"No."
Lily Turner really wasn’t too keen on seeing the two in front of her, but how could she directly say that to their faces? That would make her seem very impolite, very uncultured.
Amber Wood, however, didn’t hold back, speaking bluntly, "No? But I can tell from your face. You didn’t look like this before; it’s only after seeing us that you’ve changed."
She spoke very directly, and her expression turned from sunny and bright to overcast and cloudy.
"Don’t talk nonsense."
Charles Thompson glanced at Amber, filled with discontent in his eyes.
"How am I talking nonsense? I’m only stating the facts. Just now, her face was blooming like a flower, but now there’s not the slightest hint of a smile." Amber didn’t like Lily at all, not because Lily was bad or anything, but because her mother was Sophia Wood.
Sophia was the woman Charles kept deeply hidden in his heart. Charles hid it well, but there were always moments he let his guard slip.
In his study’s private drawer, two things were locked away — two photos of Sophia and a diary.
Two photos, one of Sophia in her youth and another more recent one.
Amber discovered them by chance. One night, Charles returned from a social event, drunk, and headed straight to the study. He wasn’t up late working, but was suddenly yearning for Sophia, holding her photo in his hands, lost in thoughts.
Perhaps he drank too much; he fell asleep on the desk, photo in hand.
Charles hadn’t returned to their bedroom late into the night, so Amber got out of bed to look for him. She assumed he was burning the midnight oil in the study, but what she found instead was him fast asleep at the desk, clutching a woman’s photo.
Seeing this, her anger flared, and she raised her fist as if to strike him over the head, but she suddenly stopped.
She fought the urge to punch him, gently pulling the photo from his hand. She took a closer look; the woman in the photograph was beautiful and young.
She flipped the photo over, and as she had expected, there was writing on the back.
"My dearest Jasmine!"
Seeing these words, Amber’s face turned green with anger, yet she forced herself to swallow the surge of bitterness rising in her chest.
With a woman’s intuition, she sensed her husband might be hiding something else, so she began her search.
She saw the drawer her husband always kept locked wide open, and inside lay the diary.
Driven by curiosity and inquisitiveness, she reached in and took out the diary from the drawer.
Reading it made her feel like she would faint from anger.
This was the first time Amber knew that the husband by her side had always been dreaming differently, and this had been the case since the day they got married, without her detecting a hint of it.
She was fuming yet forced herself to keep it together, closing the diary and placing it back in the drawer, returning the photo to his hand.
She surveyed the scene to make sure she hadn’t disturbed it before quietly leaving the study.
Back in her room, Amber couldn’t sleep at all, her mind filled with the scenes she’d just witnessed, silently mouthing the name she’d found in the diary: Jasmine Wood!