Chapter 0251

After hearing that Susan didn’t need a ride, Natalie stopped insisting and told the driver to leave.

Miranda was waiting for her ride outside the hotel. She greeted everyone who approached her. Natalie knew Miranda had someone coming to get her, so she didn’t arrange a ride for her.

Paul, who was always punctual, arrived ten minutes later but was still two minutes early. As the rain started to fall, he glanced through the windshield.

Through the drizzle, Miranda stood in the hotel lobby in her dress. She looked like she had stepped out of a romantic film, and her beauty seemed almost ethereal.

He was momentarily stunned but quickly recovered. He pulled over, got out, and opened an umbrella. After meeting her, he carefully opened the car door for her.

As she bent down, he instinctively held the top of the door to keep her from bumping her head against it.

“Thank you,” Miranda said, looking at Paul and smiling. “Sorry to trouble you again, Dr. Jefferson.”

She had initially planned to hail a cab. However, the weather changed abruptly from sunny to rainy. As a result, she couldn’t find a ride.

At that moment, Susan was standing under a small pavilion across from the hotel lobby, waiting for a valet to bring her car.

She saw Miranda getting into a black Volkswagen. From her vantage point, Susan couldn’t see the man clearly but noticed that his umbrella had an “RR” logo, which is Rolls–Royce’s signature umbrella.

Susan frowned and sneered. “These days, it seems like every young woman with a bit of charm is after wealthy men,” she muttered. “I thought she was different, but it looks like she’s not.”

She wondered about these men’s poor judgment and why they seemed so eager to be deceived.

Paul, the man eager to be deceived, sneezed in the car. Although he had been recovering from a cold, he wondered why he was sneezing again.

Miranda noticed a small charm hanging from the rearview mirror. It was a wooden figure strung with a red knot and two emerald beads. She recognized it as a gift she had bought in the Marvedis.

She asked curiously, “How did you get the idea to hang this in the car?”

Seeing her in the dress for the first time, Paul was so captivated by her beauty that he couldn’t bring himself to look directly at her. Instead, he kept his eyes focused straight ahead.

He replied, “This charm is made of agarwood. It’s meant to bring peace and calm. The Aravonian inscription on the back means ‘travel safely,’ so I thought hanging it in the car would be suitable.”

Miranda watched the charm swaying and couldn’t resist touching it. She turned it around to read the unfamiliar script. “So, this inscription is in Aravonian? I hadn’t noticed before.”

“Yes.”

“Do you know Aravonian?” she asked, intrigued.

“Just a bit.”

“What does it say?” Miranda asked, running her fingers over the inscription.

Paul pronounced the unfamiliar words.

Miranda repeated them. She struggled initially, but she got them right on the second try. “Is that how you pronounce it?” she asked.

He nodded. “Yes.”

Curious, Miranda asked, “When did you learn Aravonian?”

Paul responded, “Around six years ago. I read a research paper by an Aravonian physicist that was written in Aravonian. The translation was poor, so I spent months learning the language to read it in its original text.”

Miranda was surprised. She couldn’t believe he would learn the language just to read the research paper.

Miranda still had a set of data analyses to complete that evening. After discussing it, they decided to grab a quick bite at a nearby restaurant before returning to the laboratory.

By nightfall, only two people were left in the spacious lab.