Chapter 3

I had just stepped into the Hans family estate.

Rebecca was leading a group of people. One by one, they were uprooting the roses that I had planted with my own hands.

Arvid instinctively reached out to comfort me. However, before his hand could touch my shoulder, I lunged at him like a madwoman and shoved him away violently.

“Who gave you permission to touch them?! Those are mine! How dare you destroy them?!”

Rebecca gasped as she fell heavily to the ground.

“Yours?”

Arvid hurried forward to help her up.

Tears welled up in Rebecca’s eyes as she said pitifully.

“Mr. Hans, didn’t the madam say we’d swap roles? As the lady of this house, isn’t it my right to get rid of things I don’t like?”

Arvid’s expression was alarmingly dark.

The look he gave me was one of undisguised disgust.

“Of course, you can.”

Following my gaze, he picked up the most vibrantly blooming rose and tore it apart with his bare hands.

Rebecca warned him anxiously, “Mr. Hans, be careful. It has thorns.”

He waved the mangled rose and said dismissively, “Who cares if it has thorns? Everything I set my sights on, I either possess or destroy. No matter how sharp the thorns, once the roots are soaked and rotten, they’ll be docile.”

He turned his head and ordered the butler coldly, “Water them all to death.”

I looked at him in disbelief.

As the roses withered one by one, I finally realized.

What he wanted was never just a beautiful exterior, but a specimen he could control at will.

How ironic. I still remembered how Arvid rented out my entire flower shop for three straight months in order to win me over.

All because of a single remark I made. “Buying so many and not tending to them properly is a waste.”

As the heir of a wealthy family, he braved 104°F heat every day and handed out free roses by the roadside to win my favor.

After three months, his skin had tanned significantly.

His brothers teased him, asking if he was courting women or if he had been working in the coal mines.

On the day he proposed, he laid out a sea of thousands roses in the rose garden he had planted with his own hands.

It was his first time planting roses. With no experience, he got pricked so much that his hands bled.

My heart ached for him.

However, he paid no heed to his bleeding palms. Kneeling firmly on one knee, he proposed to me.

“I didn’t waste those roses. Will you give me a chance to cherish you for the rest of my life?”

Many times since then, I had accepted his unreasonable proposals. All because of that promise he made that day.

He had destroyed it all with his own hands, including my love for him.

A scalding tear fell onto the back of my hand.

Suddenly, he gently wiped the tear away for me.

I was taken aback for a moment. I found myself staring into his intense gaze.

“Layla, you promised me you’d always be by my side, didn’t you?”

Though it was phrased as a question, his tone was one of absolute certainty.

In my hand, I clutched a few roses that had yet to be drowned.

The thorns pierced my palm, and blood seeped out, but I said nothing.

He instinctively took my silence as an admission and slowly stood up.

“Becca didn’t do anything wrong. She’s Mrs. Hans now. Since you proposed this ‘punishment game,’ you’d better be able to handle it.”

I closed my eyes and smiled mockingly.

“Fine. Then, you two can start right now.”

“Do whatever you want.”

Hearing this, Rebecca threw herself into his arms. Her expression was a mix of shyness and excitement.