Chapter 2
1476 Words
Emily had certainly known how to manipulate Mr. Thompson in the past.
“But the Emily standing here now was the Emily who, from a past life three years ago, hadn’t seen Mr. Thompson since.”
She had no idea how to handle him anymore.
The only thing she knew for certain was that Mr. Thompson would always keep his word.
So, after Mr. Thompson said he wouldn’t abandon her, her heart finally found peace.
“Mr. Thompson, my wrist hurts… I want to go home…”
A flicker of fury flashed in Mr. Thompson’s eyes.
Who was responsible for her pain?
But looking at the girl’s watery eyes, red as a rabbit’s, Mr. Thompson finally sighed. “I’ll take you to the hospital to get it bandaged.”
“No, I want to go home. I want you to bandage it for me at home, Mr. Thompson,” Emily said, instantly wrapping her arms around his waist.
She wanted to go home.
The home she had been separated from for three years in her past life.
She wouldn’t let herself be blinded by love again.
From now on, she would listen to Mr. Thompson and stay in the home they shared, forever.
Mr. Thompson’s body stiffened in her embrace, a tingling sensation spreading across his lower back.
If the last vestiges of his sanity didn’t remind him that she had an injury on her wrist, he would have immediately pried her hands off him and run far, far away!
Because… he was afraid of scaring her.
Afraid of the look of shock and disgust in her eyes, afraid she would find him… repulsive.
Before his body could betray him any further, Mr. Thompson decisively reached down and scooped Emily up into his arms.
That way, she wouldn’t notice.
“There’s glass in the wound. You need to go to the hospital to get it cleaned properly,” Mr. Thompson said, and with that, he strode out of the private room, carrying Emily in his arms.
Leaving his three best friends, whom he had called out for a drink, staring blankly at each other.
“We thought they were going to break up for good, and Mr. Thompson would finally give up. But in the end…” Tom Jun said, shaking his head with a look that clearly said, “Mr. Thompson is a lost cause.”
If it hadn’t been for Emily, Mr. Thompson would have returned to the Thompson family in DC three years ago. He wouldn’t be stuck in this backwater town.
“Don’t you think Emily is acting a little strange?” Finn Ellis asked, frowning slightly as he stared at the now-empty doorway.
Tom Jun took a sip of his whiskey and smiled faintly. “Are you saying that Emily’s attitude has completely changed since she slashed her wrist?”
“Yeah, when she came into the room, her eyes were so cold it chilled me to the bone. I felt so bad for Mr. Thompson,” Nick Ziegler said, stroking his chin with a puzzled look. “But after Mr. Thompson actually agreed to let her marry Ethan, she suddenly turned into a different person. It’s a little… creepy.”
Like she was possessed.
And don’t even tell them that she was acting before.
They were all used to seeing all kinds of masks in the wealthy circles of this town. She definitely wasn’t acting before.
On the other hand, the way she was looking at Mr. Thompson with those red eyes in his arms just now… that felt like an act.
Nick Ziegler’s words made Tom Jun and Finn Ellis’s hearts skip a beat. They exchanged glances, a silent agreement passing between them.
It seemed they had to keep a close eye on Emily for Mr. Thompson’s sake.
After all, Emily was a hopeless romantic.
She could easily be manipulated by Ethan and used against Mr. Thompson.
…
At the hospital, Emily gasped as the doctor cleaned her wound.
In her past life, she hadn’t gone to the hospital to get her wound treated, because after Mr. Thompson had said those words of agreement, she had left the private room to find Ethan.
Ethan had given her wound a quick once-over, but it had left a scar that would occasionally ache.
Now, as the doctor cleaned her wound, she finally understood what Mr. Thompson had meant – there really was glass left in the wound.
The reason she had a scar on her wrist in her past life, and why it would still ache even after it healed, must have been because Ethan hadn’t cleaned all the glass out.
Mr. Thompson’s lips tightened as he watched Emily’s eyes redden with pain, though she stubbornly refused to shed a tear.
His aura radiated cold intensity.
After personally tending to Emily’s wound, the doctor wiped a bead of sweat from his brow and said respectfully, “Mr. Thompson, rest assured, Miss Emily’s wound isn’t deep. Just avoid putting pressure on her wrist or getting it wet for a few days, and apply iodine twice a day. It should heal within a week, at most.”
Everyone in town knew Mr. Thompson. He held sway over both the legal and illegal worlds, and his power was immense. The entire local economy depended on him.
And everyone knew that Mr. Thompson cherished one person above all others: Emily Meng.
If she so much as scraped her knee, he would turn the whole town upside down looking for the cause.
The doctor couldn’t imagine whether whoever had harmed her to this extent was still alive.
“Okay,” Mr. Thompson said, stepping forward to sit on the edge of Emily’s hospital bed.
Seeing this, the doctor and the nurse tactfully excused themselves from the room.
Mr. Thompson silently studied Emily’s tear-streaked face for a moment, then pulled out a few tissues and gently dabbed at her tears.
Emily didn’t flinch away, offering a small measure of comfort to Mr. Thompson’s heart, which had felt like it had been ripped wide open tonight.
“Mr. Thompson, I want to go home,” Emily said, tugging pitifully at the man’s sleeve and giving it a gentle shake.
After wiping away her tears, Mr. Thompson didn’t move his hand from her cheek.
His thumb lightly caressed her delicate skin, his eyes filled with a profound emotion that she couldn’t decipher.
“After tonight, I won’t agree to your marriage to Ethan again. Are you sure you want to give that up?”
Mr. Thompson asked in a low voice.
Emily’s birth certificate was in his possession.
And when he had said the word “agree,” he had already prepared to return to DC alone.
But she was suddenly clinging to him again, just like she used to, long ago.
So…
After today, if she insisted on marrying Ethan again, he wouldn’t let her go.
Even if he had to lock her by his side, even if she hated him for it, he wouldn’t let her leave.
Hearing Mr. Thompson’s question, Emily quickly grabbed his wrist. “Mr. Thompson, I’m not marrying Ethan. I’m staying with you forever.”
This was the point in her past life where Mr. Thompson had disappeared.
And she never knew where he had gone.
Later, when her wedding date with Ethan had been set, Ethan had asked her to contact Mr. Thompson, saying that he was, after all, her only family and should attend her wedding to offer his blessings.
That’s when she discovered that she could no longer reach Mr. Thompson.
She was a little scared, afraid that everything that was happening now was just a fantasy created by her dying mind.
Afraid that Mr. Thompson would still disappear from her world.
Staying with him forever…
Looking at Emily’s red, watery eyes, Mr. Thompson smiled.
“You said that before, Emily.”
But after Ethan had appeared, she had broken her word.
Not only had she moved out of the house and into the school dorms, but she hadn’t even wanted to come home on weekends.
The way she looked at him had gradually become colder.
She had even grown to hate him because he didn’t approve of her relationship with Ethan.
He had finally learned the truth of what Tom Jun had said to him long ago: “Keep a close eye on her, or the childhood friend won’t be able to beat the newcomer.”
“This time, I mean it,” Emily said softly.
She couldn’t explain why she had broken her word before. It all felt so distant to her.
It was something that had happened in her past life.
“Don’t bring up old grudges,” she said, tugging at the man’s sleeve with a hint of unfamiliar coquetry and a small act of pleading.
- Writer
