Chapter 49 Who Else Would Bully Me Except for You?
Rose stared blankly at the Rolls-Royce approaching from afar.
While praying, Keenan occasionally used to ride in his car to run errands, hoping that Judson was not inside.
While quietly wondering, I didn’t know whether this dramatic situation was purely coincidental or deliberately orchestrated.
When the car window came down, it was no longer realistic to leave.
Judson sat in the car, looking at her with a cold expression on his face.
***
The sun was scorching.
Judson saw the woman in a dark red jumpsuit standing in front of a pristine white wall, ethereal and alluring, like a stroke of vibrant color from a painter’s brush, ready to blend into the canvas behind her.
When he came to his senses, his fingertips had already opened the car door.
Rose, who was originally still in front of the drawing paper, paused for a moment. Without thinking, she quickly turned around and walked in the opposite direction along the wall.
She walked faster and faster, until she was almost running in the end.
But the footsteps behind were still getting closer little by little.
Finally, her arm sank and was already pulled back to her body.
Inertia almost caused Rose to collide with the man.
But immediately, she was pressed against the wall by Judson.
The afternoon sun heated the wall so hot that Rose’s clothes on her back were rolled up at the edges,
“Addicted to playing hard to get, huh?” Judson lowered his head, his nose almost touching her forehead.
Rose looked at Judson with obvious confusion and surprise. Judson sneered, “How long have you been waiting?”
Waiting here with careful planning, only to run away when I saw him. Isn’t this playing hard to get?
Don’t tell him that she came to interview Maverick. Maverick never accepted any interviews from journalists.
Rose: “I came to interview Mr. Brown!”
Judson:
“Ha!”
He actually guessed it right, even the excuse he made was so unoriginal.
“Rose, I have a piece of advice for you,” he said, gripping her arm with one hand and leaning against her side, blocking all her escape routes.
“When lying, be careful. The workplace is not Imperial Garden, and being perfunctory will result in a severe punishment.”
Rose didn’t know whether to laugh or be angry. Her face was filled with disbelief. “Judson, I…”
She had nothing to say!
What is the use of explanations?
What was the necessity?
“You let go of me…”
Judson didn’t let go, he seemed to be provoked by Rose’s mischievous mood, and instead made her feel even more confined.
“What? You came back before the ten-day deadline, did… did you get bullied outside?”
Having been bullied a little, she drooped her eyes and cried, begging him to stand up for her.
This was not the wrist she used to favor in the past.
Rose almost laughed, “Who else in this world would dare to bully me except for you?”
Who could have bullied her and yet she treated them so gently?
Judson’s face darkened slightly as he gripped Rose’s chin, forcing her to look up. His eyes were as cold as knives, scraping inch by inch from her eyebrows to her eyes.
“Do you call that bullying?”
He lowered his head, his lips almost touching her earlobe, the breath mixing with the heatwave of the sun, almost melting her earlobe.
“I thought you liked being bullied by me…”
“Huh…” Rose turned her face away, the last flicker of spark in her eyes extinguished. She mocked herself, but it didn’t matter. “If you want to
think that way, I can’t do anything about it.”
Yes, she used to wait for him eagerly, waiting for him to come back repeatedly, he would humiliate her.
Take the little blessings that slipped through his fingers as the dew of life.
When she finally woke up, she realized that those honeyed sweets that she had enjoyed so much were nothing but poison that eroded her personality.
But Judson need not mention repeatedly, picking up her shattered past from the ground and crushing it into powder with her fingertips.
He used to humiliate her, belittle her, and emotionally manipulate her by keeping her at arm’s length.
However, now, escaping from this relationship, all of his clumsy tricks have been seen through by her and are no longer effective.
But Rose’s indifference only earned her a disdainful snort from Judson.
“After going out for a few days, I have become quite skilled at breaking things.”
He grabbed her wrist and suddenly pulled her away from the wall, dragging her towards the car in a brisk pace.
“Stop messing around, I have important matters to attend to.”
