Joseph had been staying in the villa these few days. So, when he saw the luggage in my hand, he immediately called Ashton.
Then, he halted me in my tracks and gave me a perplexed look. “Mrs. Fuller, are you going somewhere? Why don’t I give you a ride?”
I shook my head. Smiling faintly, I said, “It’s alright. I’ve already called a cab. It’ll arrive soon.”
Indeed, the car arrived soon after.
Sally probably never expected me to leave so hastily. So, when she saw the car, she panicked and turned pale. Tugging on my hand, she hurriedly said, “Scarlett, no. You don’t need to leave so soon. I…”
“What Ms. Fuller said was true. I should have known better.” I cut her off. With that, I got into the cab.
Joseph was puzzled, but he could not stop me by force. In the end, he hopped into his car and followed me.
Previously, John had given me a house in K City. I thought I would never use it, so I had never gone there. Now that I was in need of a place to stay, I hailed a cab and headed there.
The house was located some distance away from the city center. The place was spacious with a stylish interior design. However, because it had been unoccupied for quite a number of years, it inevitably had a musty smell.
I did not expect the first person to visit my new place would be Marcus. When I saw him, my expression immediately turned cold.
I looked at him in disdain and spoke in an irritated tone. “Why are you here?”
He seemed to be happy to see me here. Glancing at the room behind me, he nodded approvingly. “Do you feel comfortable living here?”
I pursed my lips and ignored his question. “What do you want?”
He was completely unaffected by my unfriendliness. He grinned and asked, “May I come in?”
I pondered for a while before stepping aside. He came in and sat on the sofa in my living room. I did not serve anything to him, not even a glass of water. If it wasn’t for our friendship in the past, I wouldn’t even let him in. After our last encounter, the relationship between us is no longer the same.
“Four years ago, after we parted ways in M Country, I came back not long after. After knowing that you’d left the Fuller family, I looked for you everywhere. I always wondered if you’re fine and where you’d gone. Every year, I wander in various cities to search for you. But at the same time, I was afraid of meeting you.” He spoke calmly and gently, unlike the way he had talked that day. “Scarlett, you have no idea how much I missed you.”
If we reunited four years ago, I would calmly ask him how the accident happened, why did he go to M Country, and why didn’t he come back after he survived the accident. But I’m no longer interested to know any of the answers. Now, I just want him to leave.
I took a deep breath and said, “I don’t know your purpose in pestering me. But if you’re planning to use me to join hands with the Moore family, I’d like to tell you that it’s not going to work. Four years ago, I didn’t acknowledge them as my family. What makes you think that I’d return to them now? As for the Stovall family, I think John hates you as much as Ashton despises you. As such, he is even less likely to cooperate with you. What I want to say is that bothering me would not bring any benefit to you.”
Since he’s a businessman, I shall analyze the benefits for him.
Silence filled the living room momentarily. He then reached out to take my wrist before pressing my palm onto his abdomen. What I touched was his scar. “Four years ago, I brought you back to Clermont from the hospital. You were mentally unstable after you lost your child. And you would often sit on the balcony alone, staring blankly into the distance. If there was no one around you, you’d try to jump out of the window. Afraid that you’d hurt yourself, I locked all the windows in the villa. Later on, you would wake up in the middle of the night to look for a knife and cut yourself. One time, you almost hurt yourself. I went to grab the knife in your hand and let you stab it into my body. The moment you saw my blood, you fell unconscious for several days.”
He was as cool as a cucumber, but I felt a sudden wrenching pain in my heart. It had been so long that I have almost forgotten that period of time.
He continued, “After you woke up, I asked the housekeeper to store away all the knives and sharp tools in the house. I thought that without these things, you couldn’t hurt yourself anymore. I never expected that you would bang your head against the wall to kill yourself. In order to make sure you’re safe, I forced myself to stay awake so I could watch over you every night. I was afraid of losing you.”
people would always choose to forget the most painful moments in their life. For me, that period of time was the most torturous moment of my life that I would choose to forget.
As he recalled the moments that we shared, my heart ached terribly. But I could not bring myself to speak a word to interrupt him.
I withdrew my hand and wanted to say thank you to him, but it sounded too shallow at this moment. So, I chose to remain silent.
He was still smiling, but there was now a hint of hostility in the way he was looking at me. “You got better day by day after that. And I naively thought that you would not have any hope in your relationship with Ashton again. Scarlett, I know you don’t love me. But so what? We have a long time to bring love and joy into our relationship. However, you still choose to be with him in the end.”
He then laughed sarcastically and mocked, “Scarlett, you never learn your lesson, do you?”
I had nothing to refute him. Pursing my lips, I fell silent.
He scoffed. “I didn’t want to hurt you. But Scarlett, do you know how I got through the nights after my parents passed away? Every night, my parents would appear in my dreams. My mother would yell at me, saying that she was cold while my father would tell me that he was lonely. Then, I’d be wide awake for the rest of the night, haunted by those dreams. How I wish you’re by my side to accompany me like how I’d taken care of you back then. But every time I opened my eyes after the nightmares, there’s no one else but me in my lonely, hollow room.”
