Sophia glanced toward John, who stood rooted onto his spot. She no longer continued with the rest of her sentence. After a while, she turned back to the singer.
The singer hadn’t noticed John’s presence initially, and he flashed a smile toward Sophia as he said, “Let’s go; it’s time to go back.”
However, John walked toward them then and tugged onto Sophia’s arm as he said, “It’s late. Go back with me.”
She exclaimed in surprise when he held onto her, “What’re you doing here?” But John wasn’t in the mood to explain himself, and he therefore held onto her wrist before tugging her toward the direction of the hotel.
She protested and wailed as she turned around to look at the singer behind her. “My friend’s still here! My friend…” John’s firm grip remained on her arm as he strode forward and pulled her along, as if he hadn’t heard her words at all.
The singer no longer followed them as he could tell that they knew each other. He simply waved toward Sophia when she turned around to glance at him. With large strides, John led Sophia all the way back to the hotel. He only let go of his grip once they were at the elevator; her wrist had a red mark around it by then.
She held onto her wrist as she glared at him. “What are you doing?”
John pushed the button for the elevator before he turned around to look at her. Her eyes were red, and her hair rather messy; her cheeks red and flushed as she panted, probably because it was tiring for her to keep up with his pace. This look… her look... He couldn’t help but recall how Sophia looked when she was under him just a while ago. Noticing this, he quickly averted his gaze and stared instead at the button of the elevator. “It’s so late and you’re still out with a stranger; aren’t you afraid that it might be dangerous?”
She rotated and massaged her wrist while she furrowed her brows and said, “What? I’d like to think that who I’m with and where I’m at is my own business.”
He scoffed in response to this, “Do you think I’d care for you if it weren’t for the fact that I had promised Grandpa to take good care of you?”
With a mocking expression on her face, she said, “Just forget it. You once promised me that we’d never get a divorce, but look at us now.” As much as John hated to admit it, her words were indeed true, and he couldn’t lose his temper for it. She glanced at the screen in the elevator as she continued, “You’ve promised me countless things, but you can’t even fulfil the first and most basic ones, let alone all the ones that followed later.” She paused for a while, but she couldn’t stop herself from continuing. “You can’t control me for the rest of my life, John. You’ll have other women in the future, and I’ll have other men. We shouldn’t continue with this muddled relationship between us.” The elevator door opened, and she stepped in.
In comparison to her relatively-bloodshot eyes, her expression was much colder. After some thought, John followed her into the elevator, and then Sophia pressed the button for their floor. As the elevator moved upward, she said, “I’m thankful for what you’ve done, but there’s no need to do the same thing in the future. From now on, whatever happens is my business; we no longer have a relationship with one another ever since we signed the divorce papers.”
He gradually frowned a little before relaxing his facial muscles. He then nodded and uttered, “Fine. I won’t meddle with your business in the future.”
She no longer responded to him after that. Once the elevator arrived, John stepped out first. She stood still for a moment before exiting the elevator and stood rooted to the spot as he walked straight to his own room.
She felt an ache in her chest and only went back to her room after waiting for a while. It was late, and she felt a little under the weather after standing in the ocean breeze earlier, so she took another shower before she went to bed.
Her phone was right beside her pillow, and she used it to send a message to Zack. It simply instructed him to cancel the following schedules that he had arranged as she didn’t feel like seeing John for the upcoming days. She told him that she’d arrange her own schedules in the future. Zack didn’t reply to her message, perhaps because he hadn’t seen it.
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