Transmigrated Into The Body Of The Cursed Prince Wife-Chapter 327: Ride with him

Ave rubbed her aching temple as she had too many things to do at once. Just as she was about to tell Ian to start walking, a sleek black limo rolled to a stop beside them. The back window glided down, revealing the last person she wanted to see again.

"Oh, lord," she muttered as she stared at the amber eyes that made her heart leap in her chest and her stomach flutter like a thousand butterflies were moving around, making her feel an unwelcome warmth stir in pit of her core.

He also stared at her intensely before his gaze shifted to Ian, who was already grinning at the sight of him and could barely stand still on his feet. He smiled at her son, a smile that seemed to make her heart quiver, then looked up at her again from the sleek interior of his fancy limo.

"Your car is not working, Miss Hart?" He asked the obvious. He could tell that from the way they were walking away from it, and she was clutching her son’s hand in one hand and holding his backpack in the other. "If you want, you can ride in my car," he offered good-naturedly, hoping she wouldn’t turn him down. But then, she wouldn’t be his stubborn wife if she easily hopped into the car at his offer when they were not on good terms.

Forcing a polite smile, she said, "Thanks for the offer, Mr. Penn, but we were just on our way to take a cab. We wouldn’t want to be an inconvenience to you."

Before Lucian could speak or think of a way to persuade her to ride in his car, Ian groaned, "Mom, please. I don’t want to ride in a cab. Just take the ride."

He was never the type to be picky about transportation and usually preferred taking a cab, but this time, he wanted her to ride in his friend’s car more than anything. For some reason, he wanted his Mom to see how much the man meant to him. He hadn’t known Mr. Penn for long, but Ian liked him a great deal and wanted his Mom to like him too.

Surprised at her son’s sudden pickiness, she glared at him and then at Lucian and said, "Absolutely not."

She would rather walk than sit in the same space as him. He made her feel not just uneasy but as if he could see through her soul and the lies she had kept buried deep for years to protect her son from the mockery of the world and the media.

He spoke of things he wasn’t supposed to know. He kissed her in a way that made everything feel right, even though it was wrong. He touched her as if he had done it many times before, even though she had never given him the opportunity until this morning.

She’d met Xander once before, but he did not make her feel these feelings until yesterday when he hugged her and today when he kissed her. If he had made her feel this way from the beginning, she would have never reached out to him for a partnership in this project and would have looked for other means to do it. Now, she was stuck with him and would make sure she saw less of him to build back the walls of indifference around her traitorous heart.

Lucian smiled and rested his elbow on the window ledge, watching her. His wife was still as stubborn as he remembered her to be. She avoided her feelings just like she had in Pendragon until she could no longer and gave in to them.

"Are you rejecting me out of principle or stubbornness?" he teased.

Without missing a beat, she glared at him heatedly. "Both. Now, can you ride away and let us pass?"

Ian pursed his lips at her words and tugged at her shirt to gain her attention, and when she looked at him, he whispered urgently, "Mom, I really don’t care about your issues with him right now. I just need to get to school." He lied—school was the last place he wanted to be. "And since you two are supposed to be business partners, maybe you should start acting like it. He’s just offering us a ride."

Ave pressed her lips together in displeasure. Sometimes, her son made her feel like the child while he was the adult, but then she couldn’t help but agree with him. She couldn’t keep avoiding the man because of what he made her feel when she would be representing her grandfather in this project until it was completed.

They would be seeing more of each other than she wanted to, and if she did not start treating everything he did without putting any importance on them, she would entangle herself in unwanted emotions and get trapped in his webs. She needed to be unaffected by him from now on.

Besides, she shouldn’t be this rattled over one kiss.

Sighing softly, she turned to him with a polite smile. "Sure, Mr. Penn. I’ll appreciate the ride."

Lucian’s lips twitched slightly as he stared at her beautiful face. He remembered it way too well; every perfect line and curve was already carved into his memory, and seeing it again after a long time brought him so much pleasure—until he recalled she had a son for another man in this time. He hated to think that she had slept with another man and gotten pregnant, but that did not matter to him when he already liked her son so much he couldn’t figure out why. Perhaps because he looked like her, only with black hair.

Whoever the man who had gotten her pregnant was, Lucian intended to find out and make the bastard’s life hell before he would leave this lifetime. Ian had told him his father did not want him and had run away from them, and though Lucian could not believe what kind of man would run away from such a lovely woman like his wife and a handsome, smart boy like Ian, he was grateful the man was not in their life when he came, or he might kill him.

When the car was opened for them by Cal, Ian slid into the fancy customized limo made only for Lucian Xander Penn, with a furnished interior where the media said he took his women on the plush seats. She watched her son sit beside Lucian, grinning up at him. freewēbnoveℓ.com

Wiping her sweaty palm against her skirt, she slid in after her son and sat on the loveseat in the limo opposite them.

