Chapter 244: So... why don’t you read it to me?

Chapter 244: So... why don’t you read it to me?

Chapter 244: So... why don’t you read it to me?

Clearing Suspicion?

Ryan was completely confused. He had no idea why Alice would suspect him. Hadn’t he always been helping her?

Just a moment ago, Alice looked troubled, but now she suddenly seemed suspicious of him. How could her mood change so fast? Wasn’t that a bit too much?

“Miss Alice?” Ryan’s voice trembled slightly. You couldn’t really blame him—after all, the punishment for this side quest was way too harsh.

What kind of joke was this? A Darkening Level increase of twenty points? The max was only a hundred, and this one task would add twenty? That was practically a death sentence!

Ryan cautiously called out, but Alice only responded with a cold, indifferent hum. What she did next almost made Ryan pass out.

The girl reached out her pale hand, opened the drawer of the coffee table, and after fiddling around for a bit, she revealed a hidden compartment.

Ryan swallowed hard. His mind flashed to scenes from gangster movies, where the boss would bring a traitor home under the pretense of a heart-to-heart, only to personally take them out.

And what did the boss always pull out of the hidden compartment in front of the traitor?

“Miss Alice, I swear, I’m loyal!”

“I’ve done my part for the gang. I’ve bled for you. Just give me one more chance!”

The terrifying possibility hit Ryan, and in a panic, he practically threw himself at Alice, wrapping his arms tightly around her waist.

He had expected Alice’s body to be as cold and unyielding as her personality, but when he actually hugged her, it was nothing like that.

Unlike Mia, who was all soft and delicate, Alice’s body had a certain firmness to it. Her skin was smooth, and beneath it, he could feel a surprising elasticity.

Is this Alice’s waist? It’s so soft...

Wait, no, no! This wasn’t the point right now!

Ryan’s desperate move left Alice completely stunned. Feeling the weight of him on her, her breathing became a little uneven. She flailed her small hands in the air, but couldn’t muster the strength to push him off.

“Ryan, let go of me.”

Alice was starting to regret threatening Ryan earlier. It had been a spur-of-the-moment thing, and she hadn’t expected him to actually take it seriously.

But now, this situation was getting out of hand. She was genuinely scared.

Alice was also confused. If Ryan was acting like this, then what did he mean by what he wrote in his journal about wanting her to kill him?

“Miss Alice, think this through...”

“If I die, you’ll definitely regret it.”

But somehow, this was even more dangerous!

“Miss... Miss Alice... where did you get that from...?”

Ryan’s emotions were all over the place, like he was on a rollercoaster. That brief moment of relief he had earlier? Completely gone.

How could he have forgotten about this? His diary had mysteriously disappeared when he woke up this morning. He had searched for it for a while, but with everything that happened during the day, he had temporarily pushed it out of his mind.

Now, the diary was right in front of him, and Alice was the one who had it. Which meant... he knew exactly where she had found it.

His face turned pale, worse than if he were crying. What was the difference between this and a gun? A gun could kill him physically, but the stuff in that diary? That could destroy him mentally.

“The maid found it while cleaning your room. I figured it might be important to you, so I kept it safe.”

Alice casually adjusted her slightly messy hair, giving the notebook on the table only a passing glance, as if it didn’t really matter to her.

Ryan was frozen in place, his fingers twitching awkwardly. After what felt like an eternity, he finally managed to string together a broken sentence.

“So, Miss Alice... you...”

The smile on Ryan’s face was barely holding on. Was this Murphy’s Law in action? The thing you fear the most is always the thing that happens.

Like how he really didn’t want Alice to get her hands on his diary, and yet, here they were.

He wanted to ask if she had read it, but the words got stuck in his throat.

He swapped places with her in his mind. If he had found Alice’s diary, even though reading someone else’s diary was totally unethical, he knew he wouldn’t be able to resist the temptation.

Ryan was almost in despair, his face drained of color. When he looked at Alice now, there was a new feeling mixed in.

Was it just his imagination, or did Alice have a slight smile on her lips? Like a hunter slowly closing in on a rabbit caught in a trap.

“Relax, I haven’t had the chance to read it yet.”

Alice spoke calmly, taking another sip of her beer, as if she really wasn’t interested.

Ryan’s spirits lifted again. So Alice did have boundaries after all. She wouldn’t read his diary.

If she hadn’t read it and was just leaving it here, she was probably planning to let him take it back. People like her were rare these days.

But the rollercoaster wasn’t over yet. Ryan had gotten excited way too soon.

Alice’s expression had been neutral, but now she was twirling a strand of her hair around her finger. Her eyes sparkled with a playful glint that Ryan had never seen before. She looked at him seriously, her lips parting to say something that sent him straight to hell.

“I didn’t read it, so... why don’t you read it to me?”