Chapter 273
Chapter 273
Chapter 273
"You smoke, Dylan?"
Kendall didn't like the smell of cigarette smoke.
Dylan only took a moment to calm his erratic heartbeat.
Bending over, he picked up the cigarette that had fallen on the floor and threw it into the ashtray.
"I had two sticks because I couldn't sleep. I will stop smoking if you don't like the smell of cigarettes."
She proceeded to walk over barefoot and in her pajamas. She let out a yawn as soon as she sat down beside him.
"Why aren't you wearing your flip-flops?"
"I couldn't find them, so I came out like this."
After answering him, she leaned against him and yawned again. Kendall was still sluggish. "Why can't you fall asleep, Dylan? Did you have a dream again?"
Does he still get dreams like that after I have given my body to him?
"I didn't," he lied.
He wouldn't want to get her worked up over that kind of worrisome dream.
He didn't want those dreams to affect their married life.
Dreams were dreams, no matter how realistic they might seem.
They were people who lived in reality.
"Then what was stopping you from sleeping?"
"I have always had terrible sleep."
She hummed in acknowledgement at his words.
She could see the dark circles around his eyes, after all.
On top of his insomnia, Dylan had to drink coffee to wake himself up enough to handle his mountain of work waiting for him in the morning.
Sure, coffee invigorated him. But his sleep only became worse after he had had coffee.
Rinse, repeat, and his dark circles only became more and more visible.
It pained Kendall after she heard his reply. She then hooked her arm around his and reassured him in a gentle tone, "Dylan, you can tell me if you have anything on your mind. I will definitely help you if I can. Even if I can't help, it is better if you say it out and not keep it in."
Dylan had his eyes on her the whole time she spoke with her eyes closed.
Is she planning to share my worries when she is so tired?
"I'm fine now. Go back to bed."
Her arm around his only got tighter. "I want you to come with me," she whined sweetly.
Seeing this, he kissed her on the forehead and dotingly agreed, "Alright. I will stay with you."
After he stood up, he wanted to carry her, only to have her reject him.
"Carry me like a bride after you are completely healed."
"I will work hard on the rehabilitation just to carry you that way." He smiled.
"Good luck, darling!"
"Mm, I will do my best."
Having someone he desperately wanted to protect gave meaning to his life. It pushed him to be more hardworking about his rehabilitation.
He finally fell sound asleep during the second half of the night.
The sun was already high up by the time Dylan woke up.
As soon as he woke up, he habitually reached out to the other side of the bed, only to find his lovely
wife missing from her spot.
He then sat up from the bed, and he had a guess that Kendall had already gone downstairs when he didn't hear any movement from the room.
The pleasant sleep he had made him feel particularly energized.
Looking into the mirror, he noticed that his dark circles had faded a little.
A bell-like laughter soon came from the backyard, which led Dylan to the small balcony. He only took a quick glance downstairs before his sharp eyes located the familiar, slender figure.
Kendall, along with Jane and Alice, were taking turns sitting on the swing.
The laughter was from Jane.
However, the sound of laughter disappeared just as quickly as it came.
Kendall seemed to have told Jane something before the latter pressed her hand over her mouth in an attempt to muffle her laugh.
The three women even simultaneously glanced at Dylan's direction.
Swiftly after…
"Dylan is awake. I am heading in. You both should stay and play. Let's all go to the horse farm to ride horses together later."
After Kendall threw that out, she ditched her sister-in-law and her new friend, Jane, for Dylan.
As Jane looked at the woman who sprinted into the house as though she was in a race, she said to Alice, "Alice, Kendall and your eldest brother seem like they have a good relationship."
It was no wonder Dylan stood on Kendall's side, and even stopped Jane from calling him just by his name for fear that Kendall would misunderstand and get upset.
Alice was happy to see that her brother and sister-in-law were close. That way, Tilly and Emily wouldn't be able to drive Kendall away.
"She is great. We all see how much my brother has changed ever since she moved in," Alice commented.
The only problems were that Tilly and Emily didn't like the fact that Kendall was not dignified enough, had grown up in the countryside, and had given her heart to Jackson before.
Alice had to hold herself back from asking her grandmother why she had someone go to the Parker Residence to propose despite knowing that Kendall was dead-set on Jackson.
It was the very same person who complained about Kendall's status that had proposed to Kendall. Tilly was just contradicting her own words.
"Do your grandmother and mother not like Kendall?"
Even though Jane had just returned from abroad not long ago, she could tell from yesterday's meeting
that Emily and Tilly didn't like Kendall. However, Tilly hid her displeasure well.
"Yeah, they don't. I am glad that Dylan loves and protects her a lot. It's not like Grandma can do anything about it. Kendall is the most unrestrained person in our family. Even I am envious of her."
Kendall was the kind of person who did whatever she wanted. None of the rigid rules of the Coleman Family could stop her.
Jane knew all too well the rules that the women of the Coleman Family had to abide by. She admired Kendall as well when she found out that the woman didn't follow the rules. "If only Yoseph would go against your grandmother for me and insist on not letting me follow the rules, I wouldn't mind marrying into your family."
Alice immediately let out a playful chuckle when she heard those words. "Oh? Are you still trying to get Yoseph to take your family name?"
"Yoseph is mine for the taking. I don't like how your family has too many rules, but I don't want to let your brother go either. Hence, I have no other choice but to get him to marry into my family," Jane confidently declared.
"How long did Yoseph hide from you before he went home anyway?"
"No idea. I fell asleep real quick."
Alice paused for a beat before muttering, "Yoseph would definitely be pissed if he knew that you slept early. He hid for nothing."
That made Jane chuckle. "He can hide for now, but he can't hide forever. He is like a priest, and your house is a church. He will have to go back to the church somehow. I won't be leaving for abroad anymore. I have all the time in the world to slow dance with him."
"Geez, poor Yoseph!" Alice grinned.
Jane swiftly peered at her. "Give me a break. You are obviously enjoying this. You have more than 10 brothers. You can watch a new story unfold whenever each of them fall in love."
"That is right. There are more than 10 different stories I can watch. It is fun."
Alice didn't hold back on admitting that she wanted to watch them put on a good show.
Other than Dylan who got married without informing anyone ahead of time, her other brothers were still single and available.
All except for Yoseph, who Jane had her eyes on.
The young masters of the Coleman Family never had to worry about not being able to get a wife, but these men, who liked being free and unrestrained, all thought that marriage would tie them down.
No matter how the elders might worry, none of them were the least bit in a rush to find a spouse.
If the elders pressured them to get married, they would request from Dylan to go on long business trips that they would only come home from after months.
No doubt the elders were angry about this.
However, there weren't a lot of women who met the qualifications to marry into the Coleman Family.
All the young masters of the Coleman Family were well aware of how high the elders' expectations for their daughters-in-law were. There were barely enough ladies from rich families that met those requirements in Orapolis.
A classic example would be how even Kendall, the esteemed daughter of the Parker Family, couldn't satisfy Tilly.
The sons of the Coleman Family would rather stay single before they found someone they would willingly say goodbye to their bachelor days and would butt heads with the elders of the family for.