number.”
He typed his number on her phone and pressed the call icon so her number would appear on his call log.
He then started to drive again, “So shall I drive you home already and you still need to go somewhere else?”
She replied, “I want to drop by at Vienburg Medical Center. Manong Rod is our family driver while Manang Alma, his wife, is our housekeeper in Vienburg. Their daughter, Alyanna, is some sort of my protégé. She’ll be taking up computer science come next school year. She has hearing impairment and cannot hear without a hearing aid. I met them when Alyanna was referred to FESL.”
He admired her even more for her concern for her employee, “Okay.”
Then she told him, "You can just drop me off at the hospital."
He responded, "I assured your grandparents, your parents as well as your brothers and sisters-in-law that I will escort you home safely. So that is what I will do?"
She insisted, "But I do not want to get in the way of your schedules. I am aware that you are a very busy man."
He told her, "When I commit myself to someone or to something, I give time. Don't worry much about disturbing me, I have got capable subordinates to keep my businesses going. That is what I am paying for them anyway. I'll be your driver for tonight until you are already safely back home."
She was kind of impressed by his patience. She was thinking – I really hope that you are indeed serious about courting me. But then I still have to have my guard up. You are a very busy man and so you might not be able to prioritize me due to you so many business endeavors.
So she replied with, "Okay then thank you in advance for your time."
He responded, "Anything for you, Jacqui. Actually, I have to personally apologize to you for not being able to attend the events of your company. I know that those flowers and notes were not enough to make up for my absence."
She said, "Your written apology as well as your personal apology are both accepted. Belle had told me how busy you were helping out your brother because of the pregnancy of your sister-in-law and then the eventual delivery of their son. Belle even told me that you had stayed abroad and on the planemore, than actually staying here within those months that passed by. And whenever you were here, you had to check on all of your business endeavors personally and quickly because you would have to leave again for another business trip one after the other."
He shared, "It was one of the reasons why I don't like working for our family business. But then I have to step up. Georgina had a not-so-easy pregnancy, so Kuya James had to worry so much whenever he had to leave her behind going away for those business trips. His wife used to travel with him before, when she was still not pregnant. I am the Deputy CEO so he requested me to do those trips until the end of 2015. The trips abroad that I took this January were for my own business endeavors. Only a few are for JI Pinnacle Corporation."
She asked, "So this is what you mean by your world involving lots of work."
He agreed, "Yes. And with those business trips, attending social and business events were also involved."
She asked further, "And that lady you courted did not like that, so he rejected you."
He responded, "It was one of her major reasons. The other one was our difference in social status. And she also wanted to focus on her career as well as taking care of her brother because their parents are both dead already."
She then asked, "May I know her name?"
He gave her the name, "She is Anna Reyes. She is an interior designer at Leila Cardenas' ID firm."
She shared with him then, "Leila had been a client of mine for the improvement of her software in interior design. I have also been commissioning her company for the catering as well as the set design for my runway shows. But I have not encountered Anna Reyes yet?"
He said, "Well, perhaps you will encounter her some day. Leila had many interior designers in her firm."
She asked him then, "Is she pretty?"
His answer was a simple, "Yeah," and then he tried to somehow change their topic, "What about you? Have you had a boyfriend in Paris?"
She said, "Le zéro," in a French accent, "I focused on my studies when I was there."
He asked even further, "Did you have a boyfriend before?"
She responded, "As I said, I have no experience about dating. I studied a lot when I was younger. I only had a break after I finished law. Dad actually just wants me to practice law. But I felt so bored with it. He and my grandfather won't support me financially regarding my passion for fashion design, so I bet on the lottery and luckily I won on my first try exactly during my 20th birthday. That is why I was able to study in Paris, purchase myself a condominium unit in Pinnacle Tower, and establish JADE Company."
He processed everything she had just said, "So you won that big jackpot prize of more than 700 million? You deposited such an amount in one of our banks. So you became a VVIP client?"
She confirmed it, "Yes. But compared to your net worth, mine is still lower than yours."
He said, "Money is just a trivial matter. In a relationship, what matters the most is feelings. A man and a woman, other than having mutual affection and attraction towards one another, should also have mutual respect for each other's career and individuality. Georgina is a very rich heiress, yet my brother still allows her to pursue her own career. Belle is also a very rich heiress, but her husband is not clipping her wings as far as her own career and business endeavors are concerned. It is the same thing for my other brothers at Filipinas' Elite Billionaires' Club. Daniel Cardenas is one of my best friends. Leila, his wife, has her own career and business endeavors."
Then she reacted, returning their topic to Anna, "So you met Anna through them."
He confirmed it, "Yeah.," and even satisfied her curiosity by adding, "I was the best man at their wedding and Anna was the maid of honor. That was sometime in 2014. You are still in Paris."
She asked, "Didn't you pursue anyone else before that?"
He replied, "When I returned here in the country after my studies in USA, I promised myself and my parents that I would behave well so as not to attract any negative news. I focused on my work in the family business and then continued building my own business empire when I left JI Pinnacle Corporation. I hadn't returned to the family business when I met Anna. But I think I am already back working for JI Pinnacle when she agreed to go out on a few dates with me."
Her next question surprised him, "Do you still have feelings for her?"
His answer was, "I am not that type of person who dwells on rejection for a very long time. I was attracted to her back then, but then she said no. I respected that and then I moved on with my life and waited for the moment when I would be attracted to someone else again. Then you came along in my life again, done with your studies already and back for good in the country. My old attraction towards you has just been woken up again. My intentions with you are serious, Jacqui."
She was so happy to know about that but she tried not to make it obvious.
When they reached the hospital, the housekeeper had already received all the medical attention needed. She was already in a regular hospital room for further observation. The housekeeper sustained a fractured hip and head and arm wounds. Alyanna was with her mother when the accident happened. She was not hurt but her hearing aid had been broken, so she was talking in sign language.
Jac was even more surprised when Jacqui talked to Alyanna in sign language. He was just utterly mesmerized with the way she communicated with the utmost genuine concern and sympathy.