RUSTLE.
The wind swept past. Above them, the emerald leaves rustled in the breeze. The sound stirred the deepest, softest, and most helpless parts of a person’s heart, forcing them to swallow their bitter pills in silence.
Zoe Lancaster was still sitting on his lap.
Because of her words, Simon Hawthorne remained silent for a moment.
She clenched her fingers and pried away the hand he had resting on her hip, wanting to stand up. But in that very instant, he yanked her back down, pinning her firmly against his lap. Not a single trace of light could penetrate his eyes, nor did they hold any warmth of self-redemption. His Adam’s apple bobbed. Instead of answering her question, he asked, "Do you want to know what happened between Peyton and me?"
Zoe turned her head away, returning to her usual quiet, lifeless demeanor. "No."
How could he bear to discuss his ex-girlfriend with his wife? Did he expect her to listen to the grand, passionate saga of how they fell in love?
He didn’t let go; instead, his grip tightened, pressing her flat against his burning chest. "Listen anyway."
Powerless to struggle, Zoe let him hook his arm around her waist. Her heart felt as cold as ice.
Simon pinched her wrist, gently prying open the fingers she had clenched into a fist one by one. Frowning at the crescent nail marks etched into her palm, he made sure she couldn’t keep digging into her own flesh before he began.
"Ten years ago, my grandfather was transferred to Portellis for surgery. She came here with me and stayed by my side every step of the way. At the time, I hadn’t even celebrated my seventeenth birthday. As the eldest legitimate son of the Hawthorne family, I shouldered a heavy burden. It was a critical period of upheaval for the Hawthornes. The corporation was cleaning house, purging quite a few dissidents, which caused a massive uproar.
"Those people were never going to accept defeat so easily. They quickly set their sights on me because I was the eldest son, the hope of the Hawthorne family. Portellis is different from the mainland; there are always loopholes to exploit. A week after I landed in Portellis, they orchestrated a riot, sparing no expense to hire the criminal underworld to take my life."
His tone had returned to normal—cool, detached, and utterly devoid of emotion.
The memories of that year played back calmly in his mind: An entire street thrown into chaos by gunfire, with endless screaming. People fleeing in every direction, clutching their heads. Countless cars, desperate to avoid getting caught in the crossfire, causing massive pile-ups as they scrambled to escape. Billowing black smoke and the shocking, horrific sight of crimson blood everywhere.
"My car had bulletproof glass, so their first attempt failed. They then orchestrated a car crash. My vehicle flipped over. The driver’s neck snapped on impact, dying instantly. I was severely injured and trapped inside. Those people racked their brains trying to finish me off. Peyton’s car was right behind mine and got caught up in it. Her driver was shot and killed, but she remained relatively unharmed.
"But my car was leaking fuel and had caught fire. The risk of an explosion was incredibly high, so no one dared to approach. Only she disregarded her own safety. Risking being blown to pieces, she dragged me out of the car. She saved my life, and in doing so, she saved the Hawthorne family."
He seemed to fall deep into that memory as he spoke. He remembered the exceptionally pure camellias embroidered on the hem of a white dress, bursting through the chaotic, smoke-filled danger into his blood-soaked world.
He had already lost too much blood by then. Hanging on to only the faintest thread of consciousness, he saw the hem of that white dress brush past his fingertips. In that split second, he had wanted to grab onto that pure white fabric. But the massive blood loss quickly caused him to black out, leaving the girl to haul him out of the wreck. He knew nothing of what happened next.
When he finally woke up, a week had passed, and he was in the hospital. Everyone told him that Peyton Joyce had saved him, nearly losing her own life in the process.
Retaining his final memory before falling unconscious, he looked at Peyton when he awoke. She was in a cast, slumped over his bed with her eyes red from crying. She had kept vigil for days and nights and looked completely exhausted. "Simon, thank goodness you’re awake! If anything happened to you, I... I wouldn’t want to live anymore!"
Her heart and eyes had clearly been full of him. She had lost so much weight.
But back then, his only obsession had been the dress with the white camellias. He had asked her, "Did you save me?"
Peyton’s tears fell even harder. Weeping with a mix of resentment and helplessness, she had said, "Who else could it be? They were all cowards clinging to their lives. I begged them for so long, but none of them would go near a car that was about to blow up. I figured, if it was destined to explode, I might as well die with you."
The girl had been willing to face death with him without hesitation. Naturally, he was moved. Yet the dress in his memory remained a near-obsession. "Where is the dress you were wearing?"
Peyton had frozen for a moment before replying, "It got covered in blood that wouldn’t wash out, and it was partially burned, so I threw it away."
Since then, he had never seen her wear a similar white dress again.
At that time, he was genuinely grateful to Peyton. Having experienced the sensation of being infinitely close to death, he was naturally exceptionally thankful for her life-saving grace.
Zoe’s eyes flickered. She looked at him. They were holding each other like a passionately in-love couple, yet they were discussing his first love.
"So, do you love Peyton, or do you love the Peyton who saved you?" Only in hindsight did she realize the core issue here.
Simon’s gaze landed on the top of the woman’s head. A stray leaf had silently fluttered down at some unknown moment, resting in her hair. He stared at it for a long while, feeling that she seemed quite docile in this moment. After a long pause, he finally raised his hand to pinch the leaf and pull it away.
"Is there a difference?"
"Why wouldn’t there be?" Zoe pursed her lips. "One is love, the other is gratitude. Love means it has to be her. Gratitude means it can be repaid in any number of ways. Do you feel more love for her, or more of a need to repay her?"
Even after everything that had happened, when this possibility presented itself, her heart still involuntarily clenched. It made her unsure—had she lost to Peyton because of love, or because of the title of ’savior’?
"Does this matter a lot to you?" Simon’s gaze fell on her face. With one hand supporting the small of her back, his long fingers absentmindedly twirled the fallen leaf.
Zoe swallowed hard and looked away. "I was just asking. If you don’t want to answer, I won’t force it."
The dangerous intensity faded from Simon’s eyes. He stared at her deeply. "Just say that you want a definitive answer, and I can tell you."
Zoe froze. Whether she asked or not, wasn’t it a fact that he cared about Peyton? Did she really need him to tell her over and over again how much he loved the other woman?
She wasn’t a masochist. Taking a deep breath, she glanced at the phone he had smashed. She truly couldn’t fathom what he was thinking. He had clearly been furious earlier—she had practically trampled on a man’s pride right to his face—yet he could still calm down like this. It made her realize just how terrifying his emotional control actually was.
"What year was this?" she asked, dodging his offer.
Seeing that she wasn’t going to press the matter, he pressed his lips together. After a long pause, he said, "Summer of 2013."
Zoe frowned slightly. 2013? Wasn’t that the first year after her mother’s accident? The year they had just arrived in Portellis for her treatment?
Her life had been turned upside down back then, facing one devastating blow after another. Her mother’s legs were nearly unsalvageable after the car crash, and she was in a deep coma with the possibility of never waking up. On top of that, Martin Lancaster had brought his mistress and illegitimate daughter home that very year. It sent Zoe plummeting from the clouds, delivering blow after blow right when her pride had been at its strongest.
She had fled to Portellis to guard her mother, running away from it all. Time and time again, she listened to the doctors issue critical condition notices. Her young mind had endured so much trauma that she had even entertained thoughts of ending her own life. Because of that, her memories of that year were exceptionally vivid.
But...
Suddenly, a memory squeezed into her brain, slowly overlapping with his story. Realizing something, a look of absurdity crossed her face. She looked at Simon with a complex expression, forcibly suppressing a sense of disbelief. "Where... where exactly did this incident happen? Which street?"