The Billionaire’s Reborn Rose: Sweet and Seductive

Pain… So much pain… Emily awakened to a searing ache, lifting her gaze to meet eyes filled with a raw, suppressed fury. Mr. Thompson? How… how could this be? Wasn’t she dead? But why, after death, would she see Mr. Thompson? Could it be… was Mr. Thompson also dead? No, impossible! He was too powerful. Ethan could never have killed him! So, this must be a hallucination… a cruel trick of her dying mind. Her lips trembled, “Mr. Thompson…” “Emily, how could you do this to yourself! For Ethan, of all people! Do you even think about what this does to me?!” Mr. Thompson gripped Emily’s wrist, the one she had slashed with the broken wine bottle. His handsome face was contorted with rage. His usually deep, resonant voice was thick with suppressed fury. Inside the private room, a stunned silence fell. Mr. Thompson’s three closest friends – Nick Ziegler, Tom Jun, and Finn Ellis – who had been keeping him company as he drowned his sorrows, watched the scene unfold in stunned silence. In this game of wills, it was Mr. Thompson who had ultimately lost. All because Emily had threatened to end her own life. And Mr. Thompson, could never bear to see Emily die. Emily stared blankly at the furious man, her mind reeling in disbelief. The pain radiating from her wrist came in two distinct waves. She couldn’t help but look down at the source of the agony, and what she saw made her pupils dilate in shock! On her once smooth, pale wrist was a deep, jagged cut. A fresh wound! Blood was welling up, and she could feel the sting of glass shards embedded within the gash. The pain was impossible to ignore. The other pain… the crushing pressure of Mr. Thompson’s grip, felt like it would break her wrist bone. Emily’s expression became dazed. This felt so familiar… This scene… it was so familiar. It was just like the night of her graduation, when she was 22, when Ethan had proposed to her during the graduation ceremony, causing a sensation across campus. After she had accepted Ethan’s proposal with giddy joy, she had used the threat of self-harm to force Mr. Thompson to accept her marriage to Ethan… She remembered breaking into the private room where Mr. Thompson usually drank, and after Mr. Thompson had coldly refused to let her marry Ethan, she had smashed a wine bottle against the edge of the table. Then, she had used the jagged, broken half of the wine bottle to s***h her wrist. That was the first time she had seen Mr. Thompson’s dark, terrifying side. He had hurt her for the first time, and the first time he had ever yelled at her in public. In the end… He had agreed to her marriage to Ethan. And from that day forward, she had never seen Mr. Thompson again. Even at her wedding to Ethan, Mr. Thompson, the man who had been her family for ten years, hadn’t been there to witness it. Emily stared at the handsome man before her, a man who felt too real to be a figment of her imagination. Her heart pounded with realization. Could it be… was she reborn? Had she been reborn to the night she had forced Mr. Thompson’s hand with the threat of suicide? But only those who knew him well understood that his tightly clenched fists were the only thing holding back his inner turmoil. God, how he longed to lock her away, to keep her from ever seeing that man again! A… agreed? Snapping back to reality, Emily was struck by another wave of shock! Right, that’s how it happened last time. After she had slashed her wrist in public, Mr. Thompson had agreed to her marriage to Ethan. And from that night on, she had never seen Mr. Thompson again. He didn’t answer her calls, didn’t reply to her messages. He had vanished from her world completely. No, she couldn’t let him disappear like he did in her past life! “You… you’re agreeing to let me marry Ethan?” What could she do? How could she make him change his mind and refuse? “Yes,” Mr. Thompson replied, his lips barely moving. Could he really watch her hurt herself again? Was that the only choice he had? The little rose he had nurtured with his own hands was finally being plucked by another man. And a manipulative one at that. She trusted Ethan. She didn’t trust him. It was… ironic. “No, you can’t agree.” After a moment of stunned silence, Emily suddenly spoke, her voice trembling, and then she threw herself into Mr. Thompson’s arms. “Mr. Thompson, I was just joking! I don’t want to marry Ethan. I want to go home… Please don’t abandon me…” The agonizing pain in Mr. Thompson’s heart, which felt as though it had been torn to shreds, momentarily subsided. He looked down at the tousled head in his arms, his handsome face a mask of confusion. She had forced his hand with the threat of self-harm. He had agreed. But why was she reacting like this now? She was the one who was pushing him away, so why was she now accusing him of abandoning her? And the others in the private room: “…” They’d seen plenty of people change their minds on a dime. But they had never seen anyone flip the script quite like Emily! At that moment, Emily knew that her behavior was irrational. She had just threatened self-harm to force Mr. Thompson to agree to her marriage to Ethan, and now she was instantly regretting it, as if possessed. But she didn’t care. She needed Mr. Thompson to personally agree to take her home, to personally assure her that he wanted her. That way, he wouldn’t disappear from her world the next day, like he did in her past life. “Mr. Thompson, I’ll be good from now on, please don’t abandon me…” Emily clung tightly to Mr. Thompson’s waist, terrified that he would pry her hands away. Mr. Thompson hadn’t held Emily in a long time – hell, she wouldn’t even let him get close to her. He knew that Ethan had poisoned her mind. Teaching her to keep her distance from him. But now, she was in his arms, and she was the one who had initiated the embrace. She said he was abandoning her, but how could he ever abandon her…? “I’m not abandoning you,” Mr. Thompson replied, surrendering to his instincts and wrapping his arms around the girl who was crying so hard it broke his heart, not caring if she kicked him away the next moment. The men in the private room: “…” Sighing and shaking their heads. Mr. Thompson was completely and utterly wrapped around this little girl’s finger, and he would never escape.