Chapter 43
“Ethan…?”
Was it really him?
Had she been searching for Noah so desperately that her mind had conjured up an illusion?
Even as her own lips whispered his name, even as her eyes took in his face, Elisa felt no sense of reality.
She simply stared, dazed, as if she had been dropped into a dream.
Even the small hand of Noah, tightly clasped in hers, suddenly felt distant and unreal.
Ethan, too, gazed at her in silence.
Their eyes met and tangled in the air between them.
Neither the biting wind nor the throngs of people passing by could sever that fragile thread.
“They said you were dead… They said there was no chance you’d survived…”
Her dazed murmur drifted into the air, and Ethan’s lips curved faintly to one side.
A heavy shadow darkened the ashen gray of his eyes.
He opened his mouth to speak, but her hand reached him first.
Elisa’s trembling fingers brushed his cheek, tentative, as though to test whether this was dream or reality.
Ethan closed his mouth again.
“…Warm.”
The heat beneath her fingertips told her this was no hallucination, no ghost.
He was alive. He was truly alive.
Tears welled in Elisa’s eyes, distorting her vision until all she saw was a blur of light and shadow.
“They all said you were gone… but I never believed it.”
The tears fell, helpless and unrestrained, gathering along her chin.
“I told myself you couldn’t be dead—that you would come back to me.”
“…You wanted me to come back?”
When Ethan finally spoke again, his voice was low and rough, as if carrying the weight of years of darkness.
Elisa’s throat was too tight to form words. She could only nod. The tears collecting at her jaw slipped down, falling onto Noah’s little head, still pressed against her hand.
“Why?”
Ethan’s voice dropped even lower.
“You wanted me gone from your life forever.”
At those words, Elisa flinched, her eyes falling helplessly to the ground. The cruel things she had hurled at him during the Amorre River Festival came rushing back, cutting into her heart like jagged blades.
“It was a lie…”
The words barely made it out of her throat, strangled and broken. But she had to say them—had to bare her heart, even now, and beg for forgiveness.
“I thought you abandoned me. I was terrified of the gulf between our stations, of what it meant… I thought you ran away because of that.”
Her fingers clutched at his collar as though she could anchor him to her, keep him from slipping away a second time.
“So I pushed you away. I thought—if I let you in, and you left again, I’d be shattered. I was so afraid of being abandoned again… I couldn’t bring myself to accept you.”
And yet—she could never forget him. Not once.
There wasn’t a single day she hadn’t thought of him.
She had tried not to love him, tried to force the feeling down, but it had been impossible.
The words spilled out of her like a confession before a priest. Elisa laid bare every secret, every weakness she had hidden away. And as if sensing his mother’s grief, little Noah began to cry as well.
“Don’t cry.”
Ethan soothed the child, one hand gently patting Noah’s back. With the other, he brushed the tears from Elisa’s cheeks with infinite care.
His tenderness, his aching gentleness, only made her tears flow harder.
“I’m sorry.”
She had promised herself she would apologize the moment she saw him again, but instead, all she’d done was pour out her pain.
“I’m sorry for blaming you, for hating you without knowing the truth. I should have trusted you—I should have believed in you…”
Howard’s words at the counseling center rang in her ears.
Four years ago, Ethan had been able to leave only because he had trusted her completely—trusted that her heart would never change.
“I should have trusted you, too. I should have known you’d never leave without a reason—that you weren’t that kind of man. I should have believed in you. I’m so, so sorry.”
“There’s nothing to apologize for.”
Ethan lifted the hand that had been calming Noah and cradled her face in his palm. He wiped away the endless stream of tears with his thumb.
“This was my choice. Whatever came of it, the consequences were mine to bear. You don’t have to carry that guilt.”
Because of her father and herself, she must have suffered countless wounds to her heart. Yet instead of resenting her, Ethan only sought to understand her feelings.
How could I not love you, when you’re like this? How could I possibly resist?
“You’ve gotten more tearful since I last saw you.”
Ethan gently brushed away the tears welling in Elisa’s eyes, his tone just a little teasing. Elisa, realizing he was only trying to stop her from crying, burrowed silently into his arms.
Ethan’s gaze softened as he wrapped his arms around her trembling back—only for Noah to suddenly wedge himself between them. The sight of the child, as if jealous, was so endearing that both Ethan and Elisa burst into laughter.
At last, the family felt whole. The three of them clung to each other tightly, savoring the moment with every fiber of their being.
***
“Why on earth aren’t they here yet?”
Howard paced anxiously in front of the train station. The train was about to depart, and still, Elisa and Noah had not returned.
“They’re not nearby either,” reported his aide, who had gone to search the area.
“Damn it.”
Howard dragged a hand through his disheveled hair, sighing heavily.
If this were the capital, he would have simply left without Elisa. But in an unfamiliar city, he couldn’t bring himself to do that. Still, missing the train wasn’t an option either. Caught between the two, his frustration grew—until a familiar face appeared in the crowd.
“There they are!”
It was Elisa and Noah. Relief washed over Howard at the sight of them safe and on time, but the worry he had endured now boiled over into anger.
“Do you have any idea how late you—”
His voice rose before he could stop himself. But then, his eyes landed on the man holding Noah’s other hand, and he froze.
A tall figure, raven-black hair, and a face irritatingly handsome—even from a distance, it was unmistakable.
“Am I… hallucinating?”
“I don’t believe you are, Your Highness,” the aide replied evenly.
“Baron Ethan Estevan—he truly survived.”
The words had barely left the aide’s mouth when Howard charged forward.
“You bastard…!”
He lunged at Ethan, cursing, and pulled him into a fierce embrace.
Two men of similar build clinging to each other in the middle of the station plaza quickly drew stares from passersby. Elisa’s eyes widened in shock. Ethan, too, looked utterly baffled as he glanced down at Howard.
“You’re alive,” Howard choked out.
The stares pouring in from every direction meant nothing to him.
“You’re alive! Damn it, I knew you’d survived!”
His voice cracked as he shouted, almost like a sob, tightening his grip around Ethan.
And though the attention was becoming uncomfortable, Ethan let out only a weary sigh and did not push him away.
Abandoning the train without a second thought, Elisa’s group rented a room at a modest inn not far from the station. A fine hotel was out of the question—someone might recognize either Prince Howard or Baron Ethan Estevan.
Howard’s aide went out to arrange tickets back to the capital for the following day and to fetch medicine for Noah’s wounds. They weren’t serious enough for a hospital, but some basic treatment was needed.
Meanwhile, Elisa had taken Noah to the bath, leaving Ethan and Howard seated across from each other at a worn round table, the air thick with unspoken tension.
“So let me get this straight…”
Having listened to the unbelievable account, Howard rubbed at his aching temple.
“You deliberately provoked Camilla and threw yourself off a cliff—just so you’d have an excuse to return to the capital?”
Even saying it aloud was absurd enough to make him laugh bitterly. And yet, Ethan merely nodded as though it were the most natural thing in the world.
“How could you—! What if you’d died?!”
“I already knew from experience that a fall from that height isn’t fatal,” Ethan replied smoothly.
As if to say, and look—I’m standing right here.
Howard’s mouth flapped wordlessly like a fish.
“But you must have been injured!” he blurted out at last.
Ethan only gave a small, noncommittal hum, turning his head aside.
Not denying it immediately, and even avoiding his eyes—suspicious, to say the least. Howard narrowed his gaze, scanning him up and down.
“What? You really were hurt? How badly—”
“Shh.”
As Howard’s voice rose, Ethan lifted a finger in a gesture for silence, glancing toward the door.
