Chapter 6
I did not come out for the rest of the day.
In the middle of it, Adrian knocked on my door several times and asked what was wrong, but I brushed him off every time.
Until the doorbell rang again.
This time it was Ethan, stopping by to drop off a contract for me on the way back from seeing a client.
The door opened, and he was met with Adrian’s gloomy face.
Adrian was cooking dinner. His sleeves were rolled up.
“Nora,” he called, “if you need something, just let me handle it.”
Then he added casually to Ethan, “If there’s nothing else, you can go. I’m very busy. Not every man is as skilled in the kitchen as I am.”
Ethan scratched his head and looked inside, confused.
“Making hot pot requires culinary skill?”
Adrian’s expression turned even darker.
He promptly started trying to send him away.
“In a bit, Nora and I still have some private matters to take care of.”
The so-called private matters turned out to be nothing more than him rubbing my stomach after I ate too much.
After dinner, I did not even remember when I fell asleep.
When I woke up again, I finally made up my mind.
I searched around the villa and found Adrian washing my underwear by hand.
A streak of pink fabric was running through his fingers.
My face flushed scarlet at once.
Suppressing the strange pounding in my chest, I stepped slowly to his side and spoke in a low voice.
“Adrian… I want to move out.”
He stopped.
For a long time, he said nothing.
I did not know if it was just my imagination, but it felt as though the force in his hands increased.
“Aren’t you afraid of living alone?” Adrian did not lift his head. His voice was hoarse and rough. “Is it because of—”
He did not finish the sentence.
I did not dare admit that I had lied to him before, so I only muttered, “I can slowly get over that.”
He continued washing my clothes in silence.
I followed him nervously, unable to describe what I was feeling.
Part of me wanted him to agree.
Part of me wanted him to refuse.
So I asked again, “Can I?”
After hanging the laundry, Adrian finally looked at me.
His black eyes seemed bottomless.
He ground his teeth and said coldly, “You’re already preparing to leave, so what do you still need a boyfriend like me for? We might as well break up now.”
I froze on the spot.
The floating comments became excited at once.
So that’s what the male lead really thinks.
He wanted to break up with the side character a long time ago.
At least she has some self-awareness. Go, go, go. Hurry up and leave so our female lead can take her place.
My mind was a mess.
The moment I heard the word break up, I instinctively avoided Adrian’s eyes, turned, and ran back into my room.
For some reason, I suddenly remembered the thin scratches on the back of his hand while he had been washing my underwear.
They looked like cat scratches.
And as luck would have it, we had run out of bandages at home.
After thinking about it, I decided to go out and buy some.
I needed to cool off anyway.
I still felt that Adrian was not the way the floating comments described him.
But my luck was awful.
On the way back, a heavy rainstorm started without warning.
Passing cars splashed me with muddy water. In the chaos, someone shoved into me, and I fell hard, scraping my knee.
I forced the tears back into my eyes, clutched the box of bandages tightly to my chest, and limped through the rain.
Then suddenly, an umbrella opened above my head.
I looked up.
Adrian’s cold side profile was there.
Seeing how miserable I looked, he seemed almost angry enough to laugh.
“Nora Bennett, you’ve really got nerve. You even dare run away from home now?”
My lips trembled.
I was just about to explain when Adrian shoved the umbrella into my hands and said coldly, “Hold this.”
I obediently gripped the handle.
The next second, my body lifted off the ground.
Adrian had picked me up.
I struggled slightly. “Adrian, I can walk myself.”
But he acted as if he had not heard and carried me steadily all the way to the passenger seat.