Chapter 17
Joyce frowned slightly, before she could even turn around, she was enveloped in an embrace, and at strong woody scent suddenly filled her nostrils.
Zander held her tightly, his body trembling incessantly.
“Joyce, Joyce, you finally came back…”
Joyce was about to break free, but someone was faster than her and abruptly pulled the man away.
Then, she was tightly embraced by Audrey.
“Joyce, are you okay?”
oyce shook her head.
Philip looked at the person in front of him, his gaze icy.
“Zander, how dare you show up in front of Joyce!”
Every time he met him, Philip would recall the three years of suffering Joyce endured, and his
anger grew stronger.
Zander hadn’t had a chance to speak yet, but Joyce spoke up first.
“Bro, let’s go somewhere else to talk.”
She was unwilling to let him ruin the book signing event that she and her friend had worked so hard
to prepare.
The teahouse upstairs.
Philip stopped in front of her and Audrey, and questioned Zander in front of them.
“Joyce has already had nothing to do with you, why are you still bothering her!”
Zander gazed at the girl standing behind Philip, her cold expression causing his heart to twist like a
knife, almost suffocating him.
Joyce had never shown such indifference towards him before.
When they met again, a thousand words surged in his heart, longing to pour out to her.
But in the end, it only turned into one sentence.
“Joyce, why did you insist on separating from me?”
Audrey scornfully pursed her lips, thinking to herself that it was an utterly foolish question.
Joyce looked back at him with a peaceful gaze.
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“I have already paid back the Norton family that I owed, why should I stay?”
From the moment she signed the divorce agreement, she realized that he would definitely find out
about her agreement with Ruby.
“Have all your care for me over the past three years been merely to repay a debt?”
Zander tightly clenched his hands and asked, his voice trembling slightly.
“Yes.”
Joyce remained calm, as if recalling certain fragments, and then continued, “Since Ruby made me sign that agreement, our relationship has been confined within certain boundaries. I have also been telling myself that we are not truly husband and wife.”
Actually, Zander was her first love, and she was about to step into the threshold of marriage before
entering society.
Worried about being deceived by the three years of falsehood, the pure and kind–hearted woman
prepared a divorce agreement in advance.
Whenever she felt herself on the verge of falling for him, she would take out the divorce agreement
to warn herself.
The gap and differences between them.
Did she ever try to fall in love with Zander?
Probably there was something.
However, as her affection blossomed, he kept abandoning her for Elianna.
Anyone would feel tired, let alone the fact that she was only doing it to repay the Norton family.
Not hating him was already very generous.
These short three years seemed like a lifetime to her.
Sentence by sentence, without emotion but unable to refute, the words made Zander’s face turn
even paler.
“Zander, no matter in the past, present, or future, I have never and will never love you.”
“We only had a contractual relationship, and apart from that, there was nothing else.”
Joyce remained indifferent to his reaction.
She just wanted to get back to the book signing as soon as possible.
Zander wanted to step forward and intervene, but Philip kept firmly shielding Joyce behind him.
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F
He could only watch Joyce disappear from his sight.
The minor disturbance did not affect the book signing event, and it went smoothly until the end.
Philip and Audrey specifically booked a restaurant she liked to celebrate together.
Suddenly, a beautiful blue rose was delivered to her hands.
“Excuse me, is this Ms. Irwin? This is from Mr. Norton, wishing Ms. Irwin great success at the book signing event.”
Joyce did not accept it and instructed the waiter to return it to the original owner.
“Please tell him that I was not interested in the blue rose.‘
The blue rose was Elianna’s favorite, while she only had a fondness for white roses.
