Chapter 3

"Simon, you—"

I hadn't even finished asking before he hung up in a rush.

Clearly, my call had interrupted whatever he was busy with.

The man smiled, and then, all at once, his face turned vicious.

"Come on. Sy said we've got to make sure this one can't walk out of here."

I was trapped in an instant. My leg and my ribs were both hurt; there was no way I could get away.

What chilled me most was this: he'd used the dialect to fool me, sending these people to hold me back so I couldn't come looking for him.

But what he didn't know was that I'd already seen him and Letitia together, and that I could understand the dialect.

The men in front of me were brazen, and just as they were about to come at me a second time, my friend arrived.

The moment they saw someone coming, they jumped on their motorcycles and fled.

Elena Swanson saw how badly I was hurt and helped me up, worry all over her face. "Penny, are you okay?"

"Weren't you off looking for Simon?"

"Good thing I came to find you, or you'd have been done for."

She got me into the car and called the police right away.

Then she took me to the hospital to have the injuries checked. They were serious enough that I had no choice but to be admitted.

When Simon came to see me, a crowd of friends trailed behind him, Letitia among them.

"Penny, how are you feeling?"

I lifted my head and looked at him, perfectly calm.

None of the old warmth. None of the old longing.

I suppose my heart had finally died where he was concerned.

"I'm fine."

My sudden coldness caught him off guard, and something he couldn't name lodged uncomfortably in Simon's chest.

"I'm sorry. I never imagined those people would go so far, that they'd dare lay hands on you that hard."

The moment he finished, he whipped his head toward Letitia, seething.

"Call the police!"

"I'll make those people pay."

Letitia curved her lips into a faint smile. "But we don't even know who they were, and there's no camera at that spot. How exactly are the officers supposed to catch them?"

This whole thing had been arranged by Letitia herself, so of course she knew how to set up an attack.

That Simon had gone and cheated with trash like this—he really was blind.

To make it up to me, he decided he'd stay with me all day and go nowhere else.

"Penny, I'm not going anywhere today. I'm staying right here with you."

"I'm sorry. I should have come to you first thing last night—"

"Then where were you last night? What were you doing that kept you from coming to me?"

I not only cut him off, I asked him outright why he hadn't come for me last night.

See—my question left him stunned.

What he didn't realize was that the kiss marks below his throat were still visible, even under a layer of foundation.

My gaze went cold in an instant.

Seeing that I was truly angry, Simon quickly put on a wounded tone.

"The reason I didn't come last night is that my grandmother was ill."

"I had to stay home and take care of her. That's why I couldn't come to you right away."

He'd barely finished when Letitia stepped up too, laying the blame on me.

"I'm telling you, Penelope, we're not the ones who hurt you, so what gives you the right to talk to him like you're interrogating a criminal?"

"Exactly! You think you're so important? What, his grandmother doesn't matter?"

I watched them coldly, but I didn't get tangled up in it with them.

I only looked at Simon, so disappointed. He'd done nothing but spin lies to deceive me.

Seeing me go quiet, Simon finally spoke up to stop his friends.

"That's enough. My Penny didn't know my grandmother was sick."

"Ease off, all of you."

"Tch, you haven't even married her yet and you're already playing favorites."

Simon lifted his chin, smiling smugly. "I'm the only one who gets to give my Penny a hard time. Nobody else should even think about it."

Words like that used to reach my ears and move me to the heart.

Hearing them now, all I felt was sick.

I didn't want to look at them anymore, so I lay down to rest, using tiredness as an excuse.

To my surprise, they didn't leave. Instead they started ribbing Simon in the dialect.

"Heh heh, come on, tell us—what were you up to last night?"