Stop It, She’s Remarrying (Fia and Conrad) novel Chapter 8

“Fia said that you were busy in the morning. Don’t waste your time on an old woman like me. The hospital is pretty good, and the nurse is very attentive. All you need to do now is to focus on your work,” Echo said to him gently. Even if she didn’t have much strength, she still tried to maintain a smile on her face. 

“I’m not that busy.”

“True. Even if he’s busy he can still delegate his work to his subordinates.” Fia pulled out her hand from Conrad’s and then walked over to Echo’s bedside and held hers instead. “Mom, there’s something that he wants to tell you.”

“What is it?” Echo asked Conrad with a smile.

He furrowed his eyebrows. He didn’t think that Fia would be so indifferent about it.

Could it be that their three years of marriage were really a mistake, just like she had said?

Because she didn’t love him, that was why she wanted to divorce him to find her one true love?

“What is it, Conrad? I’m listening,” Echo said as she looked at him softly.

“Today is our third wedding anniversary. I want to have dinner with you too,” Conrad blurted out.

Fia looked at him in shock.

“That’s fine. But I can’t leave the hospital like this, can I? Fia, can you ask Doctor Evans about it?”

“We don’t need to leave the hospital. We’ll eat here, in your ward.” She glanced at Conrad. “I wonder if you can eat anything inside a ward, Mr. Maxwell. The scent of disinfectant is quite heavy here.“

She knew very clearly that he hated the smell of hospital disinfectant. There was this one time when he was admitted to the hospital because of a high fever. When she was taking care of him and feeding him some food, he threw up because of the smell of the disinfectant.

“Of course, I can. Having dinner together as a family is a happy occasion, isn’t it? It’s appetizing no matter where I am,” Conrad said calmly.

Fia felt that he was being so pretentious. However, she couldn’t understand why he would leave Esme behind and play an act here together with her in front of her mother.

Echo nodded happily and patted Fia’s hand.

“Then order takeaway from a good restaurant nearby. Get him something that he likes.”

Fia wasn’t very willing and so she said, “He can ask Mrs. Taylor to cook something and then have Silas pick it up and deliver it to us.”

“Fia, I’m hungry now though. So… hurry and get something, would you?”

“Fine.” But before Fia left, she said to Conrad, “Please take good care of my mom. Don’t simply let anyone approach her.”

“Sure.” Conrad nodded.

After Fia left, Echo immediately stopped her smile and struggled to sit up.

Conrad helped her up and then put a pillow behind her back. He asked, “Is there something you want to tell me after sending Fia away?”

“Esme is back, isn’t she?”

“Yes.”

Echo sighed and said, “At the very beginning, my mother and your grandfather forced you two to be together, didn’t they?”

The hand that Conrad kept in his pocket clenched tightly. “Yes.”

“Do you have any hatred about this?”

Conrad looked at Echo and couldn’t say a thing.

“You do, don’t you? But you never unleashed any of that hate on Fia, and as her mother, I am grateful.”

Echo coughed as she continued. “But Conrad… You’re innocent… You feel mistreated… But so is Fia. She, too, is innocent in this.

“When you were together with Esme, you took her in as your younger sister. How bad can a girl that you see as a younger sister be?”

Conrad looked away. “She’s a kind woman.”

She was so kind that, despite him asking for a divorce and wanting her understanding in that, there was no anger, no blaming from her. She didn’t even yell at him.

She was so kind that he felt bad for her. He kept on thinking about what these three years of marriage had given her.

He was a very reserved man. Many women wanted to get close to him before and even after his marriage.