Filed To Story: The Scarlet Vengeance: Justice of a Framed Beauty Novel (Grace & Jason)
Veronica shuddered. Did Crispin…do something to her last night?
But when she opened her eyes, she saw Mason’s face.
Veronica blinked in confusion. Was she dreaming? She actually dreamed of Mason.
Just like before, Mason used to love lying on her bed, holding her intimately.
The scene before her seemed so unreal that she reached out her hand and trembled as she touched the other person’s cheek.
However, before her fingers could touch the cheek, a hand suddenly grabbed hers, preventing her from moving forward.
The pair of eyes that were originally closed suddenly opened, and the gaze swept over her face calmly but coldly. “What do you want?”
The tight grip and warmth on her wrist made Veronica finally realize that the scene before her was not a dream.
“You…what are you doing here?” she asked nervously, trying to pull her hand back.
He let go of her hand and sat up. “Don’t you remember?”
“I…” She opened her mouth, and suddenly the fragmented memories from before flashed through her mind.
Right, she seemed to have broken free from Crispin, then hugged Mason, and then…asked him to save her!
Suddenly, her expression became awkward.
“Remember now?” He got off the bed and straightened out his wrinkled clothes.
“You sent me back?” she asked. She only remembered that she seemed to have fallen into his arms at the end, and then she couldn’t remember anything else.
“Otherwise, how do you think you got back?” he asked coldly.
She felt uneasy. “Then why were you…uh, why were you sleeping here?”
“If it weren’t for you holding me down, I could have left a long time ago,” he said, his voice carrying a barely noticeable hint of guilt.
Only he knew that he could have left earlier, but for some reason… he just didn’t. He let her press against him like that, and then… he fell asleep without realizing it.
Was it the same atmosphere as back then? It was so similar to the memories in his mind.
He remembered that he used to love falling asleep with her like this, lying on the same bed, intimately close to each other. It was as if in this world, they only had each other, and as long as they had each other, they could survive.
Even though the memory in his mind was devoid of any emotion, as if he was just watching an old movie, the experience from last night helped him slowly fill in the missing emotions that had been hypnotized away.
“I’m… I’m sorry,” Veronica apologized in a choked voice.
“And in the future, don’t just hug someone and scream for help. Since you dressed like that and were with that kind of man yesterday, you should have known what would happen,” Mason said coldly.
Veronica’s face turned white at the thought of last night’s events, and she defended herself, “I didn’t…
it’s not what you think!”
“How do you know what I’m thinking? Isn’t the Barlow family trying to get Toyar Group’s business? Isn’t this Toyar Group’s young master your benefactor?” he asked.
Her face turned from white to red, and she tightly gripped the sheet on her body. She was both embarrassed and angry.
“Do you really see me that way?” she asked, trembling.
“How I see you doesn’t matter at all. I just hope that next time, you won’t come and bother me,” he replied.
“Bother you?” she murmured, feeling a certain emotion bursting in her chest. She lifted the thin blanket on her body, got out of bed, looked up at him and said, “Mason, do you think I shouldn’t have asked you for help yesterday? I should have let that bastard take me to the elevator, take me back to the room, and do those dirty things to me?”
“That’s your business, it has nothing to do with me,” he replied, his voice indifferent, cold, and unfamiliar.
“Yes, it’s my business, it really has nothing to do with you…” she said bitterly, “Then why did you save me? Why did you bring me back?”
He furrowed his brow and said irritably, “It was just to avoid being laughed at by others. But there won’t be a next time. And if you want to exchange something for your body, you better think it through beforehand. Don’t come back and change your mind at the last minute and make a scene! Or did you see me back then and think that I could benefit the
Barlow family more than that Toyar Group small business owner? So you chose to come to me?”
His words made her body tremble, and suddenly she threw herself at him with all her strength.
The two of them fell to the ground like this.
She pressed down on him, her hands on his shoulders. “Why do you think of me like this? Why?
Shouldn’t you be the one who knows me best? Even if you were hypnotized, it was just your emotions that were hypnotized, right? You should remember everything between us from the past, right? Then you should know that I didn’t start being with you because you could bring any benefits to the Barlow family!”
She spoke loudly, as if all the emotions that had been. suppressed in her heart for so long could no longer be contained and erupted like a volcano.
Tears the size of beans flowed from her eyes and down her cheeks, falling onto his face.
