“I’m sorry. I should have told you sooner…”
Elaine’s expression was a mixture of awkwardness and apology, and she didn’t know what to do.
Olivia just stared blankly at her cold teacup.
“I, I only heard about it recently.”
Only then did Olivia’s gaze, desolate like a winter branch, look up at Elaine.
“That day, the day you won your first match. The day of the banquet at Riverside. Madame Lauren was a bit too drunk. I heard it from her. I wanted to tell you sooner, but I couldn’t. I’m sorry, Olivia.”
“Madame Lauren, too?”
Olivia’s face turned pale.
How widespread was this scam?
Shame colored Olivia’s face red.
“Yes. The topic of the Marquis buying the Anne Gilbert necklace came up. I said it was the worst thing to put it on your neck at the Rose Ball. Madame Lauren said she couldn’t help it. It was the Marquis’s request.”
“!”
“She said he requested that it be made so that he could recognize you at a glance, even if he couldn’t see your face… Madame Lauren said she only understood the meaning of that later. She really didn’t know that it would be photographed and cause a scandal like that… Oh, Olivia?”
A dizzy spell came over her, as if she had been hit hard on the back of her head.
“Are you okay?”
Elaine, surprised to see Olivia’s face turning pale, grabbed her hand again.
Olivia pushed her hand away with force.
“…What did you just say?”
A word she couldn’t believe had just brushed past her ears like the wind.
“I’m asking you what you just said.”
“…”
Elaine finally sensed that something was wrong.
At some point, the conversation had become like a disengaged gear, just spinning in place. A chill ran down her spine.
“Y-You said you heard me.”
Elaine stammered, looking at Olivia’s expressionless face. The coldness in her made her seem like a stranger.
Olivia didn’t bother to answer. Still, her reaction was enough to guess the situation.
“…This isn’t it, is it?”
Elaine, who was startled, froze.
She was filled with a sense of failure for having jumped to conclusions and made a mistake, but the two had already crossed a river they could not return from.
Looking back, the bridge was already burning. Elaine squeezed her eyes shut.
Olivia’s breathing quickened. She couldn’t trust her ears.
I must have heard wrong.
She felt like her neck was being tightly clutched by a ruthless hand. Her cold hands trembled as if in a convulsion.
Yes, that must be it.
Olivia wanted to deny it with all her being. Because it was such an unbelievable thing.
“But… even if he had made such a plan…”
Her throat was choked up. Olivia bit her trembling lower lip and then released it, asking clearly.
“If I hadn’t gone to the ball, it would have been useless, so how…? I wasn’t going to go anyway…”
Her voice, which had been trembling, finally stopped. Her deep blue eyes, filled with low-lying anger, gradually became clear.
“Elaine.”
Elaine’s gaze fell.
“…Tell me it’s not true. Please.”
Tears streamed down Elaine’s cheeks, staining her thin silk dress.
“…I’m sorry, Olivia.”
‘Please create a special ball with Miss Blanchett.’
There were no eternal secrets in the world.
That day, a suspicious anonymous letter and a huge check arrived for Elaine.
The beginning of this nightmare was there.
The invitation to the Rose Ball.
‘I know the situation well, Miss Blanchett. You absolutely must go with me. Because of someone, I no longer have a partner.’
“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry…”
Elaine sobbed.
Olivia calmly listened to her confession. Her deep blue eyes, like extinguished windows, darkened.
The truth was more cruel than she had imagined.
Her loving lover, her close friend, the glorious victory.
Everything was a lie.
During Elaine’s repentance, Olivia just continued to take shallow breaths. She felt like she was going to suffocate.
Winston Manor, where the sobbing had subsided, was as silent as a tomb.
Johann had forbidden the servants from entering the second floor where Olivia was staying. He stood idly in front of the tightly closed door.
‘Stop, leave. You too. …You leave too.’
Olivia, who had expelled the unwelcome guests, was alone in the silent bedroom.
She had even refused Anne, so he had no idea what she was thinking.
If he had at least heard her sobbing sadly, he wouldn’t be so anxious. The other side of the door was as silent as a mouse.
‘Aah!’
The scream of a maid that echoed through Great Hill sounded like a hallucination.
Johann’s consciousness was already running from his office to Olivia’s bathroom in a single leap.
Johann slowly caught his breath and watched the tragic scene in front of him.
The brutal sight of the water, which had filled the ivory marble bathtub, turning red on her pale white body was as vivid as blood.
It was the day his wife had first harmed herself.
Fear gripped him.
“Olivia!”
Johann pounded on the door and shouted.
“Open the door. Olivia!”
There was no sound from inside.
“OLIVIA!!!”
Damn it, a rough curse word escaped his lips.
Johann, who had been fiercely banging on the door, turned around. He needed a key immediately.
She wouldn’t do something so reckless again. Not if she had become like a stranger.
