Too Late to Love Her: When She Divorced, He Fell Apart-Chapter 32: The One I Like, Who?

Chapter 32: Chapter 32: The One I Like, Who?
She didn’t cry for long and quickly stopped her tears. After wiping her face, she was about to leave when the stairway door was pushed open from outside.
Dean Dawson stepped into the stairway and immediately saw Claire sitting with her knees hugged, crouched on the stairs.
Her eyes were red, tears stained her face, and the instant their eyes met, she quickly turned away, avoiding his gaze.
Dean remained silent for three seconds before stepping forward to her, crouching down slowly, and speaking in an exceptionally ordinary tone: "Miss Hale, let me take you to the airport."
After a long pause, Claire lifted her head from her arms.
Dean was still crouching in front of her, a polite and gentle smile on his lips.
He reached out his hand toward her: "If we don’t leave now, you’ll be late."
Claire grabbed his hand and stood up with his help.
"Thank you."
She said softly.
After they got into the car, the door on the other side of the hallway slowly opened from the inside.
Tristan Lockwood walked out from the hallway, watching the black sedan drive farther away, the expression in his cold eyes unreadable.
After returning to Riverbend, Claire buried herself fully into work again. She didn’t feel like going back to that house, or to be more precise, it didn’t even count as a home.
By comparison, the firm she built with her own hands felt more like home.
As for Tristan, a week after he hadn’t contacted her, he sent a short line on WeChat: Come home tonight.
She replied: Busy.
Tristan: Do you need me to personally pick you up from your firm?
Nowadays, whenever she hears him mention the word "firm," Claire becomes like a startled bird.
The things she earned through sheer effort can be destroyed by him with just a flick of his fingers.
She truly feared he would destroy everything she had.
All she could reply with was: I’ll come back when I have time.
In the evening, Claire was reviewing case files at the office and left the firm only close to midnight.
Her car had been sent for maintenance recently and hadn’t been picked up, so she hailed a cab.
Shortly after getting in the car, the driver suddenly made a sharp turn of the steering wheel, cursing something unpleasant at the car opposite.
Claire furrowed her brows and couldn’t help reminding him: "Driver, please drive slowly, I’m not in a rush."
"Dammit!"
The driver didn’t hear her at all. Not only did the car speed up from earlier, but he also deliberately squeezed the car next to him.
Claire sat in the back seat, her face turning pale.
"Driver, please pull over, I want to get out now."
She tightly grasped the seatbelt, her body shaking violently from side to side. The aftereffects of a previous concussion started to kick in, making her feel nauseous.
At this moment, her phone rang. Claire suppressed the feeling of nausea and pressed the answer button.
Simultaneously, the whole vehicle swayed again, narrowly passing a large truck beside them.
She didn’t have a chance to speak before her phone rolled under the seat.
"Can you please stop the car?"
Claire yelled loudly to the driver.
The car tail swayed again, heading straight for the roadside guardrail.
On the other end of the phone, Tristan heard Claire’s panicked cries, followed by the sound of a violent metal collision.
"Claire?"
There was no response from the other side.
Tristan called out again, his voice tense: "Claire?!"
Keeping the call active, he quickly drove out of the garage, heading along Claire’s company route.
"Hello, are you a friend of Miss Hale?"
A strange male voice suddenly rang from the phone.
"I am."
He responded almost immediately.
"I’m a traffic police officer. The driver of the car Miss Hale was in had a road rage incident causing a traffic accident. The driver has been detained. You can pick up Miss Hale directly at Central Hospital."
Tristan’s heart skipped a beat: "Is she injured?"
"Miss Hale suffered some scrapes, but she’s extremely frightened and has been trembling constantly."
Outside the emergency department of the hospital, the hall was packed with patients.
The winter in Riverbend was bone-chilling, and Tristan arrived with a cold aura surrounding him, seeing Claire sitting in a corner.
Her elbow and cheek bore marks of scrapes, her pale face was lowered, hugging herself tightly, full of insecurity.
A pair of polished, well-dressed shoes entered her view, and Claire looked up, meeting Tristan’s dark eyes.
Her eyelashes trembled slightly, and she suddenly clutched the hem of his clothes, burying her face in his abdomen.
Tristan’s eyes darkened gradually.
He crouched down, enveloping her in his arms.
The traffic policeman was right; she was indeed shaking all over.
Not a kind of hysterical fear but a needle-like sensation, densely spreading silently through her.
He said: "I’m here, don’t be scared."
Claire lifted her head from his embrace, her apricot eyes red, she stared fixedly at him asking: "Will you always be there?"
Tristan didn’t respond.
She lowered her gaze: "When I was a child, I had a car accident. I survived, but my dad passed away. So, I’m especially terrified of that feeling of losing control in a confined space inside a vehicle, always thinking that someone I cherish will leave me."
His palm brushed over her head, comforting her: "That driver had road rage and has been caught, there’s no need to be afraid."
Claire closed her eyes slightly.
Tristan held the person in his arms, noticing the fear emanating from her inside out, paying no attention to the wrinkled clothes she grasped nor his numbing legs from crouching, remaining half-kneeling on the ground until her emotions calmed somewhat before driving her back home.
Claire returned to the bedroom, lying alone on the bed, unable to fall asleep.
The scene of the driver rushing recklessly flipped like a switch of memory in her mind, filling her thoughts with the image of Evan Hale lying on a stretcher, bloodstained, like a pile of rotten meat.
He coughed up blood, speaking intermittently:
"Claire... it’s... it’s dad... I’m sorry for you... dad... dad... always... always loved... loved you... you m... must... live strong..."
Tristan opened his eyes instantly when he heard the sound of the door opening, looking towards the doorway.
Claire stood barefoot at the door, wearing a camisole nightdress and asked: "Can we sleep together?"
Her voice was clear and cold, but upon careful listening, it was not difficult to detect the trepidation in her tone.
Tristan climbed out of bed without a word, lifted her up horizontally, placed her back on the bed, and then got into the covers himself.
Claire almost immediately wrapped her arms around him.
Her hands and feet were cold, chilling to the bone.
"Whenever I close my eyes, my mind is filled with the image of my dad covered in blood."
Tristan rested his hand on her waist, in the dark, suddenly asked: "After your father passed, how did you get through it?"
Claire’s body stiffened, after a long pause, she said: "At that time, the person I liked was always with me."
His brows furrowed, his voice subtly chilled: "Who was the person you liked?"
"You don’t know him."
Tristan, however, was intrigued and asked further: "How old were you then? Did you know what it means to like someone?"
"Indeed, I didn’t understand, but without him, there wouldn’t be the me that survived until now."
Her face buried in his chest, her voice slow and resolute, holding his arm tautly without realizing.
Tristan’s eyes hidden in the darkness reflected a coldness, invisible to her. He spoke softly, asking: "How did you like him?"