Jose spoke as though it were obvious.
"Of course."
"Then why won't you run away with me?"
Jose froze for a moment, then said,
"Why would we run away? I'll inherit my father's business. Dad's tire company will be mine someday. If you like Japan, I can buy you a house in Tokyo. If you like northern Europe, I can buy you a villa in Hans Christian Andersen's hometown."
"I can buy you anything you want. Why don't you understand? If we run away, what would I buy those things with? How would I give you a happy life? I couldn't even support myself!"
Jose spoke sincerely, but Maria wasn't buying it.
"What guarantee can you give me? A verbal promise? What do you take me for, some little girl who'll lose her head over a few sweet words?"
"Jose, stop kidding yourself. Men are all the same. They promise to love you forever, then go looking for younger girls a few years later."
"Forget everyone else. Just look at your father. He came out of Heywood and worked his way up from the bottom. And what happened? Hasn't he had several wives? The news keeps exposing his affairs with actresses and young models, too."
Jose's expression showed bewilderment, shock, and anger at Maria's lack of trust in him in roughly equal measure.
"That's it? Just because my father has had several wives, you think I'll definitely turn out to be a womanizer?"
"What else am I supposed to think? There's a living example right in front of me. Isn't that enough?"
At that moment, Su Xiao, who hadn't said a word since the situation took a sudden turn, finally spoke.
"So you saw your own future in Mr. Gonzalez's wives. You couldn't accept that outcome, so you figured that