"Shawn, what exactly do you want to tell me?" Joanne asked as soon as she entered the office.

"My mom told me about what happened at the charity auction." With two fingers, Shawn pushed Joanne's face from side to side. He began examining her cheek. "Were you really slapped by Steven? How come there's no swelling?"

"Seriously? This guy wants me to show up at the office with half my face swollen like a pig?" she thought.

Joanne pushed Shawn's hand away in one movement. "Brian gave me an ice pack when we got back. It won't swell. Sorry to disappoint you."

Shawn folded his arms across his chest. All of a sudden, he smiled. "Have you ever heard of Brian caring about others enough to give them an ice pack?"

The change in subject had come so suddenly that Joanne's brain had trouble keeping up. It took her a while to recover from her confusion. But when she did, she asked, "What are you trying to say again?"

"Let's make a bet. I'll make a call to Brian to tell him that you're hurt. See if he'd come running here like his ass is on fire." Shawn snatched Joanne's phone and keyed in the pin for her lock screen. "Oh, by the way, I should tell that Brian's probably very busy right now. I heard from my dad that Lambert Group is currently negotiating a 100 million dollar deal. Sounds exciting when you think about it, isn't it?"

"Shawn, stop fooling around." Joanne made a grab for her phone.

"What are you afraid of?" Shawn pulled up her contact list. "With this call, you'll finally be able to find out if Brian cares about you, isn't it?"

Yesterday, Shawn's mother had told him that Brian looked like he was about to tear Steven apart alive after Joanne was slapped by Steven. After that, Brian's behavior proved nothing but just how much he cared for his wife.

Was it not the uncertainty regarding Brian's true feelings for her that had got Joanne so worked up?

Shawn just wanted to help Joanne clear up the mystery... while he himself could sort out his own thoughts.

Joanne had stopped attempting to grab her phone back. She stared at Shawn hazily. Anticipation and fear filled her eyes.

It was true that after yesterday, after Brian had kissed her, she was now even more curious about Brian's true feelings for her.

But what if it was all just an illusion? What if she had just been deluding herself into thinking that Brian felt something for her?

If that was the case, then she would rather remain in the dark forever.

"Stop lying to yourself. You want to know."

It was as if Shawn had seen through her. He found Brian's number and hit dial.

The phone rang for quite a while before Brian's voice came blaring through. "Joanne?"

Joanne felt as if her heart was about to leap out of her body from her throat.

"This is Shawn," he said calmly, shooting Joanne a look that had 'you are such a loser' written all over it. "Patricia came looking for Joanne just now. Joanne got hurt. It's best if you come to see her down here."

The call was dropped immediately. Brian did not even say a word. Not even if it was to ask about the state of Joanne's injury.

Shawn did not miss the disappointment that had flashed across Joanne's eyes. Poking her forehead a few times, he said, "It's like you've lost all your spunk after marrying Brian. You don't even have the guts to make a bet like this? Now you just wait and see if Brian would come running here."

Joanne snatched her phone back. All of a sudden, Brian's words came to mind. "Everyone should know their own place."

What exactly was she to Brian? She was just his wife on paper. At the moment, he was in the middle of a 100 million dollar negotiation. As if he would abandon his negotiations and come running to her just because she got a little hurt.

The more she thought about it, the more she regretted not stopping Shawn from making the call. "Shawn, if you pull this kind of stunt again, I'll tell your future wife just how many exes you have!" she threatened.

"So? What does it even matter?" Shawn laughed haughtily. "They're still a lot of things about me that you don't know anyway!"

"..." Joanne was rendered speechless.

"Fine, you win," she thought. She held her phone in her hand and toyed with it for a long time before deciding to give Brian another call. This time, it was to tell him that the previous call from Shawn was just a joke.

Sitting nearby, Shawn began laughing at Joanne in ridicule. "Coward! I bet you're just worried that he won't come."

Yes. She was scared that he would not come. So it was better for her to tell him not to come.

That way she could at least use it as an excuse to comfort herself.

Her finger swiped at the screen and tapped the green icon to make the call.

Then, she heard the soft ringing of the familiar default ringtone somewhere in front of her desk.

Joanne raised her head and saw Brian standing before her desk with his phone in hand. His chest was heaving slightly as if he had been walking in haste. Sweat dotted on his forehead as though they would start pouring out any second.

In that instant, Joanne forgot to breathe and her heart skipped a few beats.

She was moved, even more so than the first time she had met Brian when she was ten.

Brian walked around her desk and pulled her up from her seat. "Where are you hurt? Is it serious?"

All of a sudden, Joanne was at a loss of words. "Act-act-actually..." she stuttered.

Actually, it was just a minor cut. Technically, it would not even be considered as an injury, but Brian... he actually came...

Right now, she felt guiltier than a thief who had been caught with his hand in a cookie jar.

Brian thought she had been badly hurt, so he carefully examined Joanne from head to toe. Finally, he noticed a threadlike bloodstain on her ankle. "Just here?"

Joanne's guilt intensified. She wiped her forehead only to find that she had not been sweating at all. "Mm," she said. "Actually it isn't serious at all. I... Shawn was joking with you."

She was not sure if she had imagined it, but Brian's expression seemed... relieved.

