From Broken to Beloved-Chapter 156- no exception

Chapter 156- no exception

She knew her words had been harsh, but she—she truly resisted being in this kind of couple relationship with him.

Ford, however, wasn’t angry at all. He replied calmly,

"It’s useless. Even if you changed beyond recognition, it would still be useless."

He paused there, his eyes darkening like a deep, unfathomable sea.

"What I like is your heart as a person. Can you change that?"

Riley froze for a moment, then heard him continue,

"Your appearance comes from your heart. What I’m drawn to is the charm that radiates from your beautiful, kind heart—not just your looks or your figure. I’m not so shallow as to decide whether a woman is worth spending my life with based on something like that."

Riley was completely stunned by his words—especially by that last phrase: spending my life with.

For Riley, what Ford said was shocking, even overwhelming. But for Ford, it wasn’t something he’d decided on overnight. He had known Riley for at least a year—perhaps even longer.

From first meeting her, to being unconsciously drawn to her, to finally becoming certain that he wanted to be with her—an entire year was more than enough time for him to think it through. And it was precisely because he had thought it through so carefully that he now pursued her with such deliberate intent.

After he finished speaking, Riley sat there for a long moment, lips slightly parted, staring at him in disbelief. In the end, she lowered her gaze and spoke as if nothing had happened,

"I’m starving. Let’s eat already..."

There was not a trace left of the bravado she’d had just moments earlier, when she’d boldly told him to stop liking her.

Ford glanced at her evasive attempt to change the subject and said nothing more, simply picking up his chopsticks and starting to eat.

It was obvious that his words had already unsettled her. That was enough for now—better to let her digest it.

Riley truly was thrown off balance. Before this, she had always treated the things Ford said as empty talk—listening, then forgetting them right away, never taking them to heart—because she never believed his feelings for her were serious or genuine.

But what he had just said... about spending a lifetime together...

Sweet words were dangerously effective. No woman could fully resist them.

She was no exception.

Still, Riley had always been good at adjusting her own emotions. Those shocks didn’t linger in her heart for long before she forcibly turned the page. Even so, they left their mark. When facing Ford again, she could no longer maintain the same carefree detachment she had before.

After dinner, Ford suggested going to see a movie. Riley resisted immediately.

"Please, Mr. Ford, you’re at least a somewhat well-known model and celebrity now. Going out in public like this and taking a woman to the movies—if someone snaps photos and it gets exposed, your career will be over!"

Hearing her call him Mr. Ford again, Ford couldn’t help but laugh.

"And you? Aren’t you worried about your own future being affected?"

Riley waved it off dismissively.

"I don’t care. I’m not famous anyway. If I get photographed, I can just ride on your fame—maybe I’ll even blow up overnight!"

As soon as she finished speaking, Ford reached out and took her hand.

"Then let’s go," he said. "To a theater with even more people."

Riley was completely dumbfounded.

"Huh?"

He looked at her with a smile, his eyes shining like stars in the night sky.

"If my fame can help make you famous, then I’ll have no regrets."

Riley shrieked and yanked her hand free, then bolted away, jogging all the way toward where he had parked the car.

Who wanted to ride on his fame to become an overnight sensation? She’d only been using self-mockery to remind him not to sabotage his own future. She wasn’t the kind of person desperate to be famous. If she had wanted that, she would have made it big years ago—there had been no shortage of people willing to promote her. She had simply disdained those things.

She was perfectly satisfied with her current life—free, easy, and true to herself.

Ford followed after her. Of course he knew Riley wasn’t the sort of person obsessed with fame.

Once they were in the car, Ford drove toward the cinema. Riley was still sulking.

"So we’re really going to watch a movie? I’m honestly afraid if we get photographed, I’ll be beaten to death by your ’wives.’"

Ford was already somewhat well-known, and with a figure like his, it was only natural. These days, women called any decent-looking male celebrity their "husband." The "wives" Riley referred to were exactly those fans.

Riley hadn’t expected Ford to actually get angry. Earlier at dinner, she’d said far harsher things—telling him to stop liking her—and he hadn’t been angry at all. Yet now, over this, he was.

He hit the steering wheel lightly and pulled the car over to the side of the road.

Turning to her, his face cold and serious, he warned her,

"Don’t use the word wife so casually again. To me, that word is solemn. In my heart, it belongs to only one woman for an entire lifetime."

Riley was startled by his seriousness, then immediately protested,

"Why are you being so intense? It was just a joke. Don’t people call their idols ’husband’ all the time these days?"

Ford’s handsome face hardened even further.

"I don’t care what other people do. From now on, don’t say things like that in front of me."

Confronted with his barely suppressed anger, Riley opened her mouth, then closed it again, saying nothing. Fine, fine—she wouldn’t say it. She hadn’t expected him to be so unable to take a joke.

Ford stared at her again, his tone low and deliberate.

"Of course, you can call me your husband. And my wife—naturally—would be you."

Riley: "..."

Her face flushed bright red in an instant. What on earth was he talking about?

How could he even say something like that? Husband and wife—between the two of them? There wasn’t even the faintest hint of that yet! She was only being forced into dating him, not marrying him.

Ford glanced at her, said nothing more, restarted the car, and drove off.

Bert had originally been trying to figure out a way to persuade Catherine to move in with him. He hadn’t expected fate itself to lend him a helping hand.

That evening, after Bert and Catherine finished dinner together and he walked her home, Bert suggested stopping by her place for a while. His intention was to talk to Renata about having the two of them move in with him.

Catherine agreed as well. For her, the longer she spent with Bert, the more certain she became of her desire to spend her life with this man—and the more she longed to live with him every day.

This was the most natural way for love to progress into marriage: not marrying for the sake of marriage, but marrying for love—marrying love itself.

When Bert and Catherine arrived home, they were surprised to find Renata wearing thick, padded winter clothing indoors. This startled them both, because with the heating on, the apartment should have been quite warm—normally, a single thermal sweater would have been more than enough.

Catherine immediately asked, worried,

"Mom, why are you wearing so much?"

Her first thought was that Renata might have caught a cold or fallen ill. Bert, meanwhile, walked straight inside and reached out to touch the radiator. It was icy cold.

Renata explained to Catherine,

"The heating suddenly stopped this afternoon. I went downstairs to ask your aunt, and she said the property management reported a problem with the heating pipes in the complex—they need repairs."

Only then did Catherine realize that the apartment really was chilly. She quickly looked over at Bert. He withdrew his hand from the radiator.

"Yes, there’s no heat at all," he confirmed.

Then he asked Renata,

"Did they say when it would be fixed?"

Renata shook her head.

"No. They just said they’d do their best to repair it as soon as possible."

Bert frowned slightly and looked at the mother and daughter.

"They don’t know when it’ll be fixed? That won’t do. In weather this cold, not having heating at home makes it very easy to catch a cold—and your health isn’t in a condition where you should be getting sick."

His gaze settled on Renata. She didn’t think it was quite that serious.

"It’s fine. I’ll just wear more clothes. Back in our day, we didn’t even have central heating, and we rarely used heaters either. We still got through it, didn’t we?"

Catherine had originally thought the same—that going without heating for a few days wouldn’t be a big deal, that surely it wouldn’t stay broken for long. But once Bert mentioned Renata’s health, Catherine immediately grew worried as well. After the recent cold wave, temperatures throughout Burg Eltz had dropped sharply. Winter had truly set in, and the cold was biting and severe.