Tony knew very well what it felt like when he clasped Myra in his arms. Sometimes, it’s difficult to devote oneself to another woman once one’s heart belongs to someone else. After sighing softly, he rested his chin on her head, smoothed her hair gently, and whispered in a hoarse voice that sounded far gentler than usual, “Stop crying…”
His soft voice tenderly healed the wound in Myra’s heart like a gentle breeze. At this very moment, Myra was no longer in the mood to feel everything around her; all she wanted was to vent all the repressed grief and anguish within her by crying.
As the pedestrians hurried to and fro outside the car window, no one seemed to notice the sad and yet slightly heartwarming scene of the man and the woman in the car.
It wasn’t until the night settled in, the evening lights were lit, and the whole city was enveloped in the darkness outside the window that the woman next to him went from weeping into calmness. As her eyes glazed over, she only felt that the embrace she was held in was so warm that she didn’t want to leave.
The faint smell of tobacco and mint around her didn’t belong to Sean. She knew she shouldn’t be thirsting for this smell, but the good cry she had just now seemed to have drained her of all her strength; she admitted that she only wanted to look for support at this moment.
Sensing Myra’s dependence on him, Tony tightened his arms around her waist. His eyes were still cold, but the gaze that fell on her face was as gentle as spring. His thin lips seemed to curl up for a fraction of a second, and it wasn’t until a long time later that he asked in a husky voice, “I don’t mind you continuing to cling to me like this, but are you really not doing so to cripple my arm?”
He had been resting his right arm between her head and the headrest just now so that she felt more uncomfortable while lying in his arms. He could endure it for an hour or two, but three to four hours had passed since the beginning, so his right arm had long been numb.
Myra froze in his arms; only then did the events that happened that afternoon slowly come back to her mind.
She and Lyla met at a cafe, during which Lyla tricked her into slapping her face and splashed herself with a glass of lemonade, leading Sean—who came midway through their conversation—to think that she was bullying Lyla. Everything after that happened as a matter of course: she broke up with Sean completely, and they went their own ways from then on.
At the thought of this, she felt an instant ache in her heart, and she clutched the button on Tony’s suit jacket like a dying fish that was washed onto the beach. As she slowly got up from the embrace of the man before her, her vacant eyes swept over his navy blue tie before falling on his attractive Adam’s apple. When she looked upward, she saw the man’s tense chin; when she looked upward again, she saw the handsome face she was familiar with.
That’s right! I was so overwhelmed with sadness while leaving the cafe back then that I subconsciously got into someone’s car right away. Luckily, the person isn’t someone else! It’s just that I was too emotionally unstable at that time to be in the mood to think about all this. And now…
Myra no longer covered up her current awful situation. The man before her had seen the embarrassing predicament she was in for such a long time just now, or perhaps she should say that he had seen through the ugly reality of her marriage earlier the night before. Therefore, she had nothing to have scruples about. However…
She sat tight, turned to look out of the window, and murmured in a voice that was extremely hoarse and unpleasant to hear after a long period of crying, “Thank you… Director Hart…”
She didn’t expect to run into Tony whenever she was caught in the most humiliating situation.
Suddenly, the lights in the car lit up. There was no movement from the man next to her, but she heard the crack of a bone.
Stunned, she turned to meet the man’s pitch-black eyes, which looked much tenderer than usual as they sparkled under the dim light inside the car.
“You—” Before Myra could finish her sentence, she felt that her eyes were sore.
Tony’s right arm seemed paralyzed, for it fell weakly right after he lifted it up.
No matter how strongly Myra resisted this man, she had to admit that his embrace just now really brought a lot of comfort to her. This seemed to be another time when someone other than Estelle made her feel warm.
She stared blankly at Tony in a trance, whereas Tony’s eyes squinted as they were fixed on her the whole time while he slowly limbered up his right arm.
Rendered ill at ease under his stare, Myra withdrew her gaze in a fluster, feeling so embarrassed that she didn’t know what to do. Just then, the handkerchief that had been held out to her once was handed to her again. Tony spoke in a slightly gentle voice. “Wipe your face with it.”
Myra glanced hesitantly at the handkerchief in Tony’s hand, but she took it in the end. It’s not necessary to behave affectedly at this moment, she thought to herself.
However, her face was so messy right now that she smudged the handkerchief with her makeup after wiping her face.
Seeing the filthy handkerchief, Myra felt even more embarrassed. She looked at Tony, saying, “I’ll give it back to you after washing it clean.”
Tony merely gave her a long stare, and his expressionless face gave nothing away.
Just then, the car started up and slowly joined the flow of traffic. The lights were dim outside the window; as silence fell over the whole city in the darkness of night, Myra gradually found peace.
Some fates had been predestined a long time ago, so why don’t I just accept it and let go?
The prosperous areas enriched the city’s landscape as the car drove all the way downtown. Just then, Tony asked, “Where are you staying now?”
It was perhaps because she was too flustered that she failed to catch the flaw in Tony’s words for a moment. Obviously, he was aware that she had moved out of the Chase Residence.
She answered dryly, “Ocean Blue Residence.”
Tony turned to glance at her, whose eyes were visibly red and swollen when watched from the side. However, her ear—which should’ve been fair—was inexplicably tinged with scarlet at this moment.
Tony’s eyes narrowed piercingly as if he recalled something, but the corners of his mouth slightly turned up.
Neither Tony nor Myra spoke for the rest of the journey, and no one knew how long it took before the car finally stopped in front of an upscale neighborhood. Before Myra could come to her senses, the man beside her suddenly bent over and unfastened her seat belt.
He looked completely at ease with his slightly pursed thin lips and the soft outline of his cheeks. There seemed to be nothing suggestive in his expression, but Myra couldn’t help tensing herself.
Just when she pushed the car door open, she saw out of the corner of her eye that Tony had pushed the car door open and was coming her way. He was so tall that she couldn’t see the look on his face clearly as the streetlight shone over his head.
Myra’s eyelid twitched; she quickly jumped out of the car, but her knees went weak while she was doing so. Seeing the pair of hands that reached out to her, she gritted her teeth, kept her feet, and avoided the pair of hands without visible effort. Then, she looked up and met Tony’s deep, dark eyes as if nothing had happened. “Thank you so much for today, Director Hart.”
Tony’s brows furrowed almost invisibly before he withdrew his hands with an unperturbed expression. He replied flatly, “You’re welcome, Miss Stark.”
Perhaps because Tony had seen her most embarrassing side on this day, she could no longer feel the aversion she had to him at the beginning when she met his gaze again; it was as though she felt weaker and more inferior before him. She felt helpless deep down inside, but there was no change in her expression as she lowered her head and walked toward the entrance of the neighborhood.
