Chapter 338

Chapter 338: Chapter 337

Before the hospital room door, after standing for who knows how long, Joanna Kennedy took a deep breath and turned the handle. The faint smell of disinfectant that washed over her was the unmistakable scent of a hospital.

The room was quiet, save for the soft humming of medical equipment. The person on the bed seemed to be asleep, showing no reaction to her arrival.

Joanna Kennedy stared for a long moment, her vision gradually blurring.

She blinked, trying to clear away the stinging in her eyes, but it was useless. The careful mental fortitude she had built collapsed the moment she saw him on the bed. Joanna Kennedy stood frozen in place.

Old Master Sinclair rushed over to find this very scene. He rapped his cane against the door to make a sound. When the little starlet didn’t react, he cleared his throat with a loud cough.

“I heard you hit my son?” Old Master Sinclair’s voice dropped. “You’ve got a lot of nerve. What do you take our Sinclair Family for?!”

The deliberately threatening, authoritative voice sounded particularly jarring in the quiet room. Joanna Kennedy closed her eyes. ‘In the past, she would have tolerated it, because the man before her was Simon Lockwood’s father. But now…’

“He was asking for it,” Joanna Kennedy said, her voice cold. Despite facing the older, more powerful Old Master Sinclair, she showed no trace of fear.

“This is a hospital room, not a place for you to be throwing your weight around.”

“You!”

“If you want to retaliate, I’ll be waiting. For now, please leave.”

Joanna Kennedy didn’t give Old Master Sinclair the chance to berate her. From the moment he chose to protect Jasper Sinclair, they were destined to be on opposing sides—even if he was, in name, Simon Lockwood’s father.

“Simon Lockwood is my son! You’re just some little brat who hasn’t even married into the Sinclair Family. What right do you have to speak to me like that?!” Old Master Sinclair was so furious his face turned red and the veins on his neck bulged. He looked as if his cane was about to punch a hole in the floor.

Joanna Kennedy wasn’t actually angry, but with Simon Lockwood lying in a hospital bed, Old Master Sinclair’s shouting was incredibly irritating.

‘He was fundamentally the same kind of person as Jasper Sinclair, a complete hypocrite.’ Joanna Kennedy suddenly felt she was wasting her time.

“Shouldn’t you be checking on Jasper Sinclair?” Joanna Kennedy offered a small smile. “He probably needs a ‘good father’ like you more.”

Joanna Kennedy drew out the two words—”good father.” Old Master Sinclair heard the mockery in her tone, and his face instantly darkened. However, Joanna Kennedy had already turned her back on him, paying him no further mind.

In the end, Old Master Sinclair was still worried about his eldest son, so he left. Before going, he made a point to instruct his bodyguard, deliberately raising his voice, “Notify me the moment the Young Master wakes up.”

The bodyguard answered, “Yes, sir.” Seeing from the corner of his eye that Joanna Kennedy hadn’t reacted, Old Master Sinclair left in a cloud of suppressed fury.

Old Master Sinclair had arrived in a hurry, intent on intimidation, but left with a storm of complicated emotions. Joanna Kennedy paid it no mind. Her eyes and heart were focused only on the person quietly “sleeping” in the bed.

‘Simon Lockwood was just being lazy. He hadn’t woken up yet.’

Joanna Kennedy stood by the bed, watching him for a long time, as if she hadn’t seen Simon Lockwood in ages. She drank in every detail of his face. With his hearing aid removed, he looked exactly as she remembered.

After what felt like an eternity of watching, Joanna Kennedy slowly crouched down. She took his hand, burying her face in his warm, familiar palm and nuzzling against it.

Her movements were gentle, yet held a world of dependence.

In the stark, empty hospital room, the girl crouched by the bed, nuzzling his palm like a small animal seeking a sense of security. After a long moment, she stopped. When she lifted her head, her eyes were already wet and red-rimmed.

