Olivia walked through the darkness. As she moved away from the magnificent hotels lined up along the riverside, the cheerful music and laughter of people faded into the distance. The quiet Vichen River was serene, with only the moonlight, encircled by a hazy moon, shimmering on the pitch-black river.
As if in a different world, Olivia walked and walked, enveloped in solitude. The hem of her watery-colored dress, stained with grass, fluttered in the river breeze, following her aimless steps. Her hair, which Anne had carefully braided, was half undone and scattered in the wind. Olivia walked along the riverbank without a destination. The top of her foot was swelling again inside her ruined shoes.
‘Three times the prize money is a loss in exchange for losing to Olivia Blanchet. I lost my honor.’
Sarah Pavlova’s unbelievable voice mumbled in her head like an auditory hallucination.
‘If you haven’t forgotten the part I played in Olivia Blanchet’s victory.’
She couldn’t breathe properly. It felt like she had been hit by something, that she was in pain somewhere, and that tears were about to fall. But her swollen eyes were just vacant, wandering in the black darkness.
Olivia crouched down by the river and let out the breath she had been holding. She gasped for air like a bird shot down from the sky.
‘I happened to see you playing tennis.’
On the day she refused Lady Marie, he came to her room and said with a gentle smile like a spring breeze. Was it really a coincidence? She couldn’t believe it anymore.
‘The Dumbledin Tennis Tournament. That’s the condition.’
When she, who had won the wager, spoke her wish after much hesitation, Edgar whispered to her in a soft voice.
‘I’m not interested unless it’s a victory.’
Looking back, the man’s desire was so clear from the beginning…
‘They say their operating profit is five times that of last year. The clash of a noble princess and a lowly illegitimate child! As expected of a business genius.’
Is that why? Because he was afraid she wouldn’t win? Is that why he made a deal with Sarah Pavlova and… made me look like a fool?
Olivia! Olivia!
The roar of the crowd filling the stadium echoed in her ears. The cheers of the people who were enthusiastically shouting from below the Dumbledin Club balcony overlapped and reverberated.
Everyone was deceived.
Olivia’s pride and self-esteem were silently shattered. The green grass court that had burned with the summer heat was an illusion. The countless beads of sweat that had glistened in the sun were worthless. There was no new queen, and her divinity never shone. Everything she had believed she had accomplished was just a con by Edgar. He was a man who had made a season’s worth of effort go to waste in an instant.
At some point, the night rain began to fall. She crouched down by the river, which had become pitch-black as the moon hid behind the clouds, and let the rain pour down on her. Her thin dress became soaked. The weight of the pouring raindrops pressed down heavily on Olivia. Tears, a mixture of despair and helplessness, mixed with the rainwater and streamed down her cheeks.
‘Is Marquis Lancelot going to propose today?’
The voice, which came to her like an auditory hallucination in this indescribably miserable moment, no longer made her heart flutter. Everything was a mess.
The Vichen River, where starlight had once been scattered on a night in early summer, stretched out into the darkness. That night, when I hugged your neck and kissed you, it meant nothing to you. Olivia bit her quivering lips so hard that it hurt. The truth she had accepted so willingly was as muffled as the black river.
He probably had no idea how much courage it took for her to approach him. Everything was a first for her. Small things like kissing someone, sharing warmth, holding hands, and dreaming of a future together while looking in the same direction.
But to you, I was… just one of the many women who passed by or approached you to be used. Olivia buried her face between her knees. A sob escaped from her lips as she cried silently.
And at that moment, with a loud bang that shot up into the pitch-black sky, fireworks exploded. It was the very fireworks she had been so excited to see. The raindrops, dyed by their light, fell in various colors.
Olivia tilted her head back and looked up at the sky. Dozens of fireworks exploded at the same time, and the light that brilliantly decorated the black night sky painfully clawed at her heart.
Once again, a condensed burst of sound exploded in the night sky.
‘I think he’ll do it during the fireworks. At the climax of the party. Just imagining it is so romantic.’
It was a moment when she wished she could just disappear like the brilliant fireworks that flash for a moment and then vanish.
The sound of footsteps at a steady pace echoed in the rain, where darkness and light intersected. Olivia’s head slowly turned toward the sound.
“…”
A silhouette, clearly visible even in the thick darkness, was approaching neither quickly nor slowly. While Olivia was just blinking her eyelashes, a long shadow fell over her head.
“…Olivia.”
A heavy voice fell with the sound of the rain.
Bang! Bang! Another firework shot into the air, this time forming a rose pattern, and red sparks rained down like a shower. It felt as if time had stopped and everything had come to a standstill.
