Chapter 96 Sleeping Together
"Tristan, are you okay?" Lark said tearfully, "Please don't be like this. If you're unhappy, I'll be even more unhappy."
"I'm fine." Tristan closed his eyes. "You can go now."
Lark wasn't ready to give up and asked tentatively, "Let me go prepare some afternoon tea for you."
Tristan seemed lost in thought and didn't answer.
But Lark took it as agreement and happily wheeled herself downstairs.
Harriet hadn't slept all night, and with the sadness weighing on her heart, worried that Ian would be concerned if he saw her like this, she simply took the day off to rest in her room.
She lay in bed, clearly exhausted, yet couldn't fall asleep at all.
Her phone suddenly rang. Seeing it was Rhea calling, Harriet immediately answered, "Rhea, what's wrong?"
"Mrs. Lancaster, where are you? Ms. Brown has made herself right at home here!"
"Lark?"
"Yes, she came this afternoon. I don't know what she said to Mr. Lancaster, but after she came downstairs, she said Mr. Lancaster told her to stay. She's ordering me around to prepare food, acting like she's the lady of the house." Rhea asked worriedly, "Mrs. Lancaster, Ms. Brown said you and Mr. Lancaster are divorced. She's lying, right?"
"She's not lying." Harriet held back her tears and said, "Rhea, Tristan and I are divorced. Lark can indeed make herself at home as the lady of the house now."
"What happened?" Rhea asked anxiously. "Everything was fine before, wasn't it? How did you suddenly get divorced? Does Mrs. Haven Lancaster know?"
"Someone will tell Grandma about this." Harriet was a bit worried. "If Grandma gets upset when she finds out, you must let me know right away."
"Okay." Rhea said through tears, "Mrs. Lancaster, I can't bear to see you go."
Harriet pushed down the tears in her eyes and said, "Lark definitely won't make life easy for you at Cloud Bay. I'll talk to Grandma and have you transferred to work with her after she marries Tristan."
"Mrs. Lancaster, I want to stay with you."
Harriet hesitated for a moment. "I can afford to hire you now, but I don't really need someone to take care of me at the moment. The Lancaster family pays well, and Grandma needs someone to look after her. With you and Iris there taking care of her, I'll feel more at ease."
Rhea choked up, "I understand. I'll do whatever you say."
Harriet hung up the phone, and tears still fell despite her best efforts.
She roughly wiped away the tears from the corners of her eyes and gave a self-mocking smile.
She was the one who gave up Tristan. Now that Lark was by his side, what right did she have to be sad?
But she couldn't help the sadness in her heart and could only let the tears flow freely.
Harriet fell ill.
With her weakened immune system during her period, lack of rest, and poor appetite, her body gave out.
Her phone rang for a long time before Harriet groggily woke up.
It was a call from Nolan.
She answered, "Mr. Johnson, what's up?"
Nolan immediately heard something was wrong with her voice. "Harriet, do you have a cold?"
"I'm fine."
Nolan pressed on, "Where are you right now?"
"I'm really okay." Harriet tried to make her voice sound normal. "Why are you calling so late? Is something wrong with Chase?"
"Chase is fine. He just misses you and asked me to call and remind you to come see him this weekend."
"I'll be there on time. If there's nothing else, I'll hang up now."
Harriet hung up and then started coughing violently.
She didn't know how much time had passed when she suddenly heard Nolan's voice, "Harriet? Harriet, wake up!"
Harriet struggled to open her eyes and saw Nolan's face. "Mr. Johnson, how did you get here?"
"I could tell something was wrong, so I rushed over to check on you."
"How did you get in?"
"I drove to the front desk and got a key." Nolan touched her forehead. "Harriet, you have a high fever. I'm taking you to the hospital."
"No need. Just help me up so I can get some medicine from the front yard."
"The flu has been bad lately. We can't take this lightly. It's safer to go to the hospital." Nolan helped her up and put a coat on her. "Sorry for the intrusion."
Before Harriet could refuse, Nolan scooped her up in his arms and strode toward the door.
She wanted to tell him to put her down, but before she could speak, everything went black and she lost consciousness.
Cloud Bay.
Tristan looked at the photo on his phone, his face dark as storm clouds.
The photo was taken from outside the clinic entrance.
Nolan was carefully carrying Harriet out of the clinic, as if holding a precious treasure, afraid of bumping or hurting her.
After getting in the car, the two drove off.
Tristan grabbed the water glass from the nightstand and hurled it at the wall, where it shattered into pieces.
His eyes were filled with bone-chilling coldness, his chest heaving violently.
Someone suddenly knocked on the door.
Tristan ignored it. After a while, Lark opened the door and came in. "Tristan."
Tristan said coldly, "Why are you still here?"
Before Lark even entered, she sensed Tristan's bad mood. Seeing the broken glass on the floor, she shrank back, not daring to go in.
"I wanted to stay and take care of you. You barely ate anything at dinner, so I came to bring you a late-night snack."
Tristan leaned against the headboard. "Come in. I have something to ask you."
Lark's face lit up. "Okay!"
She quickly wheeled herself in and placed the snack on the small table. "Tristan, come eat. We can talk while you eat."
"I'm not hungry." Tristan took out his phone and opened a photo. "Take a look at this."
Lark moved closer and glanced at the photo. Her face changed dramatically. "Tristan."
Tristan's sharp eyes locked onto her face. "I had someone check it out. This photo isn't fake, which means you took it yourself. I don't remember sleeping with you, so tell me, what's this all about?"
Lark trembled violently, scared and incoherent. "Tristan, please don't be angry."
Tristan had no patience. "Speak! What's going on!"
"I'll tell you!" Lark was so frightened she started crying. "I did take this photo, three years ago, after your car accident when you were in a coma. I was kidnapped, and when I came back, you had already married Harriet."
"I was so heartbroken, I even wanted to die. But I couldn't die because I had to stay alive to take care of you and wait for you to wake up."
"That day while taking care of you, I thought maybe we could never be husband and wife in this lifetime. I wanted to keep something for myself as a memory, so in a moment of impulse, I climbed into your bed and took this photo."
"Tristan, I was wrong. Please forgive me. But I don't regret it at all, because all these years, this photo is what kept me going."
Tristan said coldly, "Then explain to me why this photo ended up on Harriet's phone."