Reborn, I Refused the Man I Once Forced to Marry Chapter 12

After Adrian left, Sebastian worried that something else might happen.

So he quietly came to the Hayes residence that night and took the room next to mine.

The window hadn’t been fully closed. Through the narrow gap, I could see him lazily flipping through a book.

Moonlight spilled across his handsome profile, falling over his pale lips and the faint blue veins visible beneath the skin of his wrist.

Had someone who looked so fragile really once been the youngest head of operations in his family?

There was indeed someone like that buried deep in my memories.

I hesitated before speaking softly.

“Sebastian, have you ever been to Blackthorn Hill?”

The man outside paused. Then he turned toward me and raised an eyebrow.

“Little liar. Have you finally remembered me?”

I pressed my lips together and lowered my voice.

“That was the most humiliating period of my life. Could you please forget about it?”

Back then, I was still a child. My mentally unstable mother had shaved my head and sent me to a convent on Blackthorn Hill, where I endured endless mistreatment and cold stares. I’d nearly starved to death.

It was the memory I least wanted to revisit in my entire life.

And yet, that was also where Sebastian and I had first met.

Sebastian sighed softly.

I’d thought he’d comfort me.

Instead, he said, “What a coincidence. That was the lowest point in my life, too.”

“Because I was actually there to kill myself.”

Sebastian would remember that day for the rest of his life.

He’d returned home covered in glory, hoping for nothing more than a single word of approval from his father.

Instead, his father had slapped him hard across the face.

“You joined the family’s operations without permission! Do you have any idea how worried your mother was? She nearly cried herself blind!”

Sebastian had survived the most dangerous conflicts imaginable, but nothing had ever hurt him as much as that moment.

He jumped into his car and sped away from the house, swearing he’d never return and would never call that man his father again.

It was the decision he’d regret most in his entire life.

On a night of heavy snow and bitter winds, his car skidded out of control.

His father had rushed out to find him. In an attempt to save his son, he fell over a cliff.

Sebastian injured his leg in the accident, too. From that day forward, he could no longer run around as he once had, much less return to the front lines of the family’s operations.

After his father’s funeral, he went to Blackthorn Hill alone.

Looking down at the clouds rolling beneath the mountain, he thought that perhaps it would be better to die.

Just as he was preparing to jump, a small hand caught the hem of his coat.

Sebastian assumed the little girl with her unevenly shaved head had come to talk him out of it.

Instead, she pointed at a basket of mushrooms behind her and asked if he could help carry it uphill.

“I’m busy trying to kill myself. Go ask someone else.”

“But you’re the only person here. Can’t you stay alive long enough to help me?”

The two of them stared at each other.

In the end, Sebastian was the one who gave in.

After carrying the basket of mushrooms up the hill, he turned to leave.

But the little girl tugged at him again.

“Could you also make me a bowl of mushroom soup?”

Sebastian almost laughed in disbelief.

“No!”

The little girl looked at him pitifully.

“But I’m so hungry. I don’t have the strength to cook.”

Sebastian gritted his teeth, rolled up his sleeves, and cooked another meal.

The little girl sat on a short stool nearby, swinging her legs as she chewed on a shriveled piece of fruit.

He frowned.

“Is that all you eat?”

The girl glanced at him, hurriedly stuffed the entire fruit into her mouth, and answered indistinctly.

“I don’t get to eat these every day. I worked really hard to dig this one out of the snow.”

Sebastian took out the snacks his mother had packed for him before he left home.

The little girl’s cheeks were stuffed full as she looked at the food with envy.

“Your mother must be so good to you.”

“Where’s your mother?”

“My mother is in the city. I broke her piano, and she got angry. She shaved off all my hair and sent me here. She said she didn’t want me anymore.”

The little girl said it as casually as if she were talking about the weather.

Sebastian couldn’t understand how cruel a mother had to be to shave her own daughter’s head and abandon her alone on a mountain.

The worst punishment he’d ever received had been a single slap from his father.