###Chapter 386 Buried Resentment – Part 10

Ivelle Astley paused and asked, "Thank me for what?"

Jane pressed her lips. Then she replied, "Thank you for not loving him."

Ivelle was shocked when she heard that. She didn't know what to say.

Suddenly, Jane spoke and her eyes fell on Ivelle as she asked, "Can we still be friends?"

Ivelle replied with a rhetorical question, "Since when are we not friends?"

Jane laughed at this and replied, "Thank you, Ivelle."

Initially, Ivelle thought that Jane would come to argue with her. But she didn't expect that their conversation would turn out like this.

After sitting for a while, Ivelle couldn't help but say, "The death of his parents was a devastating blow to Aaron Badger. My appearance was unexpected to him. I knew I owed him too much. But I also knew I couldn't respond to him with any affection or even tenderness, so I chose to avoid it."

Jane looked a little too deep as she replied, "His heart was like a barren valley. I tried to pull him up, but there was nothing I could do about it. I went back to Spain with him four years ago. He stayed in Hempstead for half a year. At first, I didn't know why he went to Hempstead. Later, I would always see him drunk in the middle of the night. He neither cares about himself nor about others. But when he saw Alice Astley announced at the financial and economic meeting that she would lay off some staff, someone came to him and asked him for help."

"Then he went back to Hempstead to squeeze out Alice. He was still mourning over his parents at that time. I initially thought that he would make Alice's life a living hell, but I didn't expect him to do anything. He just put all his energy into fighting with the Astley Group. He didn't understand before, but now he seemed to understand. What he wanted to fight for was nothing but you."

After saying that, she looked up at Ivelle. She smiled and said, "Don't worry about it. I know I shouldn't have said any of these words to you. But after all these years, I came to M and didn't have any friends."

"To be honest, I sometimes want to tell you how much he needs you. You are like his spiritual redemption. Sometimes, I even thought that if you stayed with him, he might not be in so much pain. But I know I couldn't make you do that."

Ivelle fell silent and could not answer.

Jane continued to speak and seemed to say to herself, "Four years ago, you made him miss his whole life in just one month. At that time, I didn't quite understand. But the night you showed up in Aaron's office, I saw a flash drive in his study. You probably didn't know about it. But what was recorded in it was everything about your postpartum collapse. He still loves you and probably doesn't know where it came from."

In the middle of their conversation, Felix Stewart suddenly appeared before them. His presence surprised Ivelle a little. Felix took the coat in his hand, draped it over Ivelle, and said, "Ma'am, Boss Jordan said it was cold outside. Your body is not yet strong enough to withstand the cold for too long."

Obviously, it was the bodyguard who called Jordan Astley and knew who she had an appointment with.

Ivelle nodded at him. She then looked at Jane and told her, "We may need to reschedule this some other time."

Jane pressed her lips and her eyes fell on Felix as she wondered and asked, "Is Jordan's love that imprisoning that he had to restrict you?"

Ivelle smiled but did not respond.

Ivelle went out of the coffee shop with Felix. She was silent as she went inside the car.

Felix looked at her several times and hesitated to speak. But when he couldn't take it anymore, he finally said, "Ma'am, the President is still in the hospital."

His statement implied that he wanted her to go and visit Jordan. Ivelle pursed her lips as she held the flash drive in her hand. It was picked up and handed to her just now.

Ivelle told him, "Let's go back, it's cold outside." In the past, she used to be torn inside. She didn't know how to face it.

Without saying much, Felix brought her a light meal and sent her back to the villa.

When Blossom had been picked up from school, she pulled Ivelle and asked, "Mom, where have you been?"

Ivelle hugged her and said, "I went to see a friend." And she knew this answer was a little perfunctory.

These past few days, Ivelle seemed to be in a daze again. She didn't know what she would do. Without direction and planning, her mind was in a mess.

After putting Blossom to sleep, she went to the study and watched the video that was saved in the flash drive.

The days when she was taken away by Aaron four years ago were almost blurred in her memory.

She knew that he had treated her well, but she chose to forget all the details in the middle.

The video she had opened to watch showed a villa in the southern suburbs of the capital. There were familiar scenes and people in the video.

After seeing from the video that her child was taken away, she didn't want to see anything else on it, so she roared away.

Aaron's care and tolerance were all recorded in the video.

During those days, Ivelle often collapsed. Sometimes she would wake up in the middle of the night and would try to commit suicide as she looked for a knife in the villa. When Aaron tried to stop her one time, the knife accidentally hurt him while he was trying to protect her. These memories were not that clear to Ivelle, but she knew that Aaron had a scar on his stomach.

After that incident in the villa in the southern suburbs, she had never seen anything sharp again.

The video was so long that she didn't finish it. And because she knew it would just increase the guilt she was feeling, she turned it off.

She silently thought, 'Why do I have to make everything clear? The more perplexed she was about these events, the happier she would be.'

She remembered her grandmother used to say that only a stupid woman could live a happy life.

Because a stupid woman would know how to forget and how to let go, a stupid woman would just care about her current state of mind.

Later that evening, she received a call from Erin.

The woman on the other end of the line had a choked voice riddled with pain. Erin told her, "Ivelle, I am...your Mom!"

Ivelle couldn't help but think, 'What is my current state of mind?'

Ivelle didn't think about it carefully as her heart ached vaguely. And it wasn't because of resentment or anger. She just didn't know what to do.

Erin had cost her a child's life. And Ivelle didn't know how she would face her.

It took a long time before Ivelle was able to say, "What's the matter?"

She tried to control the tone of her voice. It was not cold, but it was definitely not friendly.

Erin sighed feebly on the other end of the line. She told Ivelle, "If you don't want to see me, I won't force you. But daughter, you still have a long way to go. In any case, you must not let yourself suffer from the pain. I know that I have no right to resent Jordan's mistake."

Ivelle was silent and did not respond. And it was not because she had nothing to say. But it was because she saw the man walking into the study.

She hadn't seen him for more than ten hours. His face was a little pale and his black eyes were weak and morbid.

Felix said that he knelt at the Biden's house all night and fell ill in the hospital.

While she was still facing the phone, she opened her mouth, put down the phone, and her eyes fell on Jordan who came to her. She then told him, "Let's go."

With their eyes locked each other, Jordan's black eyes exuded tenderness with a bit of helplessness. He told Ivelle, "Felix said that you didn't eat this morning and this evening. Why are you neglecting yourself so much?"

Ivelle just looked at him and said, "I'm not hungry!" She didn't even ask him if he was all right and why he didn't stay in the hospital.

He walked up to Ivelle. His palms felt like it was burning as he held her hand and said, "You have to eat something with me later. It's not good for you to be too thin."

Then he dragged Ivelle downstairs. His footsteps were a little heavy, and he seemed to have come back without a high fever.

Ivelle followed him and looked at his back. She could still feel a faint flood of pain in her heart.

She nonchalantly told him, "A reporter had caught the news that you were in the hospital. The Astley group was attacked. Have you ever thought about how to deal with it?"

Jordan looked back and his eyes fell on Ivelle as he asked, "Are you happy to stay with me?"

Ivelle was slightly dumbfounded at his question and fell silent for a long time. Finally, she replied, "I didn't want to leave."

She was not happy. But at least, she was at ease.