Filed to story: My Gorgeous Wife is an Ex-Convict Novel by Anastasia Marie
“T-there you are,” Grace said dryly while leaning sideways to let Jason into the room.
“Sis, you must’ve waited a long time.” Jason laughed and walked over to the desk. He saw copies of the case file which Grace had left opened on the desk.
His black eyes squinted slightly as he reached out to pick up a few documents and looked through them. “Is Sis looking at that case again?”
Grace’s body stiffened a little. She had mentioned this case to Jason before, but at the time, she did not know his true identity. Now that she knew, there was a lingering embarrassment and helplessness to talk about this case again.
After all, no matter how much she thought she was innocent, the car accident had really happened. Plus, the person who died in the car accident was his fiancée!
“What’s wrong, Sis?” Noticing her delay in answering, he looked up at her.
“I’m just… looking,” she replied as she swallowed the sudden.
flow of saliva in her throat.
“By the way, Sis, you always said that you were wronged. Are you trying to reverse the verdict by looking at these materials?” He was talking as if he was just chatting casually, but a dark look flashed deep in his eyes.
She bit her lip. Of course, she wanted to reverse the verdict!
It was just that the witnesses from then were nowhere to be found, and the physical evidence was all a heap of hard evidence.
During her three years in prison, Lina had spent so much money, time, and energy to overturn her case but failed. When Grace got out of jail with no money in hand, she even had to ask her best friend to help cover her medical expenses that cost just short of ten thousand.
Having been a lawyer herself, she knew how much it would cost to get a lawyer to overturn a case and to reopen an investigation.
In the absence of conclusive new evidence, the police could not waste police resources to re-investigate. She could only investigate everything alone, but she did not have the finances to do so.
Suddenly, she looked straight at him. “How about you? Don’t you want to get to the bottom of the case? Find out why your fiancée drove her car in my direction? Is there something else going on? Don’t you want to know why the woman you love did it?”
He broke into a chuckle. “The woman I love, eh?” At the end of his sentence, his voice slightly rose as if he had heard a joke.
“Jennifer Atkinson was your fiancée. Isn’t she… the woman you love?” She was confused at his reaction.
He put down the documents in his hand and slowly walked up to her, peeping down at her. “Sis, you’ve got half of it wrong. Jennifer Atkinson was my fiancée, but she’s not my the woman I love.”
She was startled, his voice still ringing in her ears.
“Haven’t Sis heard of commercial marriages?”
Her eyes widened abruptly. Of course, she knew about commercial marriages, but she never thought that someone like Jason would need one.
After all, Jason and the Reed family, in a sense, ruled Emerald City. Even if it was a marriage with the Atkinson family, it would be at best an addition rather than a necessity.
She was not the only one who thought so. A lot of people might think so too.
There was no lack of Jason’s ‘love’ for Jennifer Atkinson in the chatter about him online. They all thought that he was deeply in love with Jennifer Atkinson.
That was why he got engaged to Jennifer Atkinson at the young age of 24. Besides, after her death, he never dated anyone else or had any scandals.
“You… wanted a commercial marriage? You were only 24 years old at the time,” she asked breathlessly.
“Why not?” he asked rhetorically. “Since I need to marry a woman in this life, does it make any difference whether I do it later or earlier? Jennifer Atkinson was quiet and obedient enough. A marriage with the Atkinson family could help the Reed family’s development in shipping, so why not?”
He was talking business, and Grace felt a faint pang of fear as she heard this.
It was like he did not know love at all… Even marriage could be a business to him.
What would really matter to a person like him?
“However, now I think it’ll be nice if I married a woman who is interesting to me.” His eyes were fixed on her as he smiled.
She turned away awkwardly. He spoke as if he was referring to something else.
She told herself not to think too much about it. He and she were people of two worlds. They would never be in the same boat. Soon, after giving him the gloves, surely he and she would never see each other again.
“Well… I’ll get you your gloves.” She hurried around him to get the gloves.
“No hurry.” He took her arm, slowly bent down, and looked at her. “Sis, you haven’t answered my question from earlier. Are you trying to reverse the verdict?”
Of course, she was! If she did not reverse the verdict, it meant that she would have to bear this crime and could not hold her head high for the rest of her life.
“What about it?” she asked rhetorically.
“If you really want to reverse the verdict, then I can help you,
Sis,” he said.
She gasped. “You believe that I didn’t drive under the influence?”
“It doesn’t matter to me whether you drove under the influence or not,” he muttered. “It’s just to get your drunk driving conviction out of the way. To reverse the verdict, I’ll find the best lawyer I can to help you find a loophole in the case. That should get you out of it.”
The gleam in her eyes was replaced by gloom. She understood what he meant. According to the innocent until proven guilty principle, she had to find some arguable statement before she could reverse the verdict.
However, that did not mean she could be vindicated.
The innocence of the suspect would always be controversial even if the case was reversed.
“Why? Don’t you like the idea?” He saw the change in her expression.
“I want to get to the bottom of it. I want to know what went on during the accident. Why did the witnesses all say I was drunk? What happened to the physical evidence? What happened to the blood test that the police gave me after the accident, and why did it indicate I was drunk driving…”
This series of questions had been buried deep in her heart over the years.
If she did not get it straight, she would have to bear the crime forever. Even if the innocent until proven guilty principle found her innocent, in the hearts of others, she was still a criminal.
His face gradually darkened. A cold look seemed to appear in his deep, black eyes. “Is it that important for you to know the truth?”
“It’s important,” she said confidently. “To me, the truth is more important than anything else!”
“It has been three years since these things happened. Even if there are any evidence or surveillance videos, they’d be long gone by now. It’s already very difficult to help you reverse the case, let alone find out the truth,” he said.
She forced out a smile and understood what he meant. All he wanted to do was to help her reverse the verdict. As for the truth, it did not matter to him. It did not matter why Jennifer Atkinson crashed the car in a suicidal way that day and what Jennifer Atkinson was thinking.
He had no feelings for Jennifer Atkinson at all. Even though Jennifer Atkinson died, to him, it was just a lack of a suitable candidate to marry.
“Jason, you don’t love Jennifer Atkinson at all,” she suddenly said with great certainty.
His eyelids drooped slightly. “I never said I loved her.”
Jason you are so true to yourself marriage is commercial