Chapter 1063
"Did something happen to Irene?" Teresa asked, confused.
"I've put her under house arrest and made her write a letter of assurance that she won't meddle in my business anymore," Jonathan said, taking a sip of his drink. "I just don’t want her to do anything out of line to you while I’m not around. I know her prejudice against you won’t disappear overnight, but I’ll let time show her how wrong she is.”
Teresa’s eyes grew red with emotion. Hearing Jonathan say all that, she found the courage to speak for herself. "I want to sincerely apologize to you.”
Jonathan paused in pouring the wine and looked up.
Teresa continued, “That night when I called you drunk and apologized, I meant it—it wasn’t just drunken nonsense. I know you’ve done so much for my family, for my mom and Lucas, but my mom blamed you for everything just because of something Jennifer did. That wasn’t fair to you. I know you never wanted things to get so bad between our families, and you’ve already done everything you could. Honestly, I’ve never blamed you for any of this. Not once.”
Jonathan pressed his lips together tightly, gripping his glass. “Why didn’t you tell me this before?”
Teresa explained, "Because my mom told me you didn’t want to be involved with me anymore, that you didn’t want to deal with me or our sons, and that you’d decided to start over. She told me to move on. So, when you brought your grandma to my house that day, I acted so heartless because I didn’t want to hold you back. If leaving was what you wanted, then I respected your decision. Back then, I thought I could take care of our sons on my own.”
After hearing all that, Jonathan fell into a long, heavy silence. He finished his drink in one go. After a while, he spoke, "So you think I’m that cold-hearted?”
Teresa stayed quiet. She knew that sometimes, things were not always under control. She reached for her drink, but Jonathan snatched the glass away from her. “I’m not blaming you. You’re explaining all this to me now – it’s enough,” Jonathan said, his tone softening.
He looked up at Teresa. "I never said any of that to your mom. She probably just wanted you to stop talking to me, so she made it all up to keep you away. I did think about leaving, but I never thought I’d end up being gone for so long. At the airport, I called you and you wished me well. I said if you didn’t reach out, I wouldn’t either. I was at fault too, holding a grudge for so long and not thinking about how you or our sons would feel. These days, I’ve just been busy with work overseas. Other than working, I’ve only been with my mom. I haven’t met anyone else, let alone started a new family. I know my mom called you and said I was getting remarried and having another kid—she made that up too, just to mess with you. But you’re that gullible, huh?”
With that, Jonathan finished speaking. Teresa realized that they had both misunderstood each other. If he hadn’t come back, neither of them would have tried to clear things up. Teresa took a sip of water and said, “Yeah, it’s good we’ve cleared things up.”
"You still haven’t answered my question. Why did you hug me at the airport today?" Jonathan pressed.
The way she threw her arms around him was so emotional and intense that he was completely stunned. At that moment, he almost blurted out that he missed her so much and had been going crazy thinking about her.
He’d seen the video she posted – her standing in front of the fish tank, her face bathed in that soft yellow light. He watched it again and again.
When he saw her caption about starting over and a new beginning, he was so annoyed that he almost wanted to give her a thumbs down right there.