It would seem that Joanne was completely unfazed after the incident where she had been taken hostage. But in truth, she had merely kept her fears to herself.

The fact was that her terror had come after the incident.

Now, Brian was telling her, "Joanne, you don't have to feel scared anymore."

Those words were akin to a dose of sedative. Every word had soothed her troubled heart.

This also seemed to be the first time Brian had spoken so many words to her. She had once thought of Brian as the type who valued his words as if they were gold. She thought he would never utter so many words in the same breath.

Realizing that he was being scrutinized, Brian frowned. "What's wrong?"

"Were you the one who released the ropes on my hands that day? My brother said he saw you go upstairs."

After so many days, Joanne was finally willing to bring up that incident. She was finally willing to face and deal with whatever that had happened that day.

However, it was also the image of Joanne rushing desperately towards Shawn, the way she had pressed down on Shawn's wound as she cried, and that had Brian taking up a cigarette again.

So many days had passed since that day. Brian had almost forgotten about the whole thing. Now that she had brought it up, Brian felt a wave of frustration building up in his heart. It was an inexplicable feeling, one that he could not quite put his finger on.

"I didn't know you were there," Joanne said all of a sudden. "The first night, I was knocked out and tied to the chair by He Tianming. When I woke up the second day, I couldn't even speak and my reactions were very slow. After that, he told me he was planning to start a live broadcast featuring the process of him cutting me up. I, I got a bit scared. After all, who would've thought that they'd die in such a horrible way, right? I didn't expect Shawn to risk his life to save me, though. He was bleeding out and I really thought that I had caused his death. I got even more afraid and I didn't see you. So... I didn't know you were the one who released the ropes."

She lowered her head slightly. She had spoken a bit slowly, her small hands tightening around each other as she spoke. The delicate joints on her hands became clearer and clearer...

Finally, Brian understood the reason she had not brought up the incident all this while. The truth was that she was scared.

In her moment of greatest fear, it was Shawn who had saved her.

Brian felt the frustration in his heart slowly seep away. "If you had seen me that day, what would you have done?"

"Probably won't feel as scared, I guess."

Her answer was not what Brian had expected.

Some kind of intense turmoil seemed to be roiling in his profound eyes. In the end, those intense emotions went away as he calmed down. He held Joanne's hand in his own. "It's alright now."

Smiling, Joanne hummed and went back to her breakfast.

Before he left for work, Brian handed Joanne a bag.

Joanne knew that bag all too well. It was the fast-acting painkiller that she had taken in the hospital yesterday.

Her eyes went wide as she stared at Brian in horror. "I, I don't... feel the pain anymore."

"Argh! I don't want to eat it! Don't be tricked by Brian again!" she thought.

Brian placed the pills on the table. He reached out and stroked her hair. "I'm not asking you to take them now. Keep it around and take them when you don't feel good."

He grabbed a couple of documents and left the room. After a long while, Joanne finally descended back into reality. She reached up and touched her dark tresses. There was no warmth there, but yet she could still feel the heat of Brian's palm.

If she was not mistaken, Brian's actions at that moment... were affectionate.

"What's got into him this morning?" Joanne wondered.

Around 10 a.m., it was as if the sky was throwing tantrums like a child. All of a sudden, the sky became dark. Gusts of chilly wind swept in through the windows, lifting and coiling the curtains forcefully. Amidst her daze, Joanne realized that it was going to rain soon. The temperature was about to get colder.

Indeed, rain came sometime after lunch. Huge raindrops splashed against the glass windows. Joanne got up, shut the windows, and then turned the heater on. After that, she sat on the windowsill and took in the city view, which had already turned murky due to the rain. Moments later, she got bored and searched for her phone.

The black device was placed on the nightstand. When she picked it up, she found that the device had been shut off. "But I didn't turn it off," she thought.

When she booted the device, three text messages came in, all of which were from Gavin-

"Meeting's over? Are you serious? One moment the meeting's going fine and dandy and then all of a sudden you just up and left. Now you're saying that the meeting's over? What's the meaning of this?"

"It's got something to do with Joanne, right? Don't worry, we're already used to this. If you could bail just before the contract signing last time in New York and risk losing the opportunity to venture into the North American market? This would be nothing!"

"By the way, does Joanne even know that you'd given up the North American market to save her? I bet you chickened out and didn't tell her."

Joanne read through the last two texts over and over again, verifying every line and every word just to make sure that she had not read anything wrongly. There had been several moments when her mind had gone completely haywire.

Before he left for that business trip in New York, Brian had told her that the trip would last 7 days.

When he suddenly returned on the day she got into trouble, she did feel a bit strange. But when she had asked Brian about it, he told her that he had wrapped up everything before coming back. He did not mention giving up any business opportunities at all. He also did not mention coming back ahead of schedule.

Why did he lie to her again?

Joanne dialed Gavin's number.

"Joanne?" Gavin's voice was heard shortly. "Are you looking for Brian?"

"No," Joanne said. "I'm looking for you, actually. Where are you?"

"Oh. I'm running a few errands outside. Your man is back at the office." When he spoke next, Gavin's tone was a mixture of curiosity and apprehension. "Is there... a reason you're calling me?"

