In the few seconds Silas Thorne hesitated, Joyce Monroe had already pressed the answer button, put the phone to her ear, and said, "Hello?"
"Joyce—" The car was dead silent, and since Silas Thorne was leaning so close, he could clearly hear the man's voice on the other end.
Intimate and tender, laced with affection.
"Hm?" Joyce furrowed her brow slightly.
The man on the other end fell silent, and after several seconds, he seemed to have finally mustered the courage to say:
"Joyce, happy birthday."
Joyce was still drunk and couldn't tell who was on the other end, but the words "happy birthday" triggered a reflex, and she replied, "Thank you."
"You've been drinking?"
"A little."
"You're a lightweight. You should drink less."
Silas Thorne just listened silently, his expression unreadable.
But in the front seat, Quentin Walsh and Felix Dalton could clearly sense that something was off with their boss.
As assistants, reading people was a basic job requirement.
Their intuition told them:
'Their Mr. Thorne was very pissed off right now!'
"These past two years since we broke up, how have you been?" The man seemed to hesitate for a long time before finally lowering his voice to speak. "We haven't seen each other in two years, you..."
The man on the other end was still speaking when the car pulled into the hotel's underground garage. Silas Thorne turned his head and said, "Joyce, we're here."
His voice was neither loud nor soft, but just loud enough for the person on the other end of the line to hear.
The man on the other end seemed to freeze for a second before immediately asking, "Joyce, who's that man with you?"
'From the sound of it, it wasn't her brother.'
"With me?" Joyce turned her head to look at Silas Thorne, her drunken eyes hazy as she seemed to size him up.
The man on the other end of the phone was frantic. "Who are you! Joyce, who are you with?"
"Stay away from Joyce! If you dare lay a finger on her, I'll make you regret it!"
'Make me regret it?'
Silas Thorne raised an eyebrow. This was the first time anyone had ever dared to speak to him like that.
'How refreshing.'
"What? Don't you recognize me?" Silas Thorne stared at her intently.
Leaning closer, he said in a low, husky voice, "But you just said I was your husband."
Those words successfully shattered the man's composure!
'Husband?'
'When did she get married? This was obviously bullshit.'
Felix Dalton, who was driving, was completely floored.
'Their Mr. Thorne would actually say something like that?'
'And his tone... was he deliberately provoking the guy?'
'He'd vaguely heard from the patriarch of the Thorne Family that Mr. Thorne was married. Could it be... '
'...that this is the missus?'
'She looks pretty young.'
'Was the marriage a secret because he was afraid people would call him a cradle robber?'
The man on the other end was truly panicking now. "Joyce Monroe, are you listening to me? Get away from him right now!"
"Joyce—"
The man on the other end was frantic, but Joyce was still sizing up Silas Thorne.
"Joyce, tell him who I am." Their eyes met. Silas's gaze was direct and intense.
Joyce seemed to finally see his face clearly and said in a thick voice, "You're... my husband."
At these words, Silas Thorne's eyes filled with amusement.
The corner of his mouth curved into a devastatingly charming smile.
They were so close that his warm breath brushed against her face, causing Joyce's heart to inexplicably begin to pound.
THUMP, THUMP— The sound of her own heartbeat filled her ears, so she didn't hear a single word the man on the other end was saying. Deciding he was just being noisy, she hung up the phone.
The phone immediately began to vibrate again. In one smooth motion, Silas Thorne rejected the call and blocked the number.
The ex-boyfriend completely lost it.
Since he was abroad, calling the police back home would be a hassle. Instead, he contacted Joyce Monroe's brother directly.
It was Joyce's birthday, so her brother was sure to be in Graymoor.
And with his doting sister complex, he would surely act faster than the police and beat that shameless bastard to a pulp.
As it turned out, when said doting brother heard about this, he only said one thing:
"Ever heard the saying? An ex should be treated like they're dead."
His tone was completely flat. Then he hung up.
He even contacted Lily Kennedy, who only gave him a single word in response: "Scram!"
**
By this time, Silas Thorne had laid Joyce Monroe on the bed in the hotel's master suite. He sat down on the edge, staring at her flushed face for a long time, his eyes dark and inscrutable.
"Mr. Thorne," Quentin Walsh said, entering quietly. "The hotel prepared some sobering soup."
Silas Thorne nodded, helped her sit up, and brought the cup to her lips. "Open your mouth."
"Mmph!" Joyce frowned, seemingly reluctant.
Quentin Walsh watched silently from the side. 'Their Mr. Thorne had never waited on anyone before.' Just as he was about to leave the room, he was caught off guard by the words, "Be good. Open up and drink a little."
The tone was exceptionally gentle.
Felix Dalton clung to the doorframe, peeking in.
'In the middle of the night, I must be seeing things!'
He silently chanted in his head: 'Prosperity, democracy, civility, and harmony. Believe in science, eradicate feudal superstition, stay away from monsters and mayhem... '
Quentin Walsh waited outside until he was called, at which point he brought in a glass of honey water.
The sobering soup contained some medicine, so it never smelled good. When the honey water was offered to her lips, Joyce still wouldn't open her mouth until Silas Thorne coaxed her, "It's sweet."
She still didn't open her mouth.
"It's really sweet. I'm not lying." His tone was gentle in a way Quentin Walsh had never witnessed before.
He quietly exited the room.
About seven or eight minutes later, he heard Silas Thorne's voice. Pushing the door open, he froze for a long moment.
'This...'
'What happened?'
'Weren't they just drinking honey water?'
'Why are both of their clothes wet?'
'Their clothes being a mess was one thing, but their lips...?'
**
「The next day.」
Joyce Monroe was woken by the insistent ringing of her phone. She subconsciously reached for it on the nightstand, but her hand brushed against something shaped like a tissue box, startling her into snapping her eyes open.
'This isn't my room!'
'A hotel?'
'How did I end up sleeping here?'
She instinctively checked her clothes and found she was wearing a set of pajamas that weren't hers. The shock made her blood run cold.
Her memory stopped at drinking last night. A hazy image surfaced in her mind—of her grabbing Silas Thorne's tie and pinning him down, causing her face to instantly turn deathly pale.
'I'm screwed!'
'What on earth did I do last night?'
Her phone continued to vibrate, leaving her no time to dwell on it. She picked it up—it was Lily Kennedy. She answered the call. "Hello, Lily."
"Where are you? Are you okay?!"
Joyce grunted noncommittally, but inside she was panicking. 'After what I did to Silas Thorne, how could I possibly be okay?!'
"You're not at home? Where did Mr. Thorne take you?!"
Lily Kennedy was at Joyce's apartment. "You drank too much last night, so I brought you some oatmeal. I was going to give you a ride to work, but I found you weren't home."
"I... stayed out last night. It's nothing, don't worry."
Lily Kennedy didn't press for details. Considering the relationship between Silas Thorne and Joyce's brother, she figured he wouldn't cause trouble for a drunk young woman.
"By the way, girl, that was pretty bold of you last night... forcing yourself on Mr. Thorne like that..."
Joyce let out a long sigh and walked toward the bathroom, phone in hand.
The hangover from last night was setting in, and her head was pounding.
Aside from a slight muscle soreness, her body felt fine. 'Nothing must have happened,' she thought.
She walked into the bathroom, saw her reflection in the mirror, and was instantly thunderstruck.
Her lips...
...why were they swollen?!
'Were they kissed swollen?'
'This...'
'Who did this?!'