"Mother, you can't leave yet!"

Xavier's palms were drenched in sweat. He took a sharp step forward to salvage the situation:

"June is just speaking out of anger. Mother, please wait..."

"Wait for what? She won't forgive you. I don't want to waste time playing house with you. If you want to ruin the entire Thorne family, go ahead and do it. Don't think you can threaten me ever again."

Watching his mother's departing figure, Xavier froze in place, unable to move his feet.

After thirty years of chasing her, all he received was that single word: "useless."

"Xavier Thorne, you really look like a clown. You fool around with other women without a care in the world, yet you expect your caged bird to remain devoted to you? Truly, someone who has never received love doesn't even know how to love!"

"We aren't going to play along with you either. Threatening me? Wait for the lawyer's letter."

"This is the first time I've seen a man chase a woman to this extent. What a useless waste!"

...

The crowd dispersed.

A birthday banquet had turned into a monumental joke.

He had done so much—how did it end like this?

In the end, he had still failed to grasp anything.

"Don't go, I still have a gift to give..."

June pulled her hand away forcefully, her fingertips brushing his palm. Her fingertips were white with tension, and her eyes were filled with rejection as she avoided his touch.

"Enough! Wake up. We can never go back. Xavier, let go."

The tremors in his heart turned into a world-shattering earthquake. He didn't want to hear such final words from June.

He couldn't take it; he would go mad.

"No! We can go back!"

"Not everything can be done over. Can you bring my father's ashes back? Can you bring our child back?"

"I..."

He felt drained of all strength. Looking at the mess in the room, he laughed mockingly at himself.

He couldn't do it.

"I'm sorry..."

As the curtain fell on the farce, no one noticed Rosalind, consumed by hatred, hiding in the shadows. She pulled a switch, and the cable of the giant chandelier snapped instantly.

"June Rivers, Xavier Thorne—you both must die!"

Chapter 21

Danger struck in an instant.

June froze instinctively, with nowhere to run. She watched as the chandelier plummeted. In a flash of light and sparks, a broad set of shoulders shielded her tightly.

The weight pressed her to the floor, but in the space between them, Julian was struggling to hold up the burden.

His face was contorted in agony, and though he couldn't see her clearly, he kept whispering words of comfort: "It’s okay, June. It’s okay."

He had been so far away just a moment ago—when did he move to her side so quickly?

And how was he resisting the weight of such a heavy chandelier?

Before she could think further, she immediately called the emergency services and then began helping Julian move some of the heavy metal pieces away.

When she saw a metal rod as thick as half an arm piercing through his back—the mangled flesh pulsating—she burst into tears.

"Julian, why are you so foolish? You have to hold on."

The color drained from the man’s face until it was as white as a sheet of paper, yet he still managed to force a smile, pretending to be at ease to reassure her.

"I'm fine. I can hold it. You forgot—when I was a kid, I survived being bitten in the neck by a wolf. I'm very tough. Don't worry."

When she was six, she had insisted on going herding with Julian. Out of playfulness, she wandered away from the group and encountered a pack of wolves.

Back then, she didn't know how to drive wolves away and simply cried. Just when she thought she would be eaten, Julian ran over regardless of his own safety to save her. He was bitten in the neck and nearly died, only narrowly surviving.

Since then, he carried a hideous scar, yet he never mentioned the deed or the debt of gratitude. Now, he was risking his life once again to save her.

How could she not understand such devotion? To continue avoiding it would be too cruel to Julian.

"I always thought I was brave and independent, but in reality, it was because my father and you protected me so well."

"June, don't for my sake..."

"June! Are you alright?"

When the accident happened, Xavier had wanted to save June, but a pillar had pierced through his palm, pinning him firmly to the spot and allowing Julian to reach her first.

He should have been faster! He should have saved her!

He was willing to give his life for her too! If he had, then he would have been the one she was moved by! He was only one step away!

"June Rivers, you're nothing but a shepherdess. How did you manage to bewitch men so they'd lose their minds over you?"

Rosalind emerged slowly, the shepherd's whip in her hand cracking against the floor. After enduring so much torture, her eyes held nothing but madness.

Locked in a pitch-black basement for days, suffering physical agony, she wanted nothing more than to tear out June’s heart and eat her flesh!

"I am so intelligent and beautiful—how am I inferior to her in any way? Xavier Thorne, you really are blind!"

She lashed the whip across Xavier’s face, and a bloody welt immediately appeared.

The woman’s eyes were red as she savored the miserable state of the group before her.

"Just because I wasn't born into a good family, despite all my hard work, you treat me like this? If you truly loved this woman, why did you let me torture her like that in the beginning? Huh? In the end, you were 'satisfied' by me in bed, weren't you?"

A roar of agony escaped Xavier’s throat as he violently pulled his hand off the pillar. Blood erupted from the wound, staining his entire suit.

"You were nothing more than a toy for my amusement. You have no right to compare yourself to June. I should have locked you away sooner."

In the beginning, Xavier had told June word for word:

"It’s normal for men to wander outside. Tolerance is a lesson every mistress must learn."

And now, he was clarifying it before her:

"You were nothing more than a toy for my amusement."

So, in Xavier's heart, neither of them was as important as he was to himself.

June’s lack of reaction made Rosalind even more hateful. She raised the whip high and lashed it toward June, but before it could fall, June caught it firmly.

When it came to handling a shepherd's whip, she naturally understood it better than Rosalind.

"Rosalind, that is not how you use a whip. Let me teach you."

She gripped the tail of the whip, loosened her hold, then suddenly applied force, retrieving the whip into her own hands before Rosalind could react.

Having herded sheep for over twenty years, she knew exactly how to use a whip to subdue the most stubborn animal.

"You deceived me and harmed me—I could overlook that. But you destroyed my father's ashes and killed my child. I will not forgive you!"

The sound of the whip cracking echoed through the entire banquet hall, followed by a second, then a third...

At first, the woman’s whimpers were suppressed, but in the next second, they exploded. Her pleas for mercy were laced with desperate trembling, growing louder with every strike.

...

"Help!"

Chapter 22

Headlights flashed as ambulances and police cars surrounded the entire banquet hall.

As time ticked away, Xavier Thorne summoned every ounce of courage to plead with June Rivers to stay.

"June, wait. Since the ambulance is here, give me just one minute. I want to give you your birthday gift."

He had gambled everything and still lost—lost utterly. Heaven had not granted him a chance to start over.

He knew that if he let go of her hand now, he truly didn't know when he would ever hold it again.

Perhaps never.

June was exhausted, both physically and mentally. In the past, she had loved the man before her, and her heart had been left riddled with scars. Now that she had cut that heart out, he still refused to let her go.

What was done could not be undone; any attempt to mend it would only make the rift wider.

She was as calm as a still lake.

"There’s no need to give it to me. I don’t want it. Thank you for making me understand my own heart. I love Julian, and I can accept him. I used to think I would never love anyone again—you made me lose the courage to love. But now, I can tell you that I love him. At this very moment, my heart beats for him."

Julian had waited too long for this day. Hearing June’s confession, he became incoherent: