When the Contract Marriage Ended, He Stayed

###Chapter 105: Your Sister is Hazel Hawthorne?

Aiden Xavier rushed to Hazel Hawthorne’s side. Seeing her arm cut by glass, he looked up at a helpless Raina Lowell without a moment’s hesitation. All eyes in the room fell upon Raina, as if demanding to know what she had done to Hazel.

Hazel Hawthorne rested quietly in Aiden Xavier’s embrace, letting him inspect her injured arm. She whispered that it didn’t hurt, yet couldn’t help but let out a soft groan at his touch. She watched him cautiously, looking as if she wanted to say something but was holding back.

"What is it?"

Hazel Hawthorne frowned. She gave Aiden Xavier a deep look, then glanced meaningfully at Raina Lowell before saying slowly, "Raina didn’t mean to do it. This little cut is nothing, really. Besides, it’s not like anyone would feel bad for me if I got hurt."

Hazel Hawthorne made herself sound utterly pitiful, as if she were unloved, uncared for, and the most miserable person in the world.

Hearing Hazel’s words, the color drained from Raina Lowell’s face. She couldn’t believe it—Hazel had just stolen the very words she was about to say, and she’d delivered them so matter-of-factly. Raina wanted to explain herself to Aiden Xavier, but she realized that his gaze hadn’t fallen on her even once.

When Aiden Xavier wasn’t looking, Hazel shot a taunting glance at Raina, leaving her furious with no outlet for her anger. Raina glared back, and Hazel immediately burrowed deeper into Aiden’s arms. Sensing her movement, Aiden looked up and swept his gaze over Raina.

His gaze was cold and merciless. He had already condemned her without needing an explanation, convinced that Raina had pushed Hazel down on purpose.

"Aiden, Hazel’s hurt pretty badly. You should take her upstairs to the lounge and get that wound bandaged," Harrison Hawthorne said gravely.

Aiden Xavier had the same idea. In front of everyone—or to be precise, right in front of Raina—he lifted Hazel Hawthorne from the floor. He walked straight past Raina without a shred of hesitation.

Raina Lowell grabbed Aiden’s arm. The back of her own hand was also cut by the glass. "Aiden, I really didn’t push her. Do you believe me?"

Aiden shook off Raina’s hand. "We’ll talk about this later," he said grimly.

"Aiden, you take Hazel upstairs. I’ll handle things here." Harrison Hawthorne walked up to Aiden and put a hand on his shoulder. "Aiden, who’s more important, Hazel or her? Don’t you trust me to take care of this?"

That was exactly why Aiden didn’t trust him. But here, in front of all of Kenport’s elite, he wasn’t just a member of the Xavier Family; he was also Hazel Hawthorne’s husband.

And so, Aiden silently pulled his arm free from Raina’s grasp, carried Hazel straight up to the second-floor lounge, and left Raina below to face everyone alone.

「In the second-floor lounge.」

Hazel watched Aiden as he carefully tended to her wound, and she found herself staring, completely captivated. His head was lowered as he gently dabbed at her cut with a medicated cotton swab. Thinking about how he had acted downstairs, she couldn’t resist asking, "Why didn’t you help Raina?"

Before Aiden could answer, Hazel began muttering to herself. "Then again, in a situation like that, you couldn’t have helped her even if you wanted to. In fact, not helping her was the best way you could help her."

"Your relationship with Raina is already ambiguous enough. If you’d given people more to gossip about at such an important event, you’d have a hard time explaining it to your mother," Hazel said with a smile. "It seems you can be quite heartless, ignoring Raina when she was so helpless."

"Are you done?" With a less-than-gentle hand, Aiden pressed a little too hard while cleaning the wound. Hazel, who had been enduring the sting, cried out in pain. She glared at him. "What is wrong with you? Was I wrong about something?"

"You haven’t said a single thing that’s right." After wiping the cut clean, Aiden set the ointment down in front of Hazel. "Whether Raina pushed you or you fell on your own, you know the truth better than anyone," he said in a low voice.

At his words, Hazel couldn’t help but laugh. "Oh? Are you defending Raina now? Well, since you asked, I might as well tell you the truth. I did fall on my own. All I did was beat Raina to the punch."

Aiden looked at the injuries Hazel had inflicted on herself and couldn’t help but ask reproachfully, "Why?"

"Because I felt like it. I just anticipated what Raina was planning to do and did it first."

Aiden sneered. "A smart person wouldn’t use such a foolish method. You might hurt your enemy, but you hurt yourself nearly as much. Do you really think it’s worth it?"

Hazel didn’t detect the concern in Aiden’s words. She said gleefully, "So what? I wanted her to feel what it’s like to be framed. And I wanted her to get a taste of what it’s like to deal with a manipulative girl playing the innocent victim."

’Playing the innocent victim for once felt surprisingly good,’ Hazel thought.

She finally understood why Raina always loved to put on that innocent act in front of Aiden, pretending to be so magnanimous and kind.

Aiden was utterly exasperated. "Don’t ever do something that harms yourself like this again."

Hazel thought Aiden was telling her not to frame Raina by hurting herself. "What?" she said coldly. "So Raina is allowed to frame me, but I’m not allowed to do the same to her?"

"That’s not it."

"Fine, fine, just stop talking to me. You don’t have to be here. I can take care of this myself. Go on, hurry and check on your precious Raina. What if she gets distraught and threatens to kill herself again? I don’t want any blood spilled at my father’s birthday party. If she wants to die, she can do it somewhere far away."

Nothing that came out of Hazel’s mouth was what Aiden wanted to hear. But no matter what she said, he didn’t go downstairs. Even when Raina’s call came through, he rejected it.

Meanwhile, the abandoned Raina didn’t want to listen to the women gossip about her anymore, so she slipped out of the banquet hall and found a quiet corner. She was desperate to know what Aiden and Hazel were doing.

Just as Raina was failing to get through to Aiden’s phone, a sweet voice suddenly spoke up from behind, shattering her focus.

"Hello. My name is Yvette Hawthorne." She was wearing a beautiful, princess-style gown. Its hem was a little long, so she had to hold it up with both hands as she walked.

She slowly approached Raina in her high heels. Noticing the tear tracks on Raina’s face, she offered her a tissue and said gently, "I know you’re innocent. I saw it with my own eyes—my sister fell all by herself."

Raina froze for a moment. "Your sister is Hazel Hawthorne?"

Yvette quickly took Raina’s hand. "That’s right. But I’m nothing like my sister; I’m not vicious like she is. You may not know this, but she sees any woman who gets close to my brother-in-law as an enemy. She’ll stop at nothing to get rid of them. And from what I can see, you’re no match for her."

"What are you trying to say?"

"Nothing much. I’m just giving you a friendly reminder: as long as my sister is in the picture, you can forget about ever being with my brother-in-law."

*****