Love Began with the First Meeting
Chapter 815 Explanation (Part Three)

"Although I have been mean to you, you always seek a sense of safety from me," he sighed. With her chin between his thumb and index finger, he made her look straight into his eyes and asked, "Mol, every time you sought that sense of safety from me, had you thought of the possibility that I was the greatest danger to you?" Tears spilled over her reddened eyes. She shook her head slightly as a reply to Brian's question. She sniffed and pursed her lips tightly, letting the tears slide across her cheeks and reach the corners of her mouth. The salty taste spread in her mouth.

"I had said that it would only be a game, but I had fallen into it long ago. Even though I couldn't admit it at the time, when you made your silent confession to me in the snow, I was so bloody confused," Brian said, with a frown. "While both you and I stayed confused, Eric had seen through everything early in the game. If I could have seen through it earlier too, perhaps things would not have gone this way and all these unfortunate things would not have happened, right?" He paused and looked at her tear-stained face. "Mol, perhaps you have no idea about this... At that time in the Phoenix Mountain, when I found that you were unwilling to exchange my life for Daniel's, I had decided that I wouldn't love anybody other than you in my lifetime." Brian's voice contained a deep feeling of grief. During that fatal incident in the Phoenix Mountain, he had figured out thoroughly what he wanted. He had decided to give up Becky and to love nobody except Molly.

Hearing his long explanation, her eyes flooded. Every scene that had happened between them in the past had pricked her heart like thorns when she had left A City at that time. Now as Brian explained how he had felt at the time, she felt her heart ache. "I hoped you would never leave, but you left."

"Bri..." she called his name, sobbing.

Brian heaved a sigh and continued, "After you left, I thought of giving up on each other, but as fate would have it, we met again. And when we met after those four years, you had a husband and a son." He scoffed and raised his fingertips to wipe the tears off Molly's cheeks gently. He went on, "It was not until then that I realized how much a man could get jealous of another man. If a man didn't get jealous when he saw his lover with another man, it only means that he never loved her or cared enough for her. But I was enraged. I was jealous of him."

Molly kept shedding tears. She tried to open her mouth and say something now and then, but she could not utter a word.

"I told myself that even if it was a mistake for me to love you, I would rather repeat that mistake than let you go," Brian said. His eyebrows were knotted tightly together because of the painful memory. And there was grief in his face and it could be seen so clearly from his expression, which was totally different from his usual poker face. "However, in the end I realized that I was wrong." His voice turned hoarse, and he sounded heartbroken,"I realized that if being with me meant bringing harm to you, then I would rather let you go, even though I didn't want to at all."

"Bri...Bri..." Molly cried and shouted in a hoarse voice. She wanted to stop him. She didn't need to hear his explanation anymore. It was enough for her to know that he still loved her. Compared to what he had gone through, her sufferings in the past two years were really nothing at all. They were of no significance.

Holding Molly's face in both his hands, Brian wiped her uncontrollable tears with his fingertips continuously. He said, "I didn't know how to give you the life and the happiness that you desired, so I could do nothing but let you go. Mol, why did you come back?"

"Because I love you!" Molly yelled in a hoarse voice, using all her remaining strength. "Bri, I love you! I love you! I have loved you all this time, ever since the time you had rescued me from the snowy ground, since you revealed your tenderness towards me. Ever since you started showing care for me every now and then, I have loved you. I confessed to you in the snow, I wanted you to build snowmen with me... Everything I did was because I loved you."

Her sight had been blurred by tears and her voice had become hoarse, but she was too excited. She wanted to explain everything."At the time, the only reason why I wanted to leave was because I felt that you didn't love me and that I could never stand by your side. Do you understand now?"

Her endless sobbing almost caused an emotional breakdown. Her depression, which had been accumulated for such a long time, was being vented all at once. It was good for her.

Brian knew that she loved him, but he didn't know how to make her understand that the reason why he had let her go was also because he loved her.

Molly kept sobbing. She didn't care how she looked as tears flooded her face and destroyed her make up. In her frenzy, she slapped Brian's hand away, which was wiping away her tears. She roared between sobs, "You have no idea about my feelings. Do you know how I felt when I saw Becky's photo in the villa? For so many years, I had tried to escape from her vicious abuses in my childhood, which were like nightmares to me. I was afraid of destroying your relationship. I was afraid of being the third wheel."

Molly wiped her tears with the back of her hands, but there was no end to it. But she was not in the mood to think about all that. She went on wiping ceaselessly, while she accused Brian between sobs, "The main reason why I wanted to leave is because of Becky. I wanted to leave because I didn't want to be the unwanted third wheel. I couldn't accept that..."

"You weren't-" Brian tried to tell her, but she cut him off.

"I was!" Molly roared in a higher voice. She sniffed and sobbed, "Whenever I tried to convince myself or when I was on the verge of believing that I was not a burden, you would treat her well and believe her words. That would break me again and make me feel unwanted!" She roared the last sentence aloud at Brian.

Hearing that, Brian's eyes condensed into two rays of cruel light.

Meanwhile, Molly wiped her tears again and said in a heartbroken voice, "You treated me well sometimes, and I tried to console myself that it was enough. I told myself to just let it be. After all, you're Mark's father and you're the man I loved." After a pause, she sniffed and continued, "But what happened after that?"

Brian stared at Molly. It was not until then that he suddenly realized that after the past two years, this woman had learned to fight back relentlessly for the things that she wanted. A moment ago, it was her who had been feeling guilty, but now the stakes had turned on him. How did that even happen? He wanted to laugh, but couldn't in the current situation.

As Molly glared at him, ready for the next wave of attack, she suddenly remembered something. She gulped and asked between sobs, "Brian, was it you all those years ago?"

"Huh?" Brian was confused by her weird question.

"In the mountain behind the royal garden," she said. "Was that you?"

*

Brian's body stiffened at her words. The only significant thing that had happened to him in the mountain was that he had met Becky there many years ago... 'Wait a minute...' he thought. He fixed his gaze on Molly and stared at her.