Chapter 45: Fake concern?
Dylan entered the room quietly to on Ava, but her icy glare made him pause at the doorstep.
"Why are you here? Shouldn’t you attend your beloved?" Bitterness churned in her chest, twisting her insides with indignation.
Dylan didn’t answer. Instead, he sat down beside her, reaching for her bandaged hand.
"Don’t touch me," Ava snapped, pulling her hand away.
But Dylan was undeterred. "Let me check," Dylan growled and grabbed her hand back, his grip tighter this time.
Ava’s breath quickened with frustration, her chest rising and falling as she watched him unroll the bandage, inspecting the wound. His movements were deliberate, his touch gentle despite the tension between them.
He reached into the nearby drawer, pulled out ointment, and applied it to her injury with careful strokes. But his care was not enough to pacify her. Ava was too mad at him. To her, this was just a drama.
’This isn’t real. None of this is real,’ she thought bitterly.
She would always be a second choice—a shadow in the looming presence of Gianna. Dylan had proven time and again who he would choose when it mattered most, and it was never her.
When he was about to rebandage her hand, Ava jerked it away. "I can do it myself," she snapped, grabbing the gauze from his hand. But as she tried to tie it around her wound, her fingers fumbled, her face twisting into a grimace as the gauze slipped through her hands.
Dylan watched in silence, his patience wearing thin as he saw her struggle. Without a word, he grabbed her hand again.