After Betrayal - I Married a Handsome Tycoon-Chapter 38: Prying into His Privacy

A sneer touched Moira Sloan’s lips at the thought of Shane Jennings.

She was more than capable of loving someone, and by the same token, she couldn’t stand people who weren’t.

In fact, she found them rather irritating.

Take Shane Jennings, for instance. He couldn’t defy his family’s arranged marriage, yet he still tried to keep stringing her along.

If he had made a clean break with her after choosing the arranged marriage, or even SLAMMED a check for five million in her face, she might have respected him for having some guts.

But this constant drama of his had landed him in the hospital.

She didn’t see him as some great romantic hero; she just thought he was nuts. 𝒻𝑟𝘦𝘦𝘸ℯ𝒷𝑛𝘰𝓋ℯ𝘭.𝘤𝘰𝘮

After she was done thinking about Shane Jennings, her mind inexplicably jumped to Connor Quinn.

’That scoundrel. I’ll have to watch my back around him from now on.’

「The next day.」

The shop was closed, but Moira Sloan had her own internal clock.

Every morning at seven, it was as if an alarm clock went off inside her. She would wake up on the dot, and once her eyes were open, there was no going back to sleep.

She got up as usual, went through her morning routine, then lay back down in bed and ordered some takeout.

While waiting for her food to arrive, she scrolled through some short videos.

The story completely blew her mind. Basically, a girl dated a guy for four or five years, only for him to turn around and marry a woman from a blind date arranged by his family. The girl, in a fit of pique, then married his cousin.

All in the name of "revenge."

She opened the comments section and saw a bunch of young girls fawning over how romantic and thrilling the whole story was.

Moira Sloan raised an eyebrow.

’Romantic? Thrilling? In what way?’

’Throwing away the rest of your life for a man who doesn’t love you? That’s romantic?’

’What does that have to do with romance?’

’It’s like finding a rat dropping in your pot of ginseng soup, and then, in a fit of rage, you throw in the whole rat and angrily gulp down the entire pot.’

Besides making yourself even more disgusted, Moira couldn’t see how that was satisfying or romantic in the slightest.

And let’s be real, if a man doesn’t love you, he just doesn’t love you. It doesn’t matter if you marry his cousin. Hell, you could marry his father and become his stepmother, and he still wouldn’t love you.

’You only live once. Why degrade yourself over a little romance?’

Just as Moira was having this thought, her food arrived. She ate a few bites, paced around the living room, and then went back to her bedroom to lie down again.

Her motto: never sit when you can lie down.

At one in the afternoon, Moira Sloan ate half a bowl of noodles at the restaurant downstairs before grabbing the drafts she’d been working on for the past few days and taking a taxi to Everwood County Hospital.

When the taxi arrived at the hospital, Cassie Blanchett’s assistant came down to meet her.

The assistant offered her hand in greeting. Moira shook it, putting on a phony smile. "Assistant Lawson, we meet again."

The assistant was polite but distant. "This way, Boss Sloan."

Moira followed her onto the elevator and up to the inpatient ward.

As she pushed open the door to the hospital room, Moira arched an eyebrow.

’They must have really pulled some strings to set up a VIP room in a small county hospital like this.’

The moment he saw Moira, the expression on Shane Jennings’s face—who was sitting up in bed, working—changed dramatically.

Moira barely flicked a glance at him before turning her gaze to the woman beside him, who was also working on a laptop. She offered a dazzling smile. "President Blanchett."

Hearing her voice, the woman looked up. Her brow furrowed for a moment before her expression smoothed out. "Boss Sloan."

Before meeting Cassie Blanchett, Moira had assumed her engagement to Shane Jennings was merely a marriage of convenience between their families. But in the instant their eyes met, she suddenly realized that might not be the whole story.

’Odds are, this President Blanchett is actually in love with Shane Jennings.’

’You can’t hide love, and you can’t hide hostility, either.’

’No matter how well you try to disguise it, it always leaks out in the little things.’

But it didn’t matter. She had zero intention of getting involved in their relationship.

The discussion about the furniture designs went smoothly. Cassie Blanchett didn’t try to cause trouble, and Moira demonstrated her usual professionalism.

After they were finished, Cassie Blanchett asked Moira, "How long will it take to complete?"

Moira replied, "A year."

Cassie Blanchett said nothing, but Assistant Lawson chimed in, "That long?"

Moira smiled faintly. "If you gave this to anyone else, it would take at least a year and a half."

Cassie Blanchett’s expression was cool. "I trust Boss Sloan. I’ll leave it in your hands, then."

Moira said, "Thank you for your trust."

A few minutes later, Moira left the room, escorted once again by Assistant Lawson.

They had just stepped outside when they heard the sounds of a hushed but heated argument erupt from within the room.

"What was the point of calling her here? I already told you, I was the one who went to her. This has nothing to do with her."

"What? Feeling sorry for her?"

"Cassie, don’t be unreasonable."

Hearing the argument, Assistant Lawson, who was standing next to Moira, instinctively glanced at her.

She probably expected Moira to look smug, or to show some other kind of reaction.

But when Moira felt the assistant’s gaze, she turned to meet it head-on. A sudden smile touched her lips. "What are you looking at me for? Worried I’ll get caught in the crossfire?"

The assistant replied, "My apologies, Boss Sloan."

Moira chuckled. "Don’t worry, I have no interest in being the other woman."

With that, Moira added, "All right, you can see me off here. I can get to the elevator myself."

After bidding the assistant farewell, Moira went to the elevators. Just as she reached them, she spotted two familiar figures in the dense crowd.

One was Connor Quinn, and the other was the young girl who had come to her shop the other day.

The two of them seemed quite close. The girl was saying something to Connor, and while his face was as expressionless as ever, his eyes held a clear tenderness.

A moment later, the elevator doors opened, and a crowd of people pushed their way on.

Moira was the last one on. She stood near the doors, deliberately avoiding Connor by keeping her head down and staring at her phone, trying her best to blend into the crowd.

As the elevator descended, she heard a quiet conversation start up behind her.

"Big brother, this surgery is going to be really expensive, isn’t it? Maybe we shouldn’t do it."

Connor Quinn’s voice was low and steady. "You just focus on getting better. This isn’t something you need to worry about."