Chapter 37
Chapter 37
Lucas waited for his wife to sit before taking a seat opposite her; his expression stoic and unchanged the entire time. “She’s Yvonne’s friend,” Lucas told Weston as he sat down. “Don’t mind it too much.”
Stella frowned ever so slightly when she heard the word “stranger” coming from Weston’s mouth, but she still wouldn’t look at him. She sat down stiffly at the dining table, her ears ringing from the absurdity of the situation. Never in a thousand years would she have guessed that Lucas’s guests were Weston Ford and Guinevere Cohen.
Weston had noticed her the second she appeared. Naturally, Guinevere did too. The moment she saw Stella, her body stiffened , sure that she’d just seen a ghost! Blood drained from her face, and she stared at the woman like a hawk. It was only when they were all seated that she realized she was covered in goosebumps.
That face… there could be no mistake. She would never forget that woman’s face! But how could Stella Sealey be here? Wasn’t she already dead?
Although Guinevere’s back was soaked in a cold sweat, she had been in the entertainment industry for many years, and she could take this much without losing control. Once she regained her senses, her first instinct was to check for Weston’s reactions. When she saw that his eyes had been glued on the woman the whole time, her fists tightened. She even clenched her teeth.
Could she still be… alive?
From then on, she’d lost all control. Her mind was now blank. All she could do was stare vacantly at Stella.
Such a drastic change in the atmosphere did not go unnoticed by Yvonne. She could sense that something weird was happening but was utterly befuddled by the scene.
“Do you know each other?” she asked Stella, looking at both Guinevere and Stella back and forth.
“No,”Stella answered simply with a shake of her head. She seemed utterly nonchalant, but under the table, her fingernails dug into the flesh of her thighs so hard she almost bled.
Guinevere regained her senses and forced herself to look away from Stella at that moment. Then her gaze turned towards Yvonne.
“Who is she?” Guinevere demanded tersely as she glared at Yvonne haughtily.
Yvonne was taken aback by Guinevere’s strange behavior that she instinctively backed away. Lucas noticed this and frowned frustratedly. He put himself between his wife and Guinevere, shielding her from Guinivere’s glare, which Lucas sensed as malicious.
“Miss Cohen,” he said, “you can speak to me directly if there’s any problem. There’s no need to glare at my wife like that.”
Yvonne and Guinevere weren’t that close, but since Lucas was Henry Moore’s attending doctor, and Henry Moore was close to Stella and Guinevere, Yvonne considered Guinevere an acquaintance,
Nevertheless, she could not deny that she found Guinevere’s behavior just now offensive. Still, Guinevere and Weston were her husband’s guests. Thus, wanting to cause no trouble as the host, she let the matter slide and introduced her friend to them. “This is Ella Steele,” she announced.
“She’s a dance teacher at my training center.”
Ella Steele… Guinevere repeated that name silently. The name left a bitter taste in her mouth. But she gradually calmed down and took another good look at Stella, now with more scrutiny and suspicion.
So this was not Stella Sealey after all? But just another woman who looked like her? But they didn’t just look alike. Their voices were identical. Even their names sounded similar…
Serious doubts arose in her mind. She couldn’t help but turn toward the man beside her. To her surprise, Weston was completely calm and indifferent. He didn’t seem to care about this woman’s appearance at all.
But the calmer Weston was, the more frantic Guinevere’s mind got.
How could he not have any reactions to the appearance of a woman who looked exactly like his wife? If he was so indifferent to Stella, then why did he fall into pits of despair when Stella died?
Now Guinevere was a lot more worried about Weston’s cold reactions than the actual appearance of this woman itself.
“Ella… Steele?” she asked in a hoarse voice after a long pause.
“Is she called Ella Steele?”
“Yes,” answered Yvonne, still so bewildered by Guinevere’s reactions that she couldn’t help but add, “Do you know her?”
“No,” replied Guinevere, shaking her head. Her face was ashen as she forced a feeble smile on her face. “She just looks a lot like someone I knew.”