At the sight of Vivian’s hesitation, Finnick could tell that she must have misunderstood him and chose to give him the cold shoulder.
If this went on unresolved, Vivian’s anger would boil over sooner or later.
“Vivian, I—” Finnick wanted to explain everything to Vivian, but the moment he opened his mouth, he realized he couldn’t exactly tell her everything now. It was still a secret, after all. He couldn’t just ruin the surprise.
He was forced to change the subject. “I was just settling some company stuff.”
After he finished his sentence, the two of them fell into an uncomfortable silence.
The air simmered with reproach.
Vivian started flipping the pages of a magazine, but it felt like she was reading a foreign language.
Deep down, she firmly believed that Finnick was calling to help Ashley and the Miller family. He had once promised to protect her and always stand up for her. What is this all about, then? How could he break his promise?
Finnick was thinking of telling Vivian about how Ashley had saved him when they were younger. After all, the misunderstanding was caused by a lack of communication.
Besides that, he also wanted to apologize to Vivian. He had to admit that it was unfair to her.
Finnick coughed lightly, breaking the stiff silence. “Vivian, to be honest, I actually have been busy with the Miller family’s matters for the few days.”
“I know. You don’t have to explain anything to me.” Suddenly, Vivian no longer felt like listening to him. The moment she heard ‘the Miller family,’ she became nauseous.
She could already imagine how pleased Ashley looked. When they met at the door just now, she had already spotted Ashley’s arrogant expression.
“Vivian, you don’t get it.” Finnick started panicking at Vivian’s indifference. “Actually, Ashley—”
Abruptly, Vivian put her magazine down and stood up. “Sorry, I have to use the bathroom.”
At this point, Finnick felt like giving up. He hadn’t expected Vivian to hate Ashley so much. Why can’t she just let me explain?
It was already bad enough without Vivian knowing that Ashley was the mastermind behind everything that happened two years ago. If she knew about it, she’d definitely hate Ashley even more.
Vivian locked herself in the bathroom, her eyes stinging with tears.
She felt that Finnick would never understand her point of view.
“Vivian,” Finnick called in a low voice. “Please hear me out. There’s a reason why I treated Ashley that way.”
A reason?
What could the reason possibly be? It’ll just be a bunch of excuses.
Vivian chuckled bitterly.
He had simply let Ashley walk free and even gotten back the money that the Miller family had lost. Those were the facts.
If he really cared for Vivian and wanted to protect her, how could he let Ashley and the Miller family go without teaching them a lesson? What if they came back and caused more trouble?
She was still hurt by what happened two years ago. Did he want to let her go through the same thing again?
When she thought of that, her heart immediately filled up with resentment.
She wasn’t a vengeful person, but she could no longer forgive everything Ashley had done to her. The latter had almost ruined her entire life.
How could Finnick, who always talked about how he would help her gain justice, help the culprit who caused her problems?
It was bad enough that Finnick had let Ashley go, but now he was also clearly concerned about her and even helped her.
Vivian felt sadder the more she thought about it.
“Vivian, please just open the door. We need to talk.” Finnick’s low voice piped up once again, this time laced with a sense of urgency.
Vivian bit her lip.
She knew that this wasn’t the right way to deal with the issue. Right as she was thinking of opening the door, she heard knocks coming from outside.
Knock, knock, knock.
Someone was outside the room.
That person called, “Mr. Norton, please open the door. This is the butler.”
Finnick’s expression darkened, and he opened the door unhappily.
The butler looked inside but failed to see Vivian. With a smile, he said, “Mr. Norton, there are a lot of people outside who’re here to celebrate elder Mr. Norton’s birthday, so he wants you and Mrs. Norton to come downstairs.”
“Okay, I got it. We’ll be down in a second,” Finnick replied.
Vivian opened the door upon hearing the butler’s words and kept her head down, unwilling to look Finnick in the eye.
“Vivian—” Finnick said as he reached out to grip her arm a little bit too tightly.
