📖 The Story Continues
The story doesn't end here.Continue reading the full story adaptation below and discover what happens next.
Reborn to Love Mr. Right – Episode 02
Consciousness returned to Arianna in fragments: the cold marble beneath her cheek, the copper taste of blood, and Derek’s polished shoe inches from her hand. Every breath scraped through her chest. She tried to lift herself, but the lower half of her body remained useless and the rest of her strength was draining away. Around her, the party had become an audience, watching through phone screens as though her suffering were entertainment.
“I’m sick, Derek,” she whispered. The plea cost more breath than she could afford, yet he did not bend down to hear her. “I think I’m dying.” She hated herself for still appealing to the mercy of a man who had just kicked her from her wheelchair. Still, survival was stronger than pride, and all the money that could save her remained under his control.
Derek reached into his pocket and tossed several bills onto the floor. They fluttered over Arianna’s blood like scraps of paper thrown at a stray animal. “Stop doing drugs, Arianna,” he announced for the benefit of everyone recording. “Heroin will kill you. This is the last time I’m giving you money, and you need to go to rehab. I can’t keep doing this anymore.”
The lie spread through the crowd with astonishing speed. Disgust replaced uncertainty on the faces nearest her, and someone muttered that her appearance finally made sense. Another guest guessed she must be Derek’s troubled relative, while others praised him for trying to help her. With a few practiced sentences, he transformed himself from thief into victim and Arianna from heiress into addict.
“No,” Arianna protested, reaching for his trouser leg. Her fingers lacked the strength to close around the fabric. “Why are you doing this? I gave you everything.” Derek stepped away as though her touch might contaminate him. The money he had thrown was nowhere near enough for surgery, but the insult had never been intended to save her.
Ivy crouched just beyond Arianna’s reach, careful to keep her dress from touching the blood. Satisfaction gleamed behind her sympathetic smile. “Since you’re already like this, I might as well tell you the truth,” she murmured. Derek shot her a warning glance, but she seemed unable to resist claiming her victory. Arianna stared at her, sensing that the cruelty to come would be worse than anything she had already heard.
“That accident that left you paralyzed from the waist down?” Ivy asked. She paused long enough to savor Arianna’s confusion. “We made it happen.” The room seemed to tilt, though Arianna could not move. For months she had blamed weather, bad luck, and her own slow reactions, never imagining that the crash had been planned by the two people closest to her.
Pieces of that night returned with terrible precision. Derek had insisted she take a particular road home, claiming construction had blocked her usual route. Her brakes had failed on the steepest curve, and Ivy had been the last person near the garage before she left. What Arianna had called a tragedy was attempted murder, followed by months in which Derek posed as her devoted protector while taking control of what remained.
“You’re lying,” she said, but the denial sounded empty even to her. Ivy’s smile widened. Derek did not contradict the confession; he merely looked annoyed that it had been spoken aloud. Their silence confirmed what Arianna’s heart still wanted to reject. They had not simply abandoned her after the accident—they had caused it and then waited for her to die.
Ivy rose and smoothed her dress. “If I were you, I’d kill myself,” she said. “What’s the point of living like a stray dog?” She slipped her arm through Derek’s, displaying the ring bought with Arianna’s money. Together they turned away, certain that the woman on the floor no longer possessed the power to threaten them.
“Wait,” Arianna called. Her hand dragged weakly across the marble, leaving a faint red streak behind. “Come back. Tell me it isn’t true.” No one answered. Derek kept walking, and Ivy did not look over her shoulder. The crowd parted for them with the same obedience it had once shown Arianna.
The doors closed behind the couple, sealing her away from the life they had stolen. Guests began drifting off as well, their excitement fading now that Derek had provided a convenient explanation. One woman stepped around Arianna’s discarded wheelchair without offering assistance. Another lowered her phone only after capturing a final close-up of the supposed addict bleeding on the floor.
Arianna’s fear gave way to a grief too large for tears. She had surrendered her inheritance because Derek said business pressures would overwhelm her while she recovered. She had believed his coldness came from exhaustion and blamed herself whenever he chose Ivy’s company over hers. Every kindness had been calculated, every excuse designed to keep her compliant until she had nothing left.
Her father’s face rose in her memory. He had built Taylor Industries over a lifetime and entrusted it to the daughter he adored, only for her to hand it to the son of his driver. Derek had not merely betrayed Arianna; he had desecrated her father’s legacy. The realization filled her with a desperate wish to live, if only long enough to take everything back.
She pressed one hand against her abdomen, but blood continued to seep between her fingers. The surgeon’s warning echoed in her mind: without immediate treatment, the internal bleeding could become fatal. She had come here hoping Derek would fund the procedure with money that had once been hers. Now even an ambulance seemed impossibly far away.
“Help me,” she whispered to the remaining guests. A few avoided her eyes, while others murmured that addicts could become violent. Derek’s lie had given them permission to abandon her without guilt. Arianna had once believed wealth made people listen, but she finally understood that they listened only to whoever appeared to possess it.
The edges of her vision darkened again. She thought she heard the distant doors open, though it might have been another trick of her failing senses. The room’s scattered conversation fell silent, followed by a wave of startled whispers. A name passed through the crowd with a mixture of awe and fear: Hayden Scott.
Even half-conscious, Arianna recognized it. Hayden was heir to the largest oil company in the world and the man her father had once chosen for her. She had rejected him before he could properly explain himself, convinced that accepting an arranged match would betray her love for Derek. Afterward, Hayden had vanished from her life without ever retaliating for the humiliation she caused him.
Firm footsteps crossed the marble toward her. The people who had refused to help hurried aside at once, and phones lifted once more. Arianna wanted to hide her ruined body from the one man who had always treated her with dignity. She no longer had the strength even to turn her face away.
The footsteps stopped beside her, and a shadow fell across the blood-stained floor. A man’s breath caught sharply before he spoke her name with disbelief and pain. “Arianna? Is that you?” She forced her eyes open and found Hayden staring down at her—not with disgust, but with the horror of someone who had arrived at the end of his worst nightmare.