Just as he was about to take his first step, calming his anxious heart, the sound of neat shoe heels echoed in the empty hallway.
“…”
Soon, a long figure came striding from the other end of the hallway.
Johann could recognize the person just from the blurry silhouette.
Edgar Llangston Lancelot. No, just Edgar now.
He walked nonchalantly. Unlike his neatly combed black hair and tidy attire, his sharp face was etched with deep fatigue.
It was clear that he had been in a frantic state all night.
Edgar stopped in front of Johann. His grayish-blue eyes, which were staring at Johann’s right arm in a sling, narrowed.
“What a mess.”
Johann looked down for a moment at where Edgar’s gaze was directed, then raised his head and looked at him with eyes as calm as the night.
“Did you want to look pathetic?”
Edgar sneered.
“What a pathetic lingering affection.”
Thinking of the courtesy that had walked into its own grave, Johann listened to his nonsense in silence.
He even let out a small, bitter laugh. Because he couldn’t deny his words.
A pathetic lingering affection.
A strange emotion that might have become love had turned into a lingering affection for no other reason than that he had realized it too late.
“Was it you?”
The humor disappeared from his grayish-blue eyes, which shot toward him like an arrow.
“Yes. It was me.”
Johann smiled slightly.
“Wait. I’ll get you the key.”
“Did I hear that wrong?”
Edgar tilted his head with a suspicious look at Johann’s strange kindness.
“Wasn’t your goal her?”
“…”
Johann looked at Edgar with no emotion.
Since he was the one who had set off the bomb, knowing she would be hurt.
It seemed impossible to avoid going to hell.
So he thought it wouldn’t be bad to give Edgar the moment of hell he was about to face with his own hands.
In that hell, there would be Diane Brooke, Edgar, and himself.
It wasn’t a bad combination.
The door opened.
Edgar crossed the threshold with a cautious step.
Edgar paused for a moment and slowly scanned the empty bedroom, which was submerged in darkness.
He walked past the bed with its canopy neatly tied up and glanced at the mirror on the dressing table that reflected him, heading toward the round tea table, when a gentle breeze blew from the balcony.
Every time the transparent silk curtain, which was illuminated by the moonlight, fluttered in the night wind, a slender figure appeared and disappeared.
Olivia was standing on the balcony.
Edgar let out a deep sigh and calmly took in her faint silhouette.
What was she looking at? What was she thinking? In her ex-husband’s space.
He felt a little deflated.
Edgar walked across the rug at a speed that was neither hurried nor slow.
He stepped over the threshold of the balcony door, stepping on the moonlight that streamed in, and was just about to go up the marble steps when a low, deep voice seeped into the silence.
“Don’t come any closer.”
The thin curtain, which had been fluttering greatly in the breeze, brushed against the cheek of Edgar, who had stopped abruptly.
It was at that moment that he had a bad feeling that this standoff would not end easily.
The voice, devoid of any emotion, was unfamiliar.
“I think we need to talk about the tiara you returned. Can you show me your face?”
“…”
Olivia slowly turned around. Now she could see the man standing at the bottom of the balcony steps properly.
A cold-blooded businessman. A person who saw everything in the world as a card to be used and discarded, and a mere consumable for a seasonal amusement.
How ridiculous must she have seemed in such a person’s eyes?
“Why are you here?”
As if he knew nothing, as if nothing had ever happened, the man called her name with the same smile as always.
“Olivia.”
The softly articulated sound echoed sweetly, scratching at her heart.
Olivia quietly stared at the grayish-blue eyes that were looking up at her.
She resented that spring afternoon when they first met on the tennis court of the Lancelot Hotel.
Why did I kiss you that night when the starlight was pouring down?
The more she went back in her memories, the more miserable Olivia became.
I truly loved you.
‘She said she couldn’t help it. It was the Marquis’s request.’
“You.”
Unable to control her gaze, which wavered for a moment, Olivia closed her eyes. Her chest was so tight that she felt like she was suffocating.
She felt like she could breathe a little better if she just let everything inside out.
Olivia opened her eyes. A faint sadness mixed with a sense of betrayal lingered in her deep blue eyes.
“You deceived me.”
The moonlight slid down his beautifully straight nose. Just like that cold light, Olivia’s heart turned icy cold.
“Did I ever want anything from you?”
“Ann Blayn Grace Britt.”
The sound of his shoes going up the marble steps seeped into the silence. Edgar passed the line Olivia had drawn and murmured lowly.
“You wanted it, Olivia.”
“So…”
Olivia bit her lip. Her hands, which were twisting her skirt, trembled.
“So, you also paid off a journalist?”
“…”
His gaze was still on Olivia, and he took another step. His steps toward her stopped right there.
“Did I… did I want that, too?”
Her face, which had turned pale overnight, was now white in the moonlight.
The moment Olivia’s eyes became empty, Edgar fell apart.
“A false savior.”