"When I was held hostage by He Tianming, Brian had deliberately returned from New York, hadn't he?" Joanne said. "I saw the texts you sent him last night."

Gavin went silent for a long moment. All of a sudden, he laughed. "So you really didn't know. What did he tell you?"

"He told me that he'd wrapped up everything and came home."

"I knew it." Gavin was not surprised at all. "Well, you've read the texts. So you can pretty much guess it on your own. Wrapped up everything my ass! We were about to start the contract signing, but he just up and left. In the end, we completely missed out on the opportunity to venture into the North American market. Our six months of hard work pretty much amounts to nothing. But you shouldn't feel pressured over this. Right now, he's working something out to salvage the situation. It's rare to see him going through documents with such a stressful look on his face. Oh, yeah. Do you want to see the look on his face? I'll snap a picture of him."

"..."

Joanne was silent for a long time. Gavin panicked. "Hello? Hello? Joanne, are you okay?"

Admittedly, he had deliberately told Joanne all those things. But if he ended up scaring Joanne out of her wits, the consequences would not be so simple as taking a 'business trip' down to Nepal. Brian would outright murder him!

"I'm okay," Joanne said. "Thank you for telling me all this. But can you not tell him that I've found out?"

"Um..." Gavin did not dare hide things from Brian. In fact, he had been planning to tell Brian everything when he got back to the office. So, upon hearing Joanne's request, he could only ask, "Why do you not want him to know?"

"Because he didn't wish for me find out," Joanne said.

"Okay, then," Gavin said, gritting his teeth. "I'll help you fool him once. But if he finds out, you have to help me."

"Okay."

Joanne smiled and hung up.

Outside the window, the rain had picked up the pace. Raindrops beat against the glass windows noisily. If it were not for the heater, the sound of the rain would send cold chills down her body even if it was still the end of spring.

The glass window held Joanne's reflection, from which Joanne noticed her red-rimmed eyes.

Amidst the silence, she felt a strong urge to cry.

When she was held hostage by He Tianming, she did think of Brian. But back then, all her thoughts about Brian had to do with the rumors between him and Rosalyn. She had hopelessly thought that Brian would not even care whether she lived or died. After all, they would be getting a divorce in two years' time.

But the reality was that he had abandoned everything and came to her the moment he had found out she was in trouble.

During the height of her panic, Brian had actually been standing right behind her.

She suddenly remembered the familiar scent that had mingled with her own breaths that day. She remembered his gentle voice too. In truth, she would have seen him standing behind her if she would just turn around.

Instead, what she had shown Brian was the way she had dove straight towards Shawn.

At that moment, she wondered what Brian was feeling.

Well, she had no idea what Brian had been feeling back then. What she did know was that right now she was happy. Just like that time when she was ten, when she met Brian for the second time. She had secretly felt happy when she saw him. She would not have traded that moment for anything, not even if someone offered her the greatest possible deal. She felt like leaping straight into his arms right then and there.

Brian cared about her. At that thought, Joanne felt as though she had suddenly grown wings. She was so happy that she could spin three rounds in the air.

It took Joanne a long time to finally calm down. Wrapped in the warmth of the heater, Joanne felt hazy with sleep. When the hotel's manager came to ask if she wanted to have afternoon tea or if she wanted to drop by the hotel's beauty parlor, she had told the manager not to disturb her. She was just too lazy to move. As for dinner, she had decided to wait until Brian's return. Soon, she fell asleep.

Brian returned around 7 p.m. The manager told him that Joanne had slept through the entire afternoon and that she had not shown any desire to leave the suite at all. Brian thought Joanne was feeling unwell again, so he opened the door to the bedroom hurriedly. He found her sleeping peacefully on the bed without the slightest hint of discomfort.

She did not leave the lights on. The room's only source of light was from the window. Amidst the murky ambience, her delicate face seemed to have grown even smaller. She was like a soft and tiny animal, curled up in its nest as it slumbered. It was a sight that would turn anyone's heart to mush.

Brian walked over. Joanne was almost awake. In her haze, she thought she heard movement, so she opened her eyes. She saw Brian in the middle of the blurriness. She smiled. "You're back?"

"Mm."

"Since when have I become so easy to please?" Brian suddenly wondered. Joanne had merely given him a tiny smile, and yet he had already forgotten all about his exhaustion that day. All he could see was this person in front of him.

"Why didn't you get up to eat something?" he asked.

Joanne crawled out from under the covers. "I wanted to wait for you."

Due to the fact that she had just woken up, her eyes were brighter than usual. Her hair was slightly messy and she was smiling like a child. He bet she did not even realize just how intimate and affectionate her words had sounded.

Everything hit Brian square in the heart. All of a sudden, the lonely place that was his heart was reduced into a pile of mush.

From now on, as long as she was home waiting for him, he would never feel tired no matter how exhausted he had been during the day.

When she saw that Brian was looking at her blankly, she waved her hand in front of his face. "Don't tell me you've left me out and had your dinner already."

Brian smiled and gathered her shoes. "I wouldn't dare. Put on your shoes. I'll take you downstairs."