Chapter 150
Silence enveloped the car, and the atmosphere grew heavy. Isabella
moistened her lips. Her voice emerged, husky from her parched throat. “No.”
Seth anticipated her response. He warmed up slightly, and he brushed his
fingers across the steering wheel. “I observed your performance throughout
the entire time you were in the conference room.”
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Isabella felt a tremor in her soul. She tried to recall everything she had said
that afternoon. All the things she had said just to spite Angelina now became
her own punishment, biting her in the rear.
“I had no idea you were so… ambitious,” Seth continued mercilessly.
Isabella closed her eyes and opened her mouth, but she couldn’t utter a
word. She didn’t even need to watch the surveillance footage to know that
she had put on a perfect act for Angelina, and everything she had said was
ambitious.
Seth pulled over by the roadside and listed out all of Isabella’s actions,
tormenting her. “Your resignation and refusal to continue your contract were
just a ploy to gain my attention?” He rolled down the window and leisurely
rested his hand on the edge. With his other hand, he opened the glovebox
and retrieved a packet of cigarettes.
Isabella remained lying on the seat. She could hear Seth smoking, and she
could imagine what he looked like. She said nothing, but she felt as if the heat
of the cigarette smoke was scorching her skin, burning her. She felt like a
young girl who had a crush on a boy, only for her crush to find out about her
feelings and reject her.
It felt as if he was saying, “Sorry, we’re not a good match.”
Even though Isabella was tough, she still couldn’t easily resolve this awkward
situation. If she told him she had said those things on purpose as a ploy, it
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would sound too much like an excuse. No one would believe that, let alone
Seth.
Isabella raised her hand and wiped her face while Seth wasn’t looking. She
forced herself to calm down. You have nothing to be afraid of. You’ve seen
worse. After that pep talk to herself, Isabella slowly got up from her seat. Seth
looked into the rear-view mirror and met her gaze.
Isabella said, “Any woman would kill to be the wife of the company president.”
The president’s wife… Seth frowned, something stirring in his heart. He
replayed the scene he had witnessed in the afternoon and confirmed that
the conversation explicitly stated Isabella wanted to be Mrs. Shaffer, not just
the president’s wife.
“I stayed by your side for five years and tended to your needs every day. I did
everything you told me to and never left you. Even if you were an ordinary
man, it would be hard for me not to fall for you.” Isabella tried to be
reasonable and praised Seth to stroke his ego.
Smoke swirled around in the driver’s seat. Some light passed through it, but
Seth didn’t appear relaxed. Isabella tried to guess what he was thinking, but
all she saw was the back of his head. She could only rely on her intuition. “I
wasn’t playing hard to get. Sometimes my mind snaps out of it, you know.”
Isabella ruffled her hair, speaking calmly. “You’re not going to marry me
anyway, so why are you holding me back?”
Everything else was fake, but the last part was true. Maybe she had some
emotions invested in it, so it sounded genuine. Seth was already annoyed by
her little schemes, and after she said the last part of that sentence, he was
reminded of what Gordon had said in the morning. That idiot wants to marry
Isabella. “You don’t want me to hold you back because you think you have
better opportunities out there?” Seth tossed his cigarette away and slightly
turned his face away, hiding his head in the darkness, which made him
appear more intimidating.
Isabella tried to decipher his meaning and come up with a good enough
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