Chapter 681

+15 BONUS
Ariel had never asked before.
Back then, she had always thought of herself as the one who “benefited“. The details didn’t seem important. After all, it was her family who had profited from the Larkins.
And at the time, she couldn’t remember much anyway. She had been drifting along in a daze, pushed forward without much say. It was easy to overlook a lot of things.
But today’s dinner had stirred something. It made her realize there were too many unanswered riddles.
Jayson had never once explained how she ended up in Room 6606.
Her question came suddenly.
He froze, and his thumb absently rubbed over the key. After a while, he replied honestly, “I knew.” Discover more novels at.net
Ariel was stunned.
Jayson didn’t turn back, only lowered his gaze. “Plenty of people try to play dirty. But not just anyone can set me up.” Countless people wanted to climb higher. But only Ariel…
He still didn’t look at her. His tone stayed even. “If Morgan hadn’t pulled that stunt, the Sandersons and Larkins wouldn’t have been on the same level.”
Without that “leverage“, the Larkin family would never have compromised so easily. Things between him and Ariel would have needed time, especially since there was no real foundation between them at the time. But this incident was an unexpected opportunity he could use.
Jayson admitted that he didn’t always care about the process. What he wanted was the result.
Without
any more explanation, he got into the car.
But his words gave Ariel a clear answer.
So he had known everything, which meant he had gone along with it willingly.
Ariel couldn’t process it all at once, but part of her mind clicked into place.
It made sense. Without Jayson’s “cooperation“, how could Morgan have set him up so easily?
Yet back then, they had barely known each other.
Had Jayson been interested in her at that time?
What he said wasn’t wrong. Without Morgan’s shady maneuver, the Sandersons never could have reached the Larkins‘ level, and a smooth marriage alliance between them was practically impossible.
With so many suspicions in her mind, Ariel couldn’t help but dwell on them for a long time.
When she got home, she took her medicine and then saw the text Janice had sent.
“Holy crap, I was clearing my contacts today. When I scrolled through WhatsApp, I found my chat with Nancy and saw her name. What kind of name is that?”
Ariel opened the screenshot.
It was Nancy’s profile. It had the same “matching profile photo” that looked suspiciously like Jayson’s. But her display name was the kicker–Babe.
1/3
Ariel asked, “That’s her WhatsApp name?”
Janice replied, “Yeah, I deleted her from my contacts just now. I had her saved as ‘Nancy, the foxy mistress,‘ so I never saw her WhatsApp name. This time, I clicked in and noticed it. Like, what the hell? So basically, she’s ‘Babe‘ in everyone’s WhatsApp? Imagine some poor girlfriend checking her boyfriend’s phone and seeing that. They’d definitely get the wrong idea.”
Ariel was rendered speechless.
She remembered seeing Nancy call Jayson on WhatsApp before. She had assumed that “Babe” was his personal contact name for Nancy.
She had even thought they must be really close for Jayson to actually be that cheesy with Nancy.
Never had she expected it to be a misunderstanding. He hadn’t even bothered to add Nancy’s number to his contacts.
In their circle, everyone always updated contacts immediately to avoid confusion.
Ariel could only think of one possibility for Nancy to pull a stunt like that. Maybe she had noticed that Jayson never saved her number, so she changed her WhatsApp name to make sure Ariel would notice.
“That woman’s scheming as hell. Who would be fond of her?” Janice scoffed before asking, “Anyway, any word from Dr. Spencer?”
Ariel snapped back to reality. Just hearing about the hospital made her temples throb. The ache spread down into her chest.
She still couldn’t accept what had happened to her in the hospital.
“I’ll ask again.”
Ariel called Liam.
Liam had just gotten off work. Being unusually cautious about this matter, he said, “This case is complicated. The hospital has kept everything tightly under wraps to protect its reputation, but they’ve been fairly cooperative. I asked around.
“After their investigation with the police, there was nothing left from that day. The syringe had no fingerprints, so even if you suspect someone, there’s no evidence.”