One drop, two drops…they were so hot.
Mason felt a heavy pressure in his chest, accompanied by an indescribable pain.
“Why…why did you hypnotize me!” She choked, “If I misunderstood you, then explain it to me clearly. Say it once, twice, three times, until I don’t misunderstand you anymore…but why hypnotize me? Why forget everything we had in the past? Clearly, you said I was the most important person to you…you said we had to rely on each other…”
Her tears fell even more fiercely, and her crying became louder.
“Don’t you know why I hypnotized myself? Is it really just because of that one misunderstanding?”
Mason looked at Veronica, who was full of tears, and wondered why he still felt sad when he saw her crying like this.
She paused for a moment.
“Veronica, you only see me as a little brother and don’t want to love me. But Grace wants me to stay by your side as a brother, isn’t that too selfish?” he said.
She trembled and closed her eyes, listening to his voice continuing to ring in her ears. “I chose to hypnotize myself just because I didn’t want to be burdened by that impossible emotion from before.”
“I’m sorry…” she murmured, “I know it’s too late for anything I say now, we can’t go back to the way things were…”
“What if we could go back?” he suddenly asked.
“What?” She was startled, opened her eyes wide, and looked at him in disbelief.
“If we could go back, would you love me then? Would you stop treating me like a little brother?” Mason asked, his beautiful black eyes calm as the deep sea, making it hard to read his thoughts.
Veronica was lost in thought. In fact, she had asked herself the same question countless times over the years.
If she had accepted his confession of love back then, would everything be different? There would be no misunderstandings, no separation, and he wouldn’t have chosen hypnosis.
He had always been the most important person to her, the one she was willing to depend on. In the
Barlow family, she never felt like she belonged, she never felt like it was her home, but… Mason was different!
He was her true family, the only one she had in her heart! For him, she could give up everything! And she knew he felt the same way back then!
They were each other’s most important person!
She had always seen him as a little brother and never thought about being with him as anything else.
Or perhaps, in her subconscious, her views on love and marriage were not necessarily long-lasting.
Like her parents, after her mother died, her father quickly found a stepmother.
All the promises he made to her mother were just a joke.
She had also dated before, but that relationship ended abruptly. Of course, part of the reason her relationship ended was because of Mason.
But even without Mason’s interference, her relationship with Daniel wouldn’t have lasted long. Perhaps when there were some changes in the wind, or conflicts of interest, Daniel and Grace would choose their family over her.
So looking back, her first love was just a childish game.
Lovers can be replaced.
But family cannot be replaced. The bond of family can last forever.
So at that time, she didn’t want to change her relationship with Mason!
Even when she found out that Mason’s liking for her had turned into romantic love, she avoided it and didn’t want to face it!
But she never thought that her avoidance would only make the distance between them grow further.
If she had a chance to choose again, would she still avoid it?
Or would she try to accept him?
“I…I don’t know,” Veronica murmured her thoughts, “I don’t know if I will fall in love with you, or if I can stop seeing you as a little brother, but…I think I will try to understand you and see if there is another possibility between us besides siblings.”
But now, it’s too late to say these things. It may even be meaningless.
Time cannot be turned back.
“So let’s try,” he said.
She was stunned. “What…try?” What was he talking about?
Could it be what she was thinking?
“Let’s try to see if there is another possibility between us besides siblings,” Mason said. “I can give you a chance to try. If it turns out that there is no such possibility, then we will go our separate ways. I will give you some money and you can leave Emerald City and never appear in front of me again.”
She was shocked and trying to digest what he had just said.
“So…what if that’s a possibility?” she murmured after a while.
“Then we’ll date, and I’ll choose to lift the hypnosis,” he said.
“Lift the hypnosis?” She blinked, not understanding.
“The hypnosis makes me forget the emotions from this period of my past, but it doesn’t mean they can’t be restored. Before the hypnosis, a secret phrase is set, and that phrase can lift the hypnosis,” he explained.
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“So what’s the secret phrase…” she asked, but halfway through her sentence, she realized it was a silly question. How could he tell her?
“And what about you? Do you want to try that possibility?” he asked, staring at her.
Veronica felt her heart pounding, her intuition telling her that if she missed this chance, he and she might really become strangers from now on!
She missed the old times and wanted to be with him again, even if they weren’t siblings but had a different relationship. She…wanted to give it a try!