"Ugh. This is practically the same as lying to him. He should be pissed off, right?" she thought.

"Mr. Shawn," Brian said, suddenly looking at Shawn. Joanne thought he was about to get even with Shawn. Wanting to explain things, she quickly grabbed Brian to hold him back. But Brian's next words were not what she had been expecting at all. "Thank you for telling me about Joanne's injury," he said.

The long legs that had been Shawn's pride and joy planted themselves on the desk. Shawn's grinned brazenly. "You're welcome."

Brian turned back around. "Is it lunch time yet?" he asked Joanne in a low voice.

Joanne nodded. Brian picked up her hand. "Follow me somewhere. I have something to tell you."

Outside the police station, Brian waited for Joanne to get into the car first. Then he stood beside the door and asked, "Do you have some change on you?"

"How much?"

Joanne pulled out her purse. Much to her surprise, the look on Brian's face was that of utter confusion. "I don't know," he said.

In the end, he decided to just bring her whole purse with him. He walked into the pharmacy beside the police station.

Moments later, he walked out carrying a small bag, which he handed over to Joanne together with her purse. "Take care of the wound," he said.

When Joanne peered into the bag, she saw a bottle of antiseptic and a pack of adhesive bandage.

"He wanted change to buy these?" she thought. "No wonder he didn't know the exact amount..."

The wound was trifling, which was why it did not take long for Joanne to deal with it. Using some wet wipes she had taken out from her bag, she began cleaning the blood stains on her shoes. "What do you want to tell me about?" she asked.

Brian leaned towards her and fastened her seat belt for her. Then, he started the car wordlessly and drove off.

Joanne did not bother asking again. The car sped along the road for ten minutes before it pulled up in front of a French restaurant.

French restaurants were typically associated with romantic gestures, especially a place like this one, which had made its name across the entire city due to its extortionate pricing. Feeling a surge of excitement, Joanne looked at Brian. "So you brought me here for a romantic dinner?"

Brian looked at Joanne lazily. "Do you want romance?"

Joanne tried picturing Brian acting romantic with that icy expression of his. She shook her head. "Nah. Forget it. Just tell me if you have something to say."

They entered the restaurant. The manager greeted them and led them to their table. He even took it upon himself to serve them tea. "Mr. Lambert, should we bring out your order?"

Brian hummed his agreement and spread out his napkin. His movements were practiced and elegant, though she had never seen him practicing before. It was as though he had been born with the innate ability to move and act like a perfect gentleman. "So good looking that it should be considered a sin." Joanne teased to herself.

A uniformed waiter brought out two plates of steak. Brian was having the medium well sirloin steak while she was having well done Kobe beef.

Joanne blinked. "How do you know that I prefer my steaks well done?"

"Lucky guess," Brian said casually.

"Actually, I used to find medium well steaks acceptable," Joanne said, cutting into her steak. "But once I began my training as an ME, I only eat well done ones. Otherwise, I'll be thinking about corpses whenever I cut into a piece of steak..."

Brian frowned and shoved a piece of steak into Joanne's mouth to shut her up. "I have a business trip to the US."

Joanne chewed the steak and swallowed. "Oh... when are you leaving?"

"My flight's tonight. At eight."

"Um... have a safe... trip?"

"Don't go running around when I'm not here." Brian urged. "It's likely that Steven would come looking for you."

Finally, Joanne was distracted from her steak. Her elegant brows creased into a frown. "Why would he come looking for me?"

"Patricia was detained on the charge of assaulting a police officer."

Joanne went stock-still. But she had asked Patricia to leave this morning.

She stared at Brian. "You're the one who put her there? Fine by me. Could save me the trouble of dealing with her." She paused, and then she asked, "Um... You... When are you coming back?"

When she thought of Brian's absence, she suddenly felt as if her life was missing something.

Brian had thought that she would not even bother to ask. A ray of sunshine pierced through his dark mood. "Next Wednesday. Is there anything you like? I'll ask someone to get it."

Joanne shook her head. "I'm craving that vanilla ice cream from the handmade ice steam stall beside our school. But you can bring something like that back..."

After a brief pause, she asked a bit hesitantly, "Before you came by the station, what were you doing?"

"I was negotiating a deal." Brian looked at Joanne. It was impossible to tell if he was actually smiling. "When your colleague called to say that you're hurt, I ditched everything and left."

"And, and then?" Joanne felt her bravado slowly slipping away.

"And then? They might think that I wasn't taking the deal seriously and decide to call off the deal. Lambert Group will miss out on several hundred million's worth of profit."

"I, I didn't do it on purpose..."

Joanne could not imagine what a few hundred million worth of money was equivalent to. She only knew that if she were to throw away a million a day, it would still take a long time to reach even one of those few hundred million. At the thought, she started to feel great fear, so much so that she could barely hold on to her fork and knife without dropping them.

"It's okay," Brian said. His tone was gentle, which led Joanne to think that he had somehow found a way to secure the deal. She sighed in relief. "You'll just have to pay the losses, that's all," Brian said.

Joanne nearly fell off her chair.

Even if she sold all the houses that Chris had bought for her, she could not even scrape together a hundred million! How the hell was she supposed to pay him?

By selling him her body?