Chapter 197



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Joseph’s face clouded over and he shook off her hand.

“What are you doing? You scared the hell out of me.” Hayden shot him a disgruntled look.

“Didn’t you say we were done? Then why are you still touching me?” Joseph’s voice was cold and full of resentment.

Hayden seemed to have taken him for granted, “Otherwise, how do I unlock the phone? Don’t be so picky, okay?”.

“You just had to ask for the password.”

There wasn’t just one method of unlocking the phone.

Hayden was a little speechless as he turned the phone off and asked, “Okay. Tell me. what’s the password?”

She paused for a second and said in a whisper, “Your birthday.”

Hayden was stunned.

She thought they were pretty level-headed and didn’t even have much romance for their loved ones. She didn’t even check her partner’s phone or email like other normal girls.

They also needed to have some personal space.

So she didn’t know that the password on Joseph’s phone was actually, the date of his birthday.

Everything in the car calmed down, they could even hear the sound of the waves breaking on the reef outside, as well as the evening breeze whistling through the hills. She was in disbelief as she typed in her birthday.

It fit perfectly.

And so, inevitably, the moment Joseph celebrated his birthday with her came to mind. They left the cemetery after paying tribute to her mother. And he was still holding her hand, looking so confident in front of his Aunt Scarlett.

What did he say to his Aunt Scarlett then?

There was a time when she had that doubt in her mind, but they were both silent about it. And she would have no answers from either of them.

“Where are you going?”

Joseph’s clear voice sounded as if nothing was wrong.

“Oh, I’m going to Sea View, on Ningpo.” Hayden came to, looking at him, he remembered to call Alayna.

The sound of the engine eclipsed the sound of the wind. Hayden examined the phone and rolled his eyes, “Your phone doesn’t have a signal either, does it? How am I supposed to make a call on it?”

Joseph frowned, “When did I ever say my phone had a signal?”

“Aren’t you rich and you have a system on your phone that’s different than ours?”.

Joseph was speechless at Hayden’s argument.

“Miss Downey, in your eyes, does the rich guy have to drive his own car?”

As they argued, the car slammed on the brakes and they slowed down.

Soon, Joseph stopped the car alongside the road. They moved forward less than a minute, and Hayden’s Audi could still be seen stopped just behind them.

“What’s wrong?”

Hayden was puzzled, and Joseph pointed to the gas gauge, “We’re out of gas.”

The warning light had already come on, now it was empty.

“My God, what kind of person are you?”. Hayden couldn’t believe it, “The gas level was already low, why didn’t you replenish it?”

Joseph was melancholy, but changed his expression after hearing her words, “Wasn’t it your fault?”.

There was a gas station after the highway rest area. But he turned around after receiving Kevin’s call. He ran all the way and didn’t have time to refuel.

Hayden calmed down after yelling at her.

She was angry, looking at Joseph’s angry expression.

How could she explain her feelings of excitement and disbelief when she met him in this deserted place?

How could she explain that she pretended to be aloof and reserved just because she didn’t want to give up her self-esteem easily in front of him?

And how could she explain that she couldn’t sleep well without him, since at first she thought his existence was both a blessing and a curse to her?

Joseph seemed to calm down after a moment.

“Stay here. Tomorrow at dawn, when trucks pass by on this road, I have a plan.” After saying this, he looked at Hayden, “If you’re tired, get some rest in the back of the car.”

Joseph’s car was a modified business car. The back seat could be adjusted into a temporary bed, which was quite spacious.

“Oh.”

Hayden replied and moved to the back seat.

As she was finishing adjusting the seats, a suit jacket, dyed with the scent of her perfume, was thrown toward her from the front.

Hayden was stunned, held the jacket for a moment and said, “Thank you.”

Joseph grunted, folding his arms in the driver’s seat with his eyes closed.

Hayden lay back in the seat.

The sunroof was open and he could see the full moon through the layer of glass.

“How did Alayna contact you?” Hayden asked suddenly as he tried to check if Joseph had fallen asleep.

Joseph only showed half of his head in the driver’s seat. His voice echoed in the car for a while. She thought Joseph was asleep and didn’t hear her, but then she got a response from him.

Joseph’s voice was muffled, “Kevin called me.”

Kevin?

Hayden hadn’t expected Alayna to get back in touch with him.

Joseph seemed dissatisfied and said bluntly, “This time it was urgent, and that’s fine. But if Alayna really wants to break up with Kevin, let her stop giving him false hope. There’s no use being so cruel.”

Hearing this, Hayden frowned as he rested his elbow on the cushion, looking straight ahead he told her, “Alayna is not that kind of person. She said they would break up and she meant it. She would never hang over him deliberately. Don’t slander my friend.”

“Slander?” Joseph scoffed, “As far as I know, Kevin and your friend didn’t have any fights or arguments. You can see with your own eyes how much Kevin has changed, if she wasn’t flirting with him just for fun why didn’t she accept when Kevin proposed? Is that what they do, they finish taking advantage of us and then leave?”

His words were obviously referring to her.

Hayden turned blue. “Who are you referring to? You’d better clear it up and not point fingers at one to abuse the other. That day at the Beckhams’ house, it was you…you…”.

Hayden’s heart was breaking at the thought of that incident, and he still couldn’t say it after several tries.

He gritted his teeth, red-eyed, and then threw his jacket at Joseph: “Take your jacket! Who cares!”.

With that said, he pushed open the car door and walked into the darkness without looking back.

Joseph remained silent in the driver’s seat. As he watched her fade away, he finally gritted his teeth and went after her, “Hayden.”

“Let go of me.”

“It’s too late and you’ll get in trouble driving around.”

“It has nothing to do with you.”

“Do you always have to talk to me like that?”

The man’s indignant voice echoed through the place.

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