“Stella, what’s wrong with you?
Why are you avoiding me?”
Seeing the strange look on Stella Lockwood’s face, Don Joyce walked over, reaching out to put his arm around her.
Stella Lockwood dodged him immediately, then stared at him coldly.
“Joyce, please have some self-respect.”
Those words, “have some self-respect,” made Don Joyce freeze.
He blinked, then turned to look at Serena Lockwood, completely failing to understand the situation.
“She…
What’s wrong with her?
Why is she suddenly acting so distant?”
Serena Lockwood didn’t understand either.
Stella’s reaction was just too strange.
It seemed that when she’d said she wanted to keep her distance from Don Joyce, she wasn’t joking.
She was serious.
‘But it made no sense.’ Serena knew better than anyone just how obsessed Stella had been with Don Joyce.
‘How could she just flip a switch like that?’
“I have no idea!” Serena Lockwood shrugged and held out her hands.
“Joyce, from now on, please don’t come here unless you have a reason.
There are too many paparazzi looking to cause trouble for me lately.
If we get photographed together and it blows up online, your fans will tear me to shreds…
Serena, open the door.
I’m tired, I want to rest…”
She avoided him, went to the door, and urged her sister, who had the key, to open it.
‘She used to want nothing more than to be attached to this man’s hip.
If she went a single day without seeing him, she’d go to his fan sites and search for his latest updates.
But now?
Just looking at his face made her feel sick.’
Don Joyce had always been spoiled and wasn’t used to being treated this way.
His sharp brows furrowed as he fumed, “What’s that supposed to mean?
You ran off without a word to drink with some guy and do some intimate dancing, and I didn’t even hold it against you.
I knew someone was just trying to give you a hard time.
Then yesterday, you ran off to intercept Sean Quinn and caused another scene.
I haven’t even said anything to you about all that, and now you have the nerve to give me the cold shoulder?
Tell me, Stella Lockwood, have you forgotten who I am to you?”
He advanced on her step by step, growing inexplicably angrier.
The door opened just then.
Stella Lockwood slipped inside, still keeping her distance.
When she turned and saw this scumbag, who was acting very much like her boyfriend, follow her in, she crossed her arms and continued, “Fine.
Since my sister is here today, I’ll just lay it all out on the table.”
“Joyce, before, you were indeed my idol, and I was definitely your die-hard fan.
But from today onward, you’re you, and I’m me.”
“Oh, right.
Didn’t you say before that you wanted to date me?
You told me to think it over carefully before I gave you an answer.
Because if I became your girlfriend, we couldn’t go public for the next few years.
It was for your protection, and for mine.”
“Well, I’m formally informing you now: thanks for the high praise, but I, Stella Lockwood, am not worthy of being Don Joyce’s girlfriend.
I just want to quietly act in a few shows…”
“All right, I’ve said everything I need to say.
The door is over there.
Please leave.
Immediately.”
With that, she gestured toward the half-open door.
Don Joyce was still completely dumbfounded.
He looked at Serena Lockwood and cried out, “What is wrong with her?
Why is she breaking up with me out of the blue?”
“Wrong.
This isn’t a breakup…” Stella Lockwood emphatically corrected his mistaken belief.
“We were never together in the first place…
We never kissed, never even hugged.
At most, we held hands once.
There’s nothing between us…
Serena, I’m tired.
I’m going to bed.
You deal with this…”
She limped back to her room and slammed the door shut with a loud SLAM.
Don Joyce’s face immediately darkened.
He walked up and kicked the door, then turned around and said furiously, “What’s with the rotten attitude?”
‘It’s only been a few days.
How could she be like a completely different person, avoiding him like the plague?’