The only other furniture in the room was a two-seater sofa. So Joanna Kennedy remained crouched by the bed, curled up and tightly gripping his large hand, drawing comfort from its reassuring warmth.

After a sleepless night, the sudden release from the intense strain brought a wave of exhaustion. Drowsiness washed over Joanna Kennedy, and she fell asleep in that awkward position.

Simon Lockwood was dreaming. The dream was pitch black, with only specks of blue light drifting through the air. He reached out to catch one, and as the light touched his palm, it turned into a snowflake.

The snowflake melted in his palm, and the sudden chill jolted him awake. Simon Lockwood slowly opened his eyes. His gaze fell upon a white ceiling, and the faint smell of disinfectant lingered in the air.

Pain. That was the only thing Simon Lockwood could feel. His throat was painfully dry from a long time without water, and without his hearing aid, his world was completely silent.

His arm was numb from the pressure on it. He tried to move it instinctively, but the grip on him only tightened. Straining, he turned his head and saw Joanna Kennedy’s small face nestled in his palm as she slept.

He didn’t know what she was dreaming about, but her long eyelashes were clumped together with tears, dark and wet. Another tear escaped the corner of her eye and fell onto Simon Lockwood’s palm, its warmth quickly fading to a cool dampness.

His last memory was of Joanna Kennedy’s red-rimmed, crying eyes and the flashing red lights of an ambulance piercing the darkness.

Simon Lockwood lay still for a long time. The pain coursing through his body caused a layer of cold sweat to break out on his forehead. An unavoidable twitch startled Joanna Kennedy, who had been sleeping lightly.

Joanna Kennedy’s eyes fluttered open, her beautiful eyes misty and confused. She stared blankly, meeting his gaze, unable to distinguish dream from reality. Tears welled up, shimmering at the brim of her eyelids without falling.

Simon Lockwood’s voice was so hoarse it was nearly inaudible. “Didn’t we agree… COUGH, COUGH… you wouldn’t cry?” He started to raise his hand, wanting to wipe her tears away.

Reality snapped back into focus for Joanna Kennedy, and the tears began to fall in earnest. “I—I had a dream,” she said, her voice choked with sobs. “I thought… I thought you weren’t going to wake up…”

Joanna Kennedy had dreamt of so many things. Scenes from Aethelburg and Jornheim had flashed through her mind. She dreamed that Simon Lockwood never came to Jornheim to find her, and that endless time stretched before her, leaving her all alone.

Then the scene shifted. She saw Simon Lockwood appear before her, asking why she had been so disobedient. She tried desperately to explain, reaching for his hand only to grasp at empty air. Simon collapsed in front of her, his face deathly pale.

The intense, lingering fear from the nightmare made her tears flow uncontrollably.

Simon Lockwood couldn’t hear a word she was saying. He could only see that Joanna Kennedy was crying heartbrokenly, her whole body trembling as tears streamed endlessly down her face. When she finally seemed to finish, he pointed to his ear. “Hearing aid.”

Joanna Kennedy: “…”

Joanna Kennedy felt like crying all over again. She scrubbed furiously at her tears, found the hearing aid on the bedside table, and put it on for Simon Lockwood.

“I-Is that okay?”

It wasn’t, really. A roaring sound still echoed in Simon Lockwood’s ears, and he couldn’t adjust to the hearing aid just yet. But he knew that if he told her the truth, Joanna Kennedy would definitely start crying again. So, he just nodded. “It’s fine.”

The words had barely left his mouth when a dry tickle in his throat forced an uncontrollable cough. The coughing vibrated through his chest, sending sharp pains through his injuries. Simon Lockwood’s face went pale.

This gave Joanna Kennedy a terrible fright. ‘Simon Lockwood had only just woken up, and he was still so weak. What if the coughing made his injuries worse?’

“I—I’ll go get the doctor.” Joanna Kennedy shot up in a panic, so flustered that she forgot about the call button. A gentle tug on her sleeve stopped her. Simon Lockwood, enduring the discomfort in his throat, rasped, “Don’t.”