Lucian watched her settle before leaning back and putting his arm around the boy next to him, who sat comfortably, unlike his stiff mom, who sat with her back straight and eyes regarding him like a wary prey monitoring the predator and waiting, readying for him to attack so she could defend herself. Her blue eyes shifted to her son, whose hand was resting casually on Lucian’s lap as he began to talk, asking him various questions, and after just a second of silence Ian looked around the car with impressed eyes and then back at Lucian.

"Your have everything inside your car! It’s awesome, Mr. Pendragon!" He exclaimed as he reached for a remote on the table next to his seat and turned on the TV in the car.

"Ian, behave yourself. And it’s Mr. Penn, not Pendragon. Drop the remote," she cautioned, as she did not want her son getting too familiar with the man. Not to mention, she’d never seen him this comfortable with anyone except her before.

"It’s fine, Aveline. Let the boy do what he pleases; I don’t mind," Lucian said to her with a smile, but she threw him a dirty look and snapped, "I never gave you the permission to call me that, Mr. Penn. It’s Miss Hart or Doctor Hart for you. Ian, I said put down the remote, now!." She took it from her son’s hand and put it back where he picked it up from.

"Why are you so harsh on the boy?" Lucian narrowed his eyes at her, not liking how uptight and mean she was being. He didn’t like it, even though he had no reason to interfere in their matters or how she chose to raise her son. But he could never imagine her being this harsh to anyone.

Not to mention, he couldn’t help but wonder—if it had been their child together, would she have chosen to be this mean to him? In the past, before she left him, they had lain in bed and talked about how they would raise their kids and give them everything they never had while growing up. Ian had not done anything to be scolded for now; he was just being a kid wanting to play with the magical thing that shows people.

"I am not being harsh, I am only trying—"

"To control everything he does, like a mother who doesn’t care about what her son wants but only about what she thinks is best?" he scoffed in sarcasm. "Just like how you forbade him from having ice cream when kids his age are enjoying it?"

She looked taken aback. "I did not forbid him!" she exclaimed defensively as she turned to her son, who was now sulking and looking away from her.

"Ian, did you tell him I forbade you from having ice cream?" she asked in disbelief.

Ian shrugged. "No. I only said I can’t have ice cream because I promised you I wouldn’t," he grumbled, clearly upset with her for embarrassing him in front of his friend. She was never like this, but today, she was acting like a completely different person.

When Lucian shot her an accusing look, she threw her hands up in frustration. "I swear I never forbade him. He made that promise on his own, and honestly, I never thought he was serious about it." She sighed, running a hand through her red hair before continuing.

"A while back, I had to take him to the hospital after he had an allergic reaction to something he ate. That same day, a young patient I had been treating for diabetes passed away. I was heartbroken because I had grown emotionally attached to her, but by the time her condition was brought to my attention, it was too late to save her."

She glanced at Ian, her voice softer now. "He used to visit her sometimes, and after she died, he found me crying. He had just learned what had happened—her younger brother had sneaked her an ice cream during one of their visits, something she wasn’t supposed to have. Honestly, I don’t know how the nurses failed to catch on to that quickly, but by the time they did, she had already eaten it, and her condition worsened. We lost her the next day. After that, Ian swore off sweets, especially ice cream. It was his way of honoring her, and I never forced him to change his mind."

She turned back to Lucian, exhaling. "So, no—I didn’t forbid him. This is something he chose for himself."

Though Lucian did not understand all of what her words meant, he understood her point and believed she did not forbid him, and the boy had stuck to that oath until he had forced him to break it that day in the ice cream shop. But not wanting his Mom to know, he had made him promise not to tell her. It made sense now.

Regretting the way he had accused her of being a harsh mother, he gazed at her face, which had been filled with compassion as she talked about the deceased girl. He thought he had seen a brim of tears, which she quickly blinked away. Parting his lips, he muttered, "I’m sorry." She looked at him sharply, but her expression softened a notch before she turned away from him without saying a word.

Reaching out for the remote he had just recently learned to use, he turned on the TV with an amateur movement and gave the boy back the remote. "You can play with it," he said, and the boy looked towards his Mom, and when she didn’t seem against it, he took the remote but put it back on the table as he said to Lucian, "Thanks, Mr. Pendragon." Then he lapsed into silence and looked out the window.

Lucian studied the woman sitting across from him as she stared at her somber son.

"Ian," she called as she reached to touch his hand. "I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to yell at you." She stroked his hair tenderly with a remorseful look on her face.

"It’s fine, Mom. I’m not mad at you." He turned and smiled at her, but he looked away and returned his attention to the window.

Lucian could tell something was bothering the boy, but he didn’t say anything and only continued to study the worried lines on his woman’s forehead as she kept studying her son.

It seemed the two had a good relationship, more than he had first thought. She loved her son, he could tell from how she no longer cared about his company. Though it brought a tug of jealousy to his heart at the fact that she had once loved and worried about him that way, he quickly dismissed it.

He liked Ian too much to entertain any form of jealousy. The boy reminded him so much of himself when he was young...