Chapter 1135: Chapter 1135: Settling Accounts
All was frozen in the photograph, tinted with a blur that resembled the myriad human conditions.
Lively and boisterous.
Hannah looked at Arnold as he set the photograph as his wallpaper and couldn’t help but smile, "Arnold, why do you always say one thing but mean another?"
She moved around to face him, resting her head on Arnold’s lap, her unpainted face radiant with charm.
Arnold looked down at her lovely smiling face, "Really?"
Having said that, he added to himself, as if to settle the matter, "No."
Hannah snorted and began counting on her fingers, "You used to say I wasn’t pretty, that I had bad taste, that I was deluding myself with emotions..."
What’s this?
It’s like settling accounts after the autumn harvest.
But she was tallying up the grand total.
Arnold paused and slowly explained, "I never said you weren’t pretty, also I never..."
He had said too much, and even he himself could not remember it all.
Hannah sat up from his embrace, her vibrant, beautiful face moving closer, "Really?"
Her softly spoken three words weren’t an accusation, they were tinged with hurt and resentment.
This was precisely what Arnold found irresistible.
When they first met, what arose in him was more a desire to conquer. He was no saint—picky and with high standards, he would only ever care for Hannah.
He always considered himself emotionally detached, and even if he grew interested in someone, that interest would not last long.
Before he uttered those insincere words, he indeed had never thought that one day he would offer his hands to a girl who would wreak havoc over his head.
Arnold was silent.
He couldn’t deny what he had done; what mattered most now was how to appease her.
Without an answer from him, Hannah’s long eyelashes trembled, her eyes reddened, and she cast the final stone into Arnold’s already restless heart, "You also said I was too delicate, that maybe one day you’d tire of me and seek others."
Having said this, taking advantage of Arnold’s distraction, Hannah straightened up, pushed him down, and looked down from above, "Did you, or did you not say those things?"
It’s over.
Really over.
That was the only thought in Arnold’s mind.
He always kept his composure, even when the Simmons Clan was on the brink of bankruptcy and every step was fraught with schemes of those around him; he still managed to turn the tide without changing his demeanor.
But in the face of Hannah, all his strategies were useless.
With his thoughts turning back and forth, he could only murmur reluctantly, "I did."
Upon hearing this, the domineering Hannah of just a moment ago instantaneously turned into a pitiful, delicate flower, her tears falling as readily as raindrops pitter-pattering down.
She just looked at him silently.
Her tears fell one after the other; she wiped them away herself, and the occasional ones that dropped sizzled on Arnold’s chest, making his heart quiver.
Looking back, he had said even more outrageous things in the past.
Now thinking about it, it seemed that for so long together, he had never told her that it was he who had been moved first.
To speak contrarily was merely to hide his inner turmoil.
For the first time, he desperately wanted someone.
From the very first glance, he wanted her.
He wanted to build a cage, to confine her within it—and confine himself as well.
What’s so good about the world, other than her?
After wiping her tears, with swollen red eyes she looked at him, her voice trembling, "Arnold, will you always like me?"
"I will," Arnold sat up and reached out to wipe the tears from her face.
He regretted, some things should have been said earlier.
He harbored unease in his heart, yet had never considered that she harbored unease in hers as well.
