frost.
His voice, laced with authority, resonated softly above me.
In the final moment before oblivion, I strained to look up, my gaze meeting a sharply sculpted face, as cold as
When I awoke, I was lying in a private Villa.
A maid approached, offering a business card. “Mr. Lee sends his regards,” she said, “and instructed me to give you this upon waking.“She added, “Should you require any assistance during your stay, please do not hesitate t
口 contact him.”
I accepted the card.
“Charles Lee…”
7:37 AM
I whispered his name, a sudden ache in my throat, and tears welled in my eyes.
Even a stranger recognized my vulnerability in this foreign land.
Marcus Chase, however, remained unconcerned.
I had even resorted to self–inflicted pain, hoping to punish him.
How utterly foolish of me.
If I cannot cherish myself, how can I expect it from another?
W
As if to atone for the debts of his past life, Marcus Chase indulged Summer Sue with an almost unsettling devotion, granting her every whim.
For Summer Sue’s birthday, he commandeered the revolving restaurant atop an international hotel, airlifting in thousands of American roses to adorn the
nue.
He invited all his acquaintances to the celebration, a gesture from which I was, naturally, excluded.
In my previous life, Marcus Chase hosted my birthday at his private Villa nestled in the mountains.
I attended, relegated to the role of a mere bartender.
My cocktails, at least, earned the begrudging praise of his coterie of wealthy, second–generation friends.
Thereafter, Marcus Chase would recount that birthday party countless times, each recollection leaving his eyes brimming with tears.
On one occasion, he even seized my throat in anguish, lamenting: “I deserve to die! Why did I drink the cocktail you concocted? Summer Sue saved my life, and I vowed to marry her! But you have ruined everything! I have failed her; I am so sorry to her…”
A crushing wave of suffocation washed over me, and I nearly lost consciousness.
In that instant, the stark realization dawned upon me: he harbored only hatred and had never, not even for a fleeting moment, believed in me…
Subsequently, I ceased to defend myself, merely observing with numb detachment, as he repeatedly indulged in nostalgic reveries of his former love.
This morning, he commanded the driver and bodyguards to drag me, against my will, to the mountains and imprison me within that secluded vilia.
A gilded cage, he calls it, for my ‘recuperation‘ in the mountains.
Gazing upon the servants and bodyguards, an impenetrable wall surrounding the villa, a bitter laugh escaped my lips.
Does he truly fear so greatly that I might shatter his precious romance?
is such a tactic not utterly base?
Q3
In the dead of night, I was roused from slumber by the sounds of carnal delight emanating from the adjacent
room.
The night’s profound silence served only to amplify each and every lascivious whisper.
“Marcus, please, be more gentle… Felicity is right next door, you know.”
“I brought you here so she would finally abandon any inappropriate notions she harbored.”
I could endure no more, and fled downstairs.
The night air was crisp, and clad only in my pajamas, I wandered aimlessly into the courtyard.
My eyes were drawn to the cherry blossom tree standing sentinel in the yard.
In my past life, it was beneath this very tree that Marcus Chase, without a second thought, drained the meticulously crafted cherry blossom wine I had prepared.