Rose was being dragged, stumbling, and was about to resist, but suddenly quieted down… The scarlet lacquered gate at the end of the courtyard was slowly opening at that moment.
Maverick’s butler greeted Judson and was slightly surprised when he saw Rose getting out of the car with him.
This girl was not…
“Isidro, keep an eye on her,” Judson instructed Isidro, then nodded at the butler, “Where is the old man?”
“The gentleman is waiting for you in the collection room,” the butler withdrew his gaze, “this way, please.”
In the hall, there were only two guests left, Isidro and Rose.
After a few minutes, Rose got up and asked the serv ant standing by, “Excuse me, where is the bathroom?”
Isidro stood up nervously.
Rose pretended not to see him and followed the serv ant’s guidance, walking towards the outside.
Really?
Isidro thought.
The door was closed, Ms. Edwards couldn’t run anywhere.
Following a girl to the restroom sounds like a per vert.
Unconsciously, Isidro remembered the miserable past of being trapped in the girls’ restroom by Rose and her sisters when he was a child.
He just stood outside, just stood outside, keeping a distance and watching.
Shouldn’t be any major problems… right?
“Do you want to look for a butterfly brooch, with diamonds, right?” Mr. Brown put on his reading glasses and took down the index book of his gem collection from the shelf. “Let me see… Oh, there are too many things that have passed through my hands, I can’t remember them all.”
Judson looked up and gazed at the towering mahogany bookcase. This was Maverick’s collection catalog room, where all of his treasures were documented.
He casually opened his mouth and said, “I heard that thing was received by you over a decade ago. Do you want me to help you find
it?”
Maverick was very stubborn and absolutely refused to use a computer to record data.
He firmly believed that using traditional methods could effectively solve all problems.
Judson originally wanted to persuade him again, but Maverick indeed relied on his old method and quickly found the result. “Here, you go and look on that bookshelf over there. It’s the collection I received in XX year, find the album from that year…”
Judson had quickly grabbed it.
He and Maverick quickly flipped to that page based on the page numbers in the index book.
“That’s it!” Judson exclaimed, looking at the photo of the brooch with a rare expression of joy. “Can you sell it to me? You can name your price…”
“It couldn’t be sold,” Maverick shook his head, pointing at the line below, “It was taken out for filming ten years ago. I remember there
was a charity auction, and I personally selected and arranged everything. The money from the sale was used to support vulnerable groups…”
Judson looked at the auction date and the name of the auction house, feeling a little stunned.
Was it such a coincidence?
For so many years, the butterfly brooch that Rose cherished was the one Mr. Brown had taken a photo of back then.
Round and round, it turned out to be the same brooch.
Keenan searched for a long time and unexpectedly found the original owner’s head?
“How did you get this brooch?” Judson asked.
He held a glimmer of hope, perhaps this was designed by Maverick himself, if he still had the blueprints or could find the original designer…
“I took a look… It was sold to me by a friend,” Maverick’s words became vague. “So, is this your property?”
Judson understood.
This brooch probably didn’t have a very legitimate source.
Years later, he had to tell the made-up story he had told back then.
“This is a family heirloom of a friend of mine. When their family encountered a tragedy in the past, and their mother unexpectedly passed away, they wore this brooch. At that time, my friend was deeply affected and lost their willpower. When they finally remembered the brooch, it had already disappeared without a trace…”
Just like the wealthy lady who took away the brooch back then, Maverick actually believed Judson’s nonsense.
“Ah… So that’s how it is. Let me check for you, and I will definitely get back to you with an answer!”
The two of them chatted as they walked out of the storage room.
Perhaps it was love at first sight, Maverick led Judson into the parlor in the front yard.
Judson immediately spotted Isidro, who was anxiously pacing in circles, standing alone in one spot.
His heart sank, “Why are you the only one?”
Isidro’s heart pounded, tears streaming down his face, “Mr. Roach, Ms. Edwards is gone…”
