Chapter 273: Chapter 273: Rejecting His Confession
"No mineral water, would Perrier work?"
"Whatever."
Ashley Shaw tried hard to reach forward again, almost jumping to the back seat, but she managed to grab the Perrier just in time. With a "bang," she closed the refrigerator, sat back down, and put the Perrier on the center console, exhaling a heavy sigh.
She was already prone to motion sickness, and this ordeal instantly made her stomach churn.
She dared not move any further, not even to fasten her seatbelt.
This way, she wasn’t in the mood to think about unpleasant things, closed her eyes to feign sleep, didn’t want to say anything or think about anything, appearing as if she had let go of everything.
The corner of Warren Prescott’s eyes caught Ashley Shaw’s expression, and he felt quite pleased with himself.
His method indeed worked.
When the body feels uncomfortable, the mind can’t dwell on emotional discomfort.
When he first discovered Lars Prescott’s infidelity, this was his way of coping.
He’d drink until he felt like vomiting, or he’d go to the boxing gym to punch bags, leaving his body battered and bruised, to distract himself from the heartache.
Only now, seeing Ashley Shaw’s face growing paler and paler, Warren couldn’t remain happy.
He pulled over to the roadside and asked, "You alright?"
Ashley Shaw lifted her eyelids. Although she said nothing, her eyes clearly said: Do I look like I’m alright?
Grabbing water? What’s the point! He might as well drink it himself!
"Let’s get out and take a walk."
They were currently on an overpass where parking was prohibited.
But Warren didn’t care about that.
He opened the car door, went around to the passenger side, and pulled Ashley Shaw out.
Once she got out, a cool evening breeze greeted them, carrying the moisture from the river below the overpass, making her feel much better.
"Don’t know how to open the window if you’re car sick?" Warren said impatiently, but his hand still offered the Perrier she’d grabbed earlier.
The cap was already unscrewed.
Ashley Shaw stared at the Perrier without speaking.
Warren guessed her meaning and, with a dark expression, said, "I didn’t drink it!"
Only then did Ashley Shaw reach out to take it.
She tilted her head back and took a sip, the lemon flavor spreading in her mouth, tasting very refreshing.
The feeling of her stomach churning was also much better.
Warren felt a pang of regret.
If he’d known she was this fragile, he wouldn’t have used his method on her.
His method only seemed to work for him.
Warren leaned one hand on the overpass railing and searched for cigarettes with the other.
After searching for a while, he realized his cigarettes were in his coat.
And the coat was in the car.
This made him inexplicably annoyed.
He finally couldn’t hold back and asked, "What were you thinking just now?"
Ashley Shaw glanced at him, "Do you want the truth?"
"Speak."
"I was just thinking if I smashed this Perrier bottle on your head, would it crack open."
"..." Warren looked at her expressionlessly, his eyes cold.
Ashley Shaw quickly said, "I was just joking."
Following the principle of not engaging in petty arguments with women, Warren ignored her previous words and said, "I wasn’t asking about now, I meant before you grabbed the water."
Ashley Shaw’s expression tensed slightly, looking somewhat uneasy.
"I wasn’t thinking about anything."
"Ashley Shaw."
"Hmm?"
"If your mouth is as useless as your phone, you might as well donate them both."
He was referring to the time when an incident happened at the bakery, and she didn’t answer his call.
Ashley Shaw cleared her throat, thinking it’s not like she couldn’t talk about it, and besides, talking could help distract from the motion sickness.
Quick recovery, quick return to the car to pick someone up.
So she said, "I just thought of Chief Sutton."
The topic jumped quickly, and it took Warren a moment to recall who Chief Sutton was.
To others, Chief Sutton was a high-ranking official, but in Warren’s eyes, he was just a minor director who happened to take advantage of the situation to rise to power.
"Are you blaming me for not dealing with Mr. Sutton together with the Langley Family back then?"
Back then, he was indeed very angry and did think about dealing with Mr. Sutton as well.
But he realized that causing such a commotion would inevitably alert Lars Prescott.
If Lars Prescott intervened, Ashley Shaw’s situation would become even more awkward, so he held back.
But if Ashley Shaw felt uncomfortable because of that, it wasn’t too late for him to take action now.
If he could bring down the previous "Chief Sutton," he could bring down the current one as well.
"I didn’t think that way, and besides, in terms of results over process, he did help take care of Sean Langley in the end."
"Then what were you thinking?"
"I was just thinking... survival of the fittest."
Warren immediately realized what she was struggling with.
She felt useless, that even with a justified cause, she was at a disadvantage.
"Do you know the next phrase after ’survival of the fittest’?"
"Natural selection?"
"It’s survival of the adaptable."
Sometimes, softening one’s stance a little and letting go of past grudges can lead to a much better life.
Take for instance, if she were his girlfriend, no one in all of Westcroft, or even Veridia, would dare touch a single hair on her head.
However, Warren didn’t spell it out directly; he hoped Ashley Shaw could realize it on her own.
Yet what Ashley Shaw understood about Warren’s "survival of the adaptable" was to see the reality clearly.
Someone from an ordinary family like hers should just lie low and let others bully her.
A self-mocking smile curved on her lips.
They were from different worlds, and yet she naively hoped to find answers to her questions from Warren.
The problems they saw weren’t even the same, let alone the correct answers.
They utterly failed to communicate, not even one sentence felt right.
Ashley Shaw withdrew all expressions from her face and said softly, "I’m fine now, let’s go."
Warren’s brows knitted tightly.
Was she rejecting him?
But oddly enough, his first reaction wasn’t anger, but relief.
Relief that he hadn’t spelled everything out.
Without confessing, there wouldn’t be rejection.
So, what she said wasn’t a rejection of him now.
People tend to deceive themselves; they don’t even need a reason but will create one to convince themselves.
Although he felt relieved, he couldn’t be joyful. He returned to the car with a blank expression, and the car quickly merged back within the white lines from the roadside.
Warren took a detour to the airport.
The GPS had the shortest route, but it was also the most congested.
Sure enough, after taking the detour, the car moved smoothly and reached the airport in a little over an hour.
After parking, Warren turned sideways and saw Ashley Shaw, eyes closed, asleep without knowing when.
The sky had dimmed a bit, with the hour hand pointing to six.
Under the dim light, Ashley Shaw’s eyes were tightly shut, and her long eyelashes cast a fan-shaped shadow on her eyelids, like butterflies resting beneath her eyes.
But her eyebrows were slightly furrowed, forming a small bump in the center, spoiling the overall harmony.
Back then, he was in the office post some tasks, and saw Ashley Shaw in the same state.
Though she was asleep, there was always an aura of gloom over her brows.
He had felt like reaching out to smooth her frowning brows back then, but to his surprise, she suddenly woke up at that moment.
Luckily, his coat was draped over the sofa backrest behind her...
Now seeing her asleep again, still with furrowed brows, he couldn’t help but feel a bit blocked up inside.
Just why...was she unhappy?