I Reject Your Rejection

Clayton spoke up just then. The sudden rumble of his deep voice pierced through the quiet sterile air of the hospital room, pulling Hazel out of her panicked trance.

"Eddie waited for you for over an hour. He usually naps earlier."

Hazel felt her heart skip a frantic beat against her ribs. She carefully retracted her hand and smoothed her expression. Gripping the cold metal rims of her wheelchair, she faced him.

"Actually, Mr. Caldwell, you could have just explained to him that I am not his mommy." Hazel kept her tone rigidly polite.

Clayton stood leaning against the doorframe, making no move to step inside. He simply watched her with his jet-black eyes in quiet scrutiny. The sudden, dense silence left Hazel shifting in her seat, wondering if she had misspoken.

Still, she refused to dwell on his intense gaze and forged ahead.

"The fire was just an accident anyway. You did not have to go out of your way to bring me lunch or have your maids take care of me. And how much for the new phone? Tell me the amount, and I will wire the money to you."

"I thought you were smart, Ms. Winslow."

Hazel was at a loss. Was there anything about her current disheveled state that made her look stupid in his eyes?

"Eddie needs a mommy." His alluring voice flowed effortlessly into the small space, stating the preposterous demand as if it was only natural.

"So?" Hazel raised a skeptical brow.

Clayton simply kept his dark, impenetrable eyes fixed on her face for a long while, weighing her defiance.

After the pause, his pitch seemed to dip into an even deeper timbre. "And he likes you. So you might be able to tell that I am wooing you, Ms. Winslow."

Hazel was left speechless.

She stared at him, incredulous. She could never have pieced that together on her own. All she felt was that everything he did since she regained consciousness was overbearing and imposing.

"You do not need to respond immediately, Ms. Winslow. After all, we are not acquainted yet." Clayton mused on the exact right words to frame his logic.

Obviously, they were just strangers who crossed paths by pure chance.

Taking a deep, steadying breath to calm her racing pulse, Hazel spoke again. "Do you not think you are being a little childish about a relationship, Mr. Caldwell?"

Clayton raised a brow. He clearly recognized that she was already a difficult person, and her demeanor appeared even more thorny and distant now.

"Wooing me just because your son likes me? Am I just a convenient tool to you? What if your son stops liking me and chooses another woman to be his mommy one day? Are you going to woo her too, Mr. Caldwell?"

Hazel forced herself to pause just then. She took a breath to calm down, noticing that she was getting a little too harsh. She was bleeding her past resentments onto him.

"I am sorry, Mr. Caldwell, but I do not share your perspective."

"Wooing has nothing to do with my son. He just happens to like you too, just as I do," Clayton said plainly, offering the heavy confession without a single flinch.

Hazel actually thought she had misheard him.

A sudden declaration of love from a billionaire... It must be a tasteless joke, right? They had just met a couple of hours ago!

"You do not have to worry about my son falling for another woman either, Ms. Winslow. Devotion runs in our family." Clayton enunciated every word with sharp clarity.

Hazel struggled to find her voice.

Did that imposing man just boast about his own loyalty and endorse his son at the exact same time? Was he even offering her a solemn promise before they shared a real conversation?

Still, she anchored her defenses. She was not about to be caught up in his bizarre, rapid pace, not to mention that she simply could not respond to the feelings of someone she just met.

"Whatever you are aiming to do, Mr. Caldwell, I am serious when I tell you that I am rejecting you."

Clayton simply stared at her with his jet-black eyes, unmoved by her defiance.

"Please do not bother me ever again, Mr. Caldwell. All you have to do is offer me due compensation—"

"I reject your rejection," Clayton said, cutting her short with a low, assertive tone that brokered no argument.

A sharp spark of anger flashed in Hazel's eyes. "Do you even know my past? I have heavy baggage. I am not as ideal as you would like to think."

"I never doubt my judgment, nor do I take issue with a person's past."

"Someone told me that before too, and you saw how that ended up."

Therefore, how would she ever be foolish enough to trust a stranger offering pretty words?

"Do not compare me to scum."

