📖 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 03
Hayden Scott’s arrival changed the atmosphere of the ballroom before he issued a single command. Guests who had mocked Arianna now lowered their eyes, acutely aware that the world’s most powerful oil heir had witnessed their indifference. His gaze moved from the blood on the floor to the phones trained on her face, and fury hardened every line of his expression. “Stop recording,” he ordered. “All of you, get out of my sight.”
No one argued. People scrambled toward the exits, deleting videos when Hayden’s security team demanded their phones. The same crowd that had treated Derek as untouchable fled from Hayden without daring to whisper. Within moments, the room emptied until only abandoned glasses, overturned chairs, and Arianna’s wheelchair remained. Hayden dropped to his knees beside her, heedless of the blood soaking into his expensive suit.
“Arianna, stay with me.” His hands hovered over her as if he feared causing more pain, then carefully supported her shoulders. “I’m taking you to the hospital.” He spoke with the calm authority of someone accustomed to solving impossible problems, but terror trembled beneath the words. Arianna had never seen Hayden afraid before, and the sight frightened her more than the darkness closing around her.
“Why are you here?” she asked. The question emerged as little more than a breath. She noticed the stain spreading across his jacket and gave a faint, broken laugh. “I’m sorry. I ruined your suit.” It was absurd to apologize for something so small while dying, but shame had become instinct after years of being told that her existence inconvenienced Derek.
Hayden’s jaw tightened. “Don’t apologize.” He gathered her more securely against him and looked toward the doors, waiting for the ambulance his team had called. “I should be the one apologizing. I should have come sooner.” His voice cracked, destroying the distance Arianna had always believed existed between them.
He confessed that he had stayed away because he thought she was happy. From a distance, Derek had appeared to be the man Arianna chose, and Hayden had respected that choice even when it hurt him. “If I’d known he would leave you like this, I never would have let you go with him,” he said. Regret made his words rough, but he did not use it to excuse himself.
Arianna looked at the man holding her and finally understood the difference between possession and love. Derek had demanded access to her wealth as proof of devotion, while Hayden had accepted her rejection because he wanted her happiness more than his own. She had mistaken manipulation for passion and patience for indifference. The truth had waited until she possessed almost nothing except a few fading breaths.
“I gave everything to a man who didn’t love me,” she whispered. Tears slid toward her temples as she stared at the ceiling lights. “My father tried to warn me, but I wouldn’t listen.” Each admission felt like another farewell—to her father, to the company he built, and to the future she had thrown away.
Years earlier, her father had proposed a marriage between her and Hayden, believing the Scott heir would protect both his daughter and Taylor Industries. Arianna had refused before she truly knew him. Worse, she had accused Hayden of chasing her family connections and mocked the sincerity of his feelings. Derek had encouraged every cruel word, delighting in the distance she created between herself and the one man capable of exposing him.
“I was so mean to you,” she said, struggling to focus on Hayden’s face. “I refused you because of Derek, and you still came.” Her fingers caught weakly at his lapel. “Thank you for caring about me when I gave you every reason not to.” The gratitude in her eyes wounded him more deeply than anger could have.
Hayden shook his head, refusing to let her speak as though this were the end. “I’ve always loved you, Arianna. Nothing will ever change that.” The confession held no demand and no expectation, only a truth he had carried in silence for years. He pressed her cold hand between both of his as if he could force warmth back into it.
The distant cry of sirens grew louder, but Arianna could feel her body slipping beyond their reach. She imagined the life she might have lived if she had trusted her father or looked past Derek’s practiced charm. Perhaps she would still have her company. Perhaps she would have learned how Hayden’s stern expression softened when he was worried, instead of discovering it on the floor where she would die.
“If I could turn back time,” she said, “I would do everything differently.” She would protect her father’s legacy, expose Derek before he could steal it, and never again mistake sacrifice for love. Most of all, she would find Hayden before regret placed an impossible distance between them. “I’m sorry,” she breathed.
Her fingers went slack. Hayden called her name and pressed a hand to her neck, searching desperately for a pulse. “No,” he said, then repeated it as though refusal alone could command death to release her. The paramedics rushed into the ballroom, but their voices sounded far away. Arianna’s last awareness was Hayden holding her as if she were still precious.
Darkness took her without pain. For one suspended instant, there was no ballroom, no broken body, and no past to regret. Arianna wondered whether death was meant to feel this weightless. Then a sharp whistle pierced the silence, followed by the squeak of sneakers against polished wood.
“Go!” someone shouted. A ball struck Arianna hard enough to send pain bursting through her shoulder. Her eyes flew open to a brightly lit gymnasium crowded with students in athletic uniforms. The smell of varnished flooring and adolescent sweat replaced blood and champagne.
She pushed herself upright in panic. Her legs moved. Arianna stared as her knees bent beneath her, whole and responsive, then touched her waist where the fatal wound should have been. There was no bandage, no scar, and no internal agony. Only the healthy body she remembered from years before the crash.
“Am I dead?” she whispered. Laughter and whistles continued around her, too vivid for a dying hallucination. She recognized the school colors painted across the walls and the faded championship banners hanging above the bleachers. This was Maple Valley High, a place she had not entered since graduation.
Arianna pinched the inside of her arm until pain made her gasp. The sensation was immediate and undeniable. Across the court stood classmates who had grown older in the life she remembered, their faces young again. Her gaze landed on the date displayed beside the scoreboard, and the impossible truth settled over her.
She had returned to her senior year of high school, before Derek took the company, before the staged accident, and before Ivy wore her diamond. Arianna’s heart pounded as grief transformed into fierce, disbelieving hope. Then the coach called her name alongside Ivy’s and announced that they would play in five minutes—the first scene of a past Arianna now had the power to rewrite.