The petals of the roses, which had passed their peak, were falling one by one in the wind and rain.
Edgar, who was standing motionless on the terrace facing the rose garden, silently took in the landscape under the black darkness. The scent of roses, carried by the smell of rain, was particularly strong. The sound of footsteps crossing the banquet hall approached quickly.
“Where is Olivia? Not yet?”
His voice, uncharacteristically irritable, showed his anxiety.
‘Look for her again.’
Gerald, who had already searched the hotel inside and out three times under that order, erased his weary expression and replied, “She is not inside the hotel.”
“What about the garden?”
“I’ve already checked there multiple times as well.”
The Adam’s apple on his throat moved roughly as he swallowed dryly. It was already past three in the morning. It was still drizzling outside, and the magnificent lights that had seemed to last forever had long been turned off.
Edgar unconsciously clenched his fists.
Where did she disappear to?
Pat, pat. The raindrops hitting the marble railing wet Edgar’s cheeks. Edgar stood there for a while, then pressed his fingertips hard against his eye sockets before removing his hand. Slowly opening his eyes, Edgar gazed at the garden in the rain and ordered,
“Prepare the horse.”
“Pardon?”
“I’m going to Lancelot Manor.”
“At… at this hour?”
A flustered Gerald asked back, but Edgar didn’t say it again. He quickly went up the stairs and headed to the dressing room. Gerald stared blankly at Edgar’s back and then belatedly followed him up.
“Young Master!”
Edgar, who paid no mind to the desperate voice calling out to him, threw off his tailcoat, changed into riding clothes, put on a raincoat, and immediately headed for the elevator.
Disappearing without a word was an uncharacteristic action for Olivia. Therefore, it was clear that something had happened to her.
Anne Bullen Grace Brit.
She wouldn’t have the presence of mind to pull off something like this. With the current suspicion that she had intentionally injured a rival player, she wouldn’t have made a move so rashly.
Therefore, Lancaster Ethan Lancelot.
There was no one who would orchestrate such a thing other than his own father.
Edgar felt like his stomach was turning. A deep, distant rage was boiling up from the bottom of his heart.
‘Edgar is enough of a name.’
Edgar Lancaster Lancelot.
He had abandoned his father’s name and the family name. Just Edgar. And this was the price of that.
Olivia had disappeared.
In his deeply sunken, gray-blue eyes, there was no longer any room for composure.
“If you must go, please take a carriage, Young Master.”
Gerald’s persuasion didn’t work.
“It’s dangerous. Please listen to me this one time, Gerald, okay?”
Edgar, who had gotten off the elevator, strode through the lobby and out the front door of the hotel. He was like a person who couldn’t hear any sound.
“Young Master!”
Ignoring Gerald’s shouts, Edgar got on the horse. Darkstar pawed at the ground. While Gerald was pacing anxiously, torn between following in a carriage or on a horse, Darkstar whinnied and galloped into the main street.
“Y-Young Master!”
The horse’s hooves thundered on the golden avenue, which was steeped in silence, as the black horse, its coat glistening under the streetlights, began to gallop at a rapid pace into the rain-soaked street.
Johan watched from a distance as the woman sat hunched and trembling in the darkness. The back of the woman’s neck, touched by the hazy moonlight, was so pale it was almost white. A raindrop fell and streamed down her fair, clean neck.
The sound of leaves rustling in the late summer wind and the sound of rain. Interspersed among them was the occasional sound of sobbing.
Olivia Blanchet was crying.
When the wind from the river stopped, the sound became clearer, along with the sound of the rain.
Johan’s Adam’s apple twitched.
You always cried for me.
There was no need to ask why she was crying or why she was crying so piteously. Seeing her crying alone in such a secluded place, there could only be one conclusion.
Edgar.
The hand he had raised to instinctively tug on his tie stopped in midair. He realized belatedly that he wasn’t wearing one.
The moment the fireworks launched into the summer night sky blazed brightly, Johan began to walk. Olivia, who had been staring blankly at the illusion that bloomed and vanished, turned her head.
Their eyes met in the rain, where darkness and light intersected. The movement of her slightly heaving shoulders stopped.
Another explosion of sound painted the world in a blue light, and Olivia’s eyes, which were looking at him, widened. Johan held her gaze and closed the distance.
As if it were the last time, thousands of fireworks exploded simultaneously, and countless shooting stars rained down from the night sky.
He stopped.
“…Olivia.”
Johan called out his wife’s name.
“Olivia Blanchet.”
For a quite a long time, the two people faced each other. The only sounds were the fireworks bursting in vibrant colors and the sound of the rain.
