Female Novel
Chapter 173
Zack bid them goodbye after eating as it was getting late. While nobody sent him off, Sophia did tellhim to take care on his way back when he stood, to which he replied with a hum before greeting Johnmore formally. He then left them alone in the house.
After taking a few more bites out of his meal, John put his chopsticks down as he observed Sophia.She was sitting crossed-legged on the chair with her sleeves rolled up while grabbing onto the seafoodwith her bare hands without even putting on a disposable glove, and her mouth was oily from all thefood she ate.
It was a sight which John could hardly bear to watch as he was a bit of a clean freak. Can’t she bemore graceful and clean when she eats? Meanwhile, Sophia was enjoying her food so much that shemissed out on his expression, but she did formulate a question as she ate. “By the way, what were youtalking about with Miss Bailey back then?” novelbin
There was a pause in John’s movements when he realized she was referring to when he left her alone.He then replied, “We were talking about a possible collaboration, and I told her about the details that Ithought needed to be amended in the documents she handed me today.”
There were no further reactions from Sophia as soon as she noticed that he wasn’t about to mentionwhat happened in the past. Meanwhile, John could no longer bear to watch her eat, thus stood toexcuse himself. “Carry on with your meal. I'll be upstairs.”
“Alright.” A nonchalant reply was given.
After he stepped past a few flights of stairs, he looked back at the dining table when Sophia's phone
rang to see her wiping her hands in a flurry of panic before picking up. The phone was left on the tableand switched to loudspeaker as she ate on, in which a man's voice could be heard uttering her name.
A laugh escaped her as she said, “Hey, why'd you think of calling me?”
After staring at her for a while on the spot, John walked upstairs with his hands in his pockets. Herlaughter could be heard from the stairway on the second floor as she chatted away, “Tomorrow? Sure,I've got time. In fact, I have all the time in the world, so we can meet tomorrow.”
He remained expressionless as he retired to his room and took out his pajamas. Despite his initialplans to shower, he stopped after giving it some thought and went on to light a cigarette by the windowinstead. However, he didn't actually have the desire to smoke, so he stood there until the cigaretteburned out before snubbing it out on the window sill.
Then, into the shower he went. He spent more time in the shower than usual, probably due to havingdrunk some alcohol and the saltier than usual dinner. He put on his pajamas after that, then decided togo downstairs to get himself a bottle of water to quench his thirst, only to find that Sophia was nowhereto be found.
Upon arriving at the kitchen, he checked on the dining room to see it cleaned up, which was a relief tohim. When going upstairs with a bottle of water in hand, he saw the accessories on the coffee table.They were handpicked by him and were worth quite a lot, so he was expecting Sophia to take themafter putting them on, judging from how miserly she was, but she wound up not taking any of them.
Thus he retrieved them before heading upstairs to chuck the accessories into the drawer of thenightstand in his room. In the meantime, something else could be seen in the drawer, which he realizedto be his divorce certificate after pausing to check.
Memories of the process itself were hazy at best perhaps due to his sullen mood. The only thing thatstood out to him was that Sophia was smiling when they took the photo for the cert. It was one ofsincerity that differed from the usual fake smiles that she plastered onto her face, as there were curvesat the corner of her eyes that used to be absent.
He flipped the cert in his hands while sitting on his bed to check on it. Amidst his muddled thoughts wasa heavy feeling weighed upon his heart, so much so that it was suffocating.