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 Featherstone 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. “Sienna, 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 Stanhope family, I think John hates you as much as Anthony 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 Anthony again. Sienna, 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, “Sienna, 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 Sienna, 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.”
As Marcus looked at me, I could see his expression darkening. “Do you know how it feels to struggle alone in the darkness?”
I pursed my lips. I wanted to apologize but the words were stuck in my throat.
“Sienna, I used to love you. But now, I hate you as much as I loved you in the past.”
I couldn’t believe these words would come out of Marcus’ mouth. Stunned, I was lost in my thoughts for a long while.
When I was back in high school, I learned about the law of conservation of energy in physics. Later, I learned that in political materialism, it was also believed that conservation was everything.
Back when we were young and naive, we thought that everything we learned in school was purely about astronomical geography. Thinking it over then, I finally came to the realization that we had actually learned life lessons throughout those years without even noticing it.
There was no such thing as unconditional love in this world. It was impossible for love to exist without attached conditions. In fact, love was all about to give and take. The relationship between two people was designed to be an exchange process. If you enjoyed receiving all the love and affection from your partners without making any effort to return back, the uneasy feeling in your heart would never fade away.
I would probably never be able to face Marcus in my lifetime.
He’s right. He was the one who got me out of hell. So why didn’t I reach out my hand when he was in hell?
After he left, I stayed up all night sitting in the living room. I was in no position to judge Marcus. Every step he took was him trying to find peace in his heart.
September in K City was neither too cold nor too hot, but the cool breeze in the middle of the night was enough to keep people awake.
It was a sleepless night for me.
After I had left Anthony’s side, it didn’t take him long to show up. It wasn’t something beyond my expectation. Hence, I wasn’t surprised at all.
I didn’t have to worry about Summer as the housekeeper and driver were responsible for taking care of her.
Anthony came at seven o’clock in the morning while I was still sitting on the sofa. I had no idea how long I had been sitting there, but it was probably a few hours since my body felt stiff and numb.
I opened the door when I heard the doorbell rang. It had only been a night since Anthony and I last saw each other. As our eyes met, I noticed that there was stubble on his chin. He looked haggard as if he had gone through the vicissitudes of life.
“Can I come in?” He sounded distressed.
I nodded and made way for him.
He looked at me with a gentle gaze. “I’m sorry.”
I smiled faintly. “I’m not mad.” After all, Sally was the elder in the Featherstone family. There was nothing much he could do.
He pulled me into his arms, enveloping me in the tobacco smell on his body. “It won’t happen again.”
It sounded like a promise, as well as an assurance.
I hummed faintly in response. At that moment, I felt a sense of peace and relief to be able to lean on him.
I began to feel sleepy. I closed my eyes and asked, “If you’re not busy today, can you stay with me for a while?”
He answered with a slightly indulgent smile, “I’m not busy. We have all the time in the world.”
I knew that there was no way he wouldn’t be busy. After all, Marcus had the intention of targeting Featherstone Corporation. He was dying to see the downfall of Featherstone Corporation. Hence, he would not miss out on any opportunity to pick on Anthony.
Even though I knew that he was lying, I simply pursed my lips and smiled faintly. It didn’t matter. Life was a long journey. At some point in our life, we just had to live for ourselves, even if it was just for a few days.
It was actually quite a good option if we could just live our lives in peace and serenity like that.
By the time I woke up, night had already fallen. Unknowingly, I had slept for the whole day.
Anthony was leaning on me. He chuckled softly when he noticed I was awake. “What were you dreaming of?”
“I dreamt of a beautiful sea of flowers.” I dreamed quite often recently. In my dream, Macy, Grandma, and Grandpa were there, as well as my child who had grown up.
Noticing how absent-minded I looked, he reached out and pulled me into his arms. “Initially, I kept the villa just for you. If it triggers some bad memories, how about we move to a new one?”
I was amused. “How bold of you. Aren’t you afraid of being captured by the paparazzi and being branded as a spendthrift?”
He rested his chin on my cheek, his stubble prickling me. “I don’t mind being the subject of some gossip for you.”
I stopped teasing him and simply smiled in response. Then, I got up from bed. There was nothing much in the house since I had just moved in.
Hence, I decided to order a takeout.
New Book: Back Home to Marry Off Myself
Loredana’s father left the family for his mistress, leaving them to fend for themselves abroad. When life was at its toughest, her father showed up with “good news” after 8 years of absence: To marry off Loredana to a paralyzed son of the wealthy Mendelsohn family.
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