<h4>Chapter 552: Chapter 551: I Can’t Stand Being Ignored by Her</h4>


    "Ashton..."


    A trembling voice sounded.


    Joanna Lawrence turned her head and saw Reba Kelloway’s eyes reddened, looking very aggrieved and sad, her tear-filled eyes staring at Ashton Heath.


    She spoke, choking back tears: "Are you still mad at me? I know it was my fault that day, I shouldn’t have said those hurtful words to humiliate Joanna’s brother before knowing the whole truth."


    "I know I was wrong."


    "I’m willing to apologize to Joanna, just as long as you forgive me, I’ll do anything."


    "But, please don’t treat me like this, I really can’t take it."


    Ashton Heath turned his head and looked at her pitiful and submissive appearance, his face expressionless and his voice cold as he said: "What are you doing here? Didn’t I tell you that I don’t have time to see you today?"


    His cold attitude was a far cry from the tenderness and indulgence he showed towards Joanna just a moment ago.


    When he looked at Joanna, his eyes were filled with tenderness, and his gaze was so focused and intense that it made one’s heart flutter.


    But when he faced Reba, his eyes revealed only indifference and coldness.


    There was even a hint of estrangement in his gaze.


    His attitude almost broke Reba.


    The tears that had been lingering at the corners of her eyes finally flowed down her cheeks.


    She cried grievously, her eyes full of hurt: "Ashton, do you really have to be like this? You said you have no time to see me, but as soon as you heard Joanna was here, you interrupted an important meeting just toe and see her."


    "Is this what you call not having time?"


    "You have time to see her but not me? Is it really because you don’t have time, or is it because you don’t want to see me?"


    Joanna Lawrence: "..."


    It seems that liking someone can indeed lower one’s intelligence.


    Reba was quite an intelligent woman.


    But she actually asked such an obvious question.


    Did she want Ashton to say outright that he didn’t want to see her before she would be satisfied?


    However, from what Ashton had just said, it seemed that Reba had contacted him beforeing to the Heath Group?


    And then she was refused by him on the grounds that he had no time?


    Thinking about this, Joanna felt a hint of happiness deep in her heart.


    Well, it seemed she had a very conscientious husband.


    Without her intervention, he had already cut off all the unwanted affections around him.


    Even for Reba, an omnipresent figure in his life who had been there for more than twenty years, he didn’t hesitate to sever tiespletely and decisively, without dragging his feet.


    Although, as a married man, this was what he should do.


    However, there weren’t many married men who could actively do this.


    He was especially conscientious in this regard.


    Just for this, Joanna felt he deserved a reward.


    Ashton Heath still looked indifferent at the tearful and red-eyed Reba. His voice was so cold and ruthless that even Joanna felt he was a bit too heartless: "Since you know I don’t want to see you, why did youe?"


    He spoke coldly to Reba while his hand gently stroked Joanna’s hair: "Joanna is my wife, I have time for her anytime. Reba, I don’t think I need to tell you the difference between a friend and a wife. There’s no need for you topare yourself with Joanna, as you both hold different ces in my heart."


    "And..." He ignored Reba’s increasingly pale face, and amidst her torrent of tears, he picked up a cup from the table, sipped water from the spot where Joanna’s lipstick mark remained, and continued: "In the future, don’t act like you know me so well in front of my wife. If she misunderstands, it will take me a long time to appease her. Although I don’t mind appeasing her, I can’t stand being ignored by her when she’s angry."


    "I am obsessive about cleanliness, but no one is like that with their own wife. Do you understand?"


    The cup on the table was white.


    Reba had noticed the lipstick mark on the rim earlier.


    When she saw Ashton deliberately press his lips against the lipstick mark left by Joanna, she felt as if she had been pped in the face several times.


    It seemed as if she could hear the sound of pping echoing in her ears.


    She suddenly realized that Ashton had heard everything she and Joanna had said earlier.


    He was showing with his actions that he didn’t mind at all.


    Reba’s greatest advantage in front of Joanna was her more than twenty years of friendship with Ashton.


    She and him were considered matching in social and economic status, childhood sweethearts.


    They were also regarded as the perfect couple in the eyes of others.


    Moreover, she was the only woman who had been able to get close to Ashton in the past twenty years.


    Other than her, there were no other women in Ashton Heath’s circle of friends.


    Even though he had never been particrly close to her, Reba was already very satisfied whenpared to others.


    No matter how he treated her, she surpassed all other women just by having this unique connection with him.


    She always believed that no one knew Ashton Heath better than her.


    And yet, his words had just denied her understanding of him altogether.


    Whether he meant it or he said it deliberately to keep Joanna from misunderstanding, it didn’t make a difference to Reba.


    Either way, it felt like a stab to her heart.


    It was as if her heart had been shed by a sharp de, bleeding and aching.


    She knew Ashton too well.


    It was precisely because she understood him that she was now in so much pain.


    He really did like Joanna.


    He was so determined to protect her and not let her be wronged.


    But did he know how deeply he was hurting her as he defended the woman beside him?