Falling For My Ex's Uncle - Chapter 55: Chapter 55

Alex stepped right in front of me and opened his hands, expecting something.
I stared at his strikingly handsome face, my mind fleetingly drifting to the image of Samantha's graceful, composed appearance.
Honestly, the two of them together were a perfect match.
"Gift. It's my birthday today, shouldn't you have prepared a gift for me?" Alex raised an eyebrow, his tone implying that it was only natural.
I was momentarily stunned, thinking to myself, We're not even close enough for me to be expected to give you a gift, are we?
Though I had brought one, when I saw the luxury items piled on the gift table, I couldn't help but feel my heart sink.
The gifts ranged from tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands, and some even went into the millions.
My gift seemed utterly insignificant in comparison, almost laughable.
"Did you not prepare anything?" Alex's brow furrowed slightly, his face showing a hint of disappointment.
"I think you have everything you need, and if you don't, I definitely can't afford it," I replied honestly.
Alex didn't seem to expect my bluntness, but he didn't show surprise either. Instead, he smiled faintly and said, "Who said that? What I want is actually very simple, nothing expensive."
His words made my heart skip a beat, and I instinctively took a step back.
I knew it. That sly fox wasn't here with good intentions.
I wasn't foolish enough to walk into his trap, so I didn't ask what he wanted.
Instead, I stayed silent, watching him.
It seemed Alex wasn't angered by my lack of response. Crossing his arms, he spoke slowly, "Aren't you curious about what I want?"
Just as I was about to shake my head, I noticed a woman walking toward us in the distance.
She had long hair and was dressed in a white dress, moving with elegant grace.
From the distance, I couldn't yet see her face, but her posture and figure immediately told me she was beautiful.
When she finally reached Alex, I saw her face clearly—she was indeed stunning, but there was a strange sadness about her.
Her face also seemed a little pale, and even though she wore light makeup, she still appeared delicate, fragile, almost ethereal.
Despite this, her inherent charm couldn't be hidden.
She merely glanced at Alex, then handed him a small gift box, before turning her gaze and staring at me intently.
Her beautiful eyes betrayed a fleeting sadness that made my chest tighten with an inexplicable sense of sorrow and melancholy.
Before I could react, she turned and walked away, getting into a classic Jaguar antique car waiting outside.
"Why isn't she going in?" I asked, my voice barely above a whisper.
Alex was silent for a moment before he opened the gift box in his hands. Inside, there was a small photo album and a bracelet.
The gift was different from the others—distinct, yet the bracelet didn't seem like something a man would wear.
I couldn't stop myself from wondering about the woman—what was her relationship to Alex?
Before I could ask, Alex spoke casually, "That was my biological mother."
"Biological mother?" I froze, my face full of shock. No wonder she looked somewhat familiar—she was Alex's mother.
But then a question nagged at me. I had seen Raphael and Lena, the older couple of the Herrera family, so many times.
So Lena wasn't Alex's biological mother?
And during the six years I had been with Austin, I had never seen that woman once.
Not even at important family events.
Was she Raphael's mistress, kept on the side?
"Can you keep this a secret?" Alex's gaze, as clear as water, was calm as he looked at me.
I nodded silently.
From what I knew, Alex hadn't returned to his father's side until he was six. Before that, he had lived abroad.
So, for those first six years, he had been with his biological mother, not Lena?
And outwardly, Alex had always been presented as the biological son of Raphael and Lena.
How many people knew this secret?
I had always thought that being born into the Herrera family was something everyone would envy. After all, his father was a business tycoon, and his mother came from an aristocratic family.
Alex was born with privileges that most could never even dream of.
But it turned out he was the child of an affair. Having to live with this secret, calling another woman "mother," while adhering to the rules of the Herrera family—just thinking about it made me feel suffocated for him.
From the coldness of the woman's attitude toward Alex earlier, it was clear that she didn't seem to care for him much.
It made sense, though. The woman looked no older than in her fifties, while Raphael was pushing eighty.
They had an age gap of nearly thirty years—there was no such thing as true love there.
Perhaps she had been forced to give birth to Alex, and as I thought about the sadness in her eyes, I couldn't help but look up at Alex.
He was calmly flipping through the photo album, which contained only pictures of him. From infancy to around five or six years old, Alex's face was always cold and expressionless, with only a handful of photos where he seemed to be smiling.
But those smiles looked anything but genuine. The only smile that truly seemed warm and sincere was a picture in the middle of the album, where he was sitting on a sofa with that woman.
He sat upright, wearing a suit and a bowtie, his face lit up with a genuine smile.
That photo stood in stark contrast to the cold, distant images that preceded it, evoking a deep sense of sadness and oppression.
I looked up at Alex, but his expression remained neutral as he closed the album and slipped it into the pocket of his suit jacket.
Without warning, he grabbed my hand and placed the bracelet on my wrist.
"This is the wedding gift she sent you." Alex smiled faintly, adding, "If it weren't for you, she probably wouldn't have shown up here."
I froze for a moment, asking, "You don't get along with her, do you?"
The relationship between mother and son in the photos didn't look terribly strained.
Even if she didn't like Raphael, Alex wasn't to blame. After all, he was her own flesh and blood.
"She was forced to have me. How could our relationship have been good?"
Alex's voice was devoid of any emotion, as though he were talking about something trivial.
But the sadness that swelled up inside me was undeniable.