The ward suddenly turned dead silent. Clayton's thin lips twitched ever so slightly down at the outer corners. His expression was so icy and lethal that it left Hazel's wounded heart skipping a terrified beat.

His fierce reaction made her feel as if she had genuinely insulted his core pride.

Still, she suddenly laughed without knowing the real reason herself.

It was probably because there was still someone in this cold world who would blindly side with her. In everyone else's perspective, Wyatt was the golden catch who was far too good for her—a sickening notion shared even by her own biological father.

There was a subtle change in Clayton's gaze as he watched her laugh, the ice melting into something darker.

"In the days to come, I will demonstrate the exact difference between myself and scum, Ms. Winslow."

In shorter words, he would go all out to woo her.

With those final words hanging in the air, he turned around to leave the room, seemingly reluctant to waste any more time arguing about this matter. After all, no one could change the mind of a man like him after he made a firm decision.

"Mr. Caldwell." Hazel quickly stopped him when she forced herself to come back to her senses.

Clayton stopped in the hallway, but he did not turn around to face her.

"I suggest that you find out about my disastrous past first."

"I do not have to."

With those short and direct words echoing down the corridor, he left without stopping this time.

Hazel maneuvered her wheelchair out of the pediatric room, returned to her own silent ward, and got into her bed with a heavy sigh.

When she glanced at the sleek phone on the nightstand, she remembered that she had yet to wire the money for the device over to Clayton.

Still, she soon decided against it. He did not look like he would miss the minor amount of money, and she could just consider the phone as fair compensation for her massive emotional distress today.

She dialed an unfamiliar string of digits that she had engraved deep in her memory. The line buzzed before connecting.

"Mr. Bates? It is me, Hazel Winslow."

"Good afternoon, Ms. Winslow."

"I wish to inherit Zenith Group—the fashion company that my mother left me. Would there be any legal issues blocking me?"

"Of course not. Your mother made it clear in her official will that the company belongs to you. You can claim it anytime you want," the seasoned lawyer replied right away without a hint of doubt.

Hazel felt a rush of cold determination. Ever since her mother's tragic death, Zenith Group, whose main business was dominating the fashion industry, had been taken over by Arthur acting as the custodian, even after Hazel was shipped abroad.

Hazel had originally wanted to take over and manage her mother's legacy when she returned to the country with Wyatt, but she foolishly poured all her time and strength into saving Mercer Corp from its financial crisis instead. Unable to divert her exhausted attention, she had set the idea aside until now.

Now, she was initiating a ruthless legal battle to rip Zenith Group right out of Arthur's greedy hands.

"Please do accompany me to the company's main office when the time comes."

"I will be ready whenever you say the word." Philip Bates agreed to the plan right away.

Hazel stayed confined at the hospital for a full week, and Edward would visit her room frequently. While she did not hate the boy's cheerful presence even though it took up most of her free time, that meant seeing Clayton from time to time.

That being said, she did not find the towering man repulsive. After he formally declared his love to her the other day, he did not actually cross any lines or try anything forward.

In fact, there were stretches of time when he sat in the corner reading documents, so incredibly quiet he might as well have not existed in the space.

She hence began to wonder if he had actually just said those bold declarations out of the heat of the moment to win their argument, or if he perhaps did not have the slightest idea what the act of wooing entailed.

The single, solitary thing that qualified as real effort was his unwavering insistence that Hobson delivered her hot meals every day. Clayton orchestrated subtle comfort through the food without ever pushing her firm boundaries; the exquisite dishes also happened to mysteriously fit her specific palate better and better with each passing day.

By the end of the week, the doctor cleared her to leave. As Hazel packed her things into a small tote bag, she took away only the black phone Clayton had provided her.

"Mommy, will I ever see you again?"

Hazel paused her packing. She looked down and saw Edward giving her a miserable, trembling look. Intense separation anxiety and raw wistfulness showed all over his flushed face as he gripped the edge of her bed.

The emotionally devastated boy was certainly a stark, heartbreaking contrast against the seemingly nonexistent man who stood nearby, his face a perfectly unreadable mask.