From Fan to Wife(9)

12

After talking with Caleb, it was already dark. I took a taxi directly to the hospital where Yunus stayed.

I tentatively sent Yunus a WhatsApp message just now: [Is Xiana with you now?]

Yunus quickly replied: [Yes. Are you looking for her?]

I looked at the line and sneered.

Of course, I had something for her.

I had never thought about it.

The reason why Jaden avoided me that whole year was actually related to Xiana, whom I had never met before and had not been arranged to appear until Chapter 12.

I clenched my phone tightly and walked into the hallway of the hospital with extreme anger.

The hospital was extremely quiet that day, but when I walked to the corner of the aisle, I bumped into a person carelessly.

"Watch out!"

As my body unexpectedly fell backward, someone held my waist firmly and locked me in his arms. The familiar breath instantly shrouded me.

I looked up. It was Jaden.

Looking at his cold and handsome face, my anger subsided. I blinked and asked, "The audition is over?"

Jaden stared at me with his dark eyes and hummed softly in response.

Just when I was about to say something, Jaden leaned over and hugged me. His face was buried in my shoulder, and his voice was slightly hoarse. "I'm so tired."

As he spoke, the warm and damp breath he poured on my neck slowly penetrated my skin and quietly spread along my sensitive nerves.

I was suddenly short of breath and pushed him. "Someone is here."

He did not move, and his low voice was a little lazy. "Make it public if our photo is taken."

I was stunned that time around.

"You said we needed to be careful last time and not get caught by the paparazzi—" My words paused abruptly as I realized that he used the word "public."

My breathing stopped.

"I take back what I said last time."

Jaden's voice suddenly became a little dull. He kept a slight distance from me, but his eyes fixed on me as he asked seriously, "Can you pretend that you didn't hear anything?"

When I looked at him, I suddenly wanted to laugh, and then I really chuckled.

He listened to my laughter, and there was some doubt in his eyes. After thinking for a while, he cupped one side of my cheeks with his palm, rubbed it, and said gently, "Natalie, let's announce our relationship publicly."

My eyelashes suddenly fluttered, and my heart was racing extremely fast. For some reason, I felt that he was a little different now.

"Did Quade say something to you after I left?"

He shook his head. "He didn't say anything."

I stared at him suspiciously.

Jaden looked at me intently, which made me feel a little uneasy. However, he suddenly sighed. "I'm just a little scared."

"What are you afraid of?" I raised my face and met his eyes, asking him.

He paused, and his gaze darkened. Then, he pinched my cheek and whispered, "You already know."

Before I could retort, he said again slowly, "Quade is back again."

I frowned slightly and did not understand what he meant by "again" in his words.

"I told myself that you wanted to play a role in 'Bewitching Concubine' because it is a good script, not because the director is Quade. It's why I encouraged you to go for the audition."

"But I'm still scared."

He pursed his thin lips tightly. "I'm scared that you approached me deliberately, as you did a year ago, just to use me to provoke him. I'm scared that you're not even—"

I interrupted him, "I did not."

He was stunned.

I looked straight into his eyes and felt a sullen sensation rushing within my body.

"Nothing happened a year ago, and nothing happens now. I've never thought of you as a substitute for anyone."

His pupils suddenly contracted, as if he could not believe what he heard.

I took a deep breath and enunciated my words clearly, "You're the one I've always liked."

He opened his thin lips slightly and was in a trance for a moment. When he came back to his senses, he stared at me with his dark eyes. They were so dark that they could blend in with the night outside. He murmured, "But at that time—"

"The video Xiana showed you is fake. The woman in it is not me at all!"

My teeth creaked, and my hand turned slightly red from clutching my phone with too much force.

In the photo album on my phone, there was a video that Caleb had just sent to me.

In the video, the woman was dressed in a bare-back red dress with long curly black hair and fair skin. She seemed to be talking to another person.

Her voice was calm and extremely cold.

"Like him? What a joke! How could I really like Jaden? It is only because Quade is back, and he has hurt me so deeply. I just want to use Jaden to provoke him. That's all."

After saying that, she smiled slightly, revealing the same side profile as me.

Caleb told me.

A year ago, when Xiana came to Jaden with that video, Caleb clearly saw Xiana sneering in a corner when no one noticed it. However, Jaden was so devastated that he did not notice it.

He wanted to remind Jaden, but at the thought that Suzette almost gave the latter a fur coat, he did not want to say anything anymore.

I looked up at Jaden, and the flame of anger lit up in my eyes.

"A year ago, I had no idea that Quade came back to secretly choose the leading actor for 'Bewitching Concubine.' How could I say something like that?"

Jaden's body stiffened. "You didn't know?"

I nodded hurriedly in response.

He was stunned, his eyes darkened, and his voice was extremely low and hoarse.

"Didn't he come to you..."

Without any hesitation, I replied, "Of course, he didn't have the audacity to see me!"

Jaden looked at me. He nodded slightly as if he had thought of something.

"He really doesn't have the nerve to see you after you exposed that incident."

Hearing that, I was stunned. Sure enough, he knew what happened five years ago.

In other words, he had been observing me secretly.

Suddenly, the last sentence Caleb said to me flashed in my mind.

"Natalie, Jaden has liked you for many years."

I looked up at him, and my heart trembled. A wave of complicated emotions surged up within me and spread through my heart silently.

I opened my mouth a few times but did not say a word.

After a while, I lowered my eyes slightly. My face was burning, and I spoke in a hoarse voice. "Shall we go home?"

"Huh?" He leaned over slightly, and his voice was low and hoarse.

I raised my head, stared at his handsome and well-defined face, and licked my lips. "I have a script that I want to discuss with you."