Chapter 2143
“But nobody believes me,” Ivy’s voice was tinged with dejection.
After all, they had been filming together for quite some time, becoming a makeshift family of sorts.
Yet not a single soul on set seemed to trust her, plunging her into a well of loneliness.
“I thought at least Colton would have my back. Maybe I was fooling myself.”
Was it her? Was there something about her that just didn’t inspire trust?
Balfour reached over and ruffled her hair until it was a tousled mess.
“Why are you stressing over this, Ivy? Does it really matter if those folks believe you or not?”
To his surprise, she nodded emphatically.
“Of course it matters. It’s about feeling like someone’s in your corner. I’ve been nothing but nice to them, why is this happening?” Deep down, she knew the truth. Even if someone did believe her innocence, it was unlikely they’d step forward amid a sea of doubt.
They were just cogs in the machine, too insignificant to risk their necks for her.
Especially since the person in the surveillance footage was wearing clothes identical to hers, making it nearly impossible to clear
her name.
“You know as well as I do,” Balfour said, his hand casually steering the wheel as he shot her concerned glances, “that even if someone thinks you’re innocent, they don’t have the clout to speak up for you.”
“Yeah, I know,” Ivy exhaled, trying to mask the hurt. “But it still stings, you know?”
Then, as if an afterthought, she asked, “Why do you believe me, though? Like they said, the person in the video is dressed exactly like me.”
Balfour’s lips quirked into a half-smile. “I could tell it wasn’t you with just one glance.”
Ivy felt a wave of gratitude inside. Even with the world seemingly against her, someone was resolutely on her side.
But then Balfour continued, “We’ve known each other long enough for me to know your body language and little quirks like the back of my hand.”
“Huh?” Ivy was taken aback, never having guessed that’s how he’d discerned the truth.
She felt her cheeks blushed.
Balfour kept his eyes on the road and continued nonchalantly, “Like how you always reach out with your left hand to open doors since you’re left-handed. The person in the video was clearly right-handed. And you don’t slouch when you walk like she did. Of course, she might have been doing that to hide her face. But most telling is how you wear that outfit. You wouldn’t let the top hang below your belly button because you’ve got legs for days, and she, well, she was all torso.”
The more Balfour spoke, the redder Ivy’s face got. She hadn’t realized he’d been paying such close attention to her, even to the details of her figure.
“What? You’re not telling me you’ve been secretly keeping tabs on this stuff?”
Balfour scoffed, as if she were underestimating him.
“I dabbled in art, knew a bit about human anatomy. How else would I remember such specific details about your body?”
Ivy’s face went from pink to crimson. Shé quickly stopped him, “Okay, okay, I get it. You’re some kind of body sketching savant. Let’s drop it!”
Unbeknownst to herself, her mood had lightened considerably with his words
