The car glided slowly toward him.
Tristan Sterling was satisfied.
He stepped forward and reached for the passenger-side door handle.
But then—
VROOOM!
Holly Sinclair stomped on the gas.
The car shot past him.
It blasted the man's face with a cloud of exhaust.
The acrid smell of gasoline filled his nostrils. Tristan Sterling was so furious he could have ground his teeth to dust.
'How dare she defy his orders!'
'She really is something else—'
'Just fantastic!!'
...
After leaving the Sterling Manor, Holly Sinclair drove straight to a coffee shop in the southern part of the city.
She was waiting for a buyer.
She had to sell her wedding ring again to fund her life post-divorce.
After all, she needed money to cover her brother's medical bills, find a new place to live, and tide her over while she looked for a job.
Considering how quickly Tristan Sterling had found out last time, she was being much more careful. She'd had a friend find the buyer and was meeting them in person to make the transaction herself.
After a ten-minute wait, the door to the private room was finally pushed gently open.
Holly Sinclair assumed it was the buyer and quickly rose to her feet.
"Hello—"
But the word had barely left her lips when she met a pair of fierce, cold eyes. She frowned. "What are you doing here?!"
Tristan Sterling's face was an icy mask, a storm brewing in his eyes.
Holly felt that if looks could kill, there wouldn't even be a pile of bones left of her.
"Do my words just go in one ear and out the other?"
Tristan Sterling entered the room and sat down opposite Holly. He watched her with dangerously narrowed eyes, his voice cold and seething.
He was already furious about her blasting him with exhaust fumes at the manor.
Seeing her now, still daring to sell the ring...
It was like pouring gasoline on a flame!
Holly Sinclair remained silent.
Caught red-handed, she had nothing to say.
Seeing her "so what are you going to do about it" expression, Tristan Sterling let out a humorless laugh.
"Hah."
He sneered, draping one arm over the back of his chair. He placed his other hand on the table, his long fingers tapping a light rhythm like a pianist. His words were mocking, realistic, and cruel. "Without my permission, do you really think anyone in all of Mistcroft would dare to buy your ring?!"
Holly Sinclair's heart sank.
'It looks like I'm never going to be able to sell this ring.'
Last time, she'd at least gotten a small deposit. This time, she wouldn't even get that.
'If I can't sell the ring, how will I pay for my brother's medical bills…'
Just as she was despairing, the man's voice drifted over again.
"What's with all this drama? What is it you really want?"
Tristan Sterling's voice was cold, laced with impatience and a hint of confusion.
'Drama?'
'He still thinks I'm just causing drama?'
Holly Sinclair didn't know whether to laugh or cry.
"A divorce."
She looked him straight in the eye and calmly uttered the two words.
The fingers drumming on the table stilled. Tristan Sterling's face turned hard as iron. "Holly, everything has its limits. My patience is not infinite."
A bitter feeling tightened in Holly Sinclair's chest.
'Yes, everyone's patience has a limit.'
'No one can spend their entire life fawning over someone who gives them the cold shoulder.'
'After loving him for so long, what had she gotten in return?'
'She'd gotten his disgust, his cold shoulder, and his family's contempt and humiliation.'
"Fine. We're going to Mount Cygnus to see the sunrise tomorrow morning."
Seeing her silence, he assumed she'd realized her mistake and offered the statement coolly.
Holly listened to the man's condescending tone, as if he were bestowing a great favor, and her heart constricted painfully.
Mount Cygnus was a famous romantic spot in Mistcroft. She had once desperately longed to watch the sunrise with him from its peak.
A local legend said that if a couple faced the rising sun with their fingers intertwined, their hearts would be linked, and they would be together forever...
The wish she had once dreamed of was now being offered to her, yet Holly Sinclair only found it laughable.
His perfunctory attitude and impatient tone seemed to be saying—
'Stop acting out!'
'I've already agreed to go see the sunrise with you. Be smart and take what you can get!'
"There's no need!"
Holly looked directly at the man she had loved so deeply for years, her every word resolute. "Tristan Sterling, I'll say it again. I want a divorce!"
With that, she stood up and walked out.
Watching Holly walk straight out of the private room, Tristan Sterling's face darkened to an indescribable degree.
'Is she ever going to stop?'
'He'd already conceded this much, and she was still not satisfied?'
'She's simply...'
'Insatiable!'
...
"Tristan Sterling, what do you think you're doing?!"
Holly Sinclair had just stepped out of the coffee shop when Tristan Sterling strode up and seized her by the wrist.
His face was grim. Without a word, he began dragging her toward his car at the curb.
His strides were long, and she stumbled, struggling to keep up as he pulled her along.
"Tristan Sterling, you bast—ah!"
Before she could finish, he forcefully shoved her into the back seat.
Holly was seething.
As he bent down to get in, she quickly opened the door on the other side, intending to escape.
"Ah!"
But he yanked her back viciously.
The force was so great that she was thrown back against his body.
He was a wall of muscle, completely unscathed, but she felt as if her bones had been rattled apart.
The pain brought tears to her eyes.
"Why?"
Tristan Sterling fought to suppress his rage, asking through clenched teeth.
'She keeps going on and on about a divorce. What the hell has gotten into her?'
'There has to be a reason, right?'
Holly Sinclair frowned, enduring the pain, and refused to look at him.
"Speak!" the man roared, his patience completely gone.
"I saw it."
She blurted out the words abruptly.
"What?" He furrowed his brow.
"Mercy General Hospital. Room 6-8. You. And Vivian Linton." She lifted her gaze to meet his, her tone flat and emotionless.
Tristan Sterling froze.
Then his dark eyes narrowed, a cold glint appearing within them. "Were you following me?"
"Hah." Holly couldn't help but let out a derisive snort. She lowered her gaze, smoothing the wrinkles on her skirt. "I'm not that bored. Tristan Sterling, I know you've only ever had Vivian Linton in your heart. So let's get a divorce. I'll set you free."
Even though she had made up her mind, saying the words still sent a dull ache through her heart.
But it was better to rip the band-aid off.
After witnessing firsthand his tender care for Vivian Linton, she couldn't keep deluding herself, couldn't keep being some love-sick fool.
Tristan Sterling didn't speak.
His probing gaze fixed on her face, sharp as if trying to see straight through to her heart.
'So her passive-aggressive behavior the past couple of days was all because...'
'She was jealous?'
At this thought, the anger in Tristan Sterling's heart inexplicably subsided by more than half.
His expression brightened.
"What were you doing at the hospital?"
He didn't address what she'd said, asking instead with a hint of suspicion.
"I told you, my stomach hurt!"
Holly Sinclair gritted her teeth, her voice unintentionally sharp.
'There was still a deep well of resentment in her heart.'
"Why did it hurt?" he pressed.
She blurted out instinctively, "It's all your fault—"
She cut herself off abruptly.
Though she knew she shouldn't, she couldn't stop a blush from creeping up her cheeks.
She was easily embarrassed, and she couldn't help but feel shy when it came to things that happened in the bedroom.
Realization dawned on Tristan Sterling.
"Was I too rough?" His gaze, intensely invasive, drifted down to her lower abdomen.
Holly instinctively pressed her legs together and turned her face toward the window.
Her silence was all the confirmation he needed.
"Did I hurt you?"
He remembered that he had, in fact, lost a bit of control.
He'd been drinking at a business dinner, and afterward, the host had mentioned the wine had... certain aphrodisiac properties.