I suddenly felt like my vision was fading.
A completely unexpected blow.
I thought Johann was being uncharacteristically cooperative in opening the door. How naive of me.
Edgar looked up at Olivia, who seemed to be shaking with a chill, with a calm gaze.
He didn’t say anything.
No, he couldn’t.
Had he not expected this situation?
He let out a cold laugh.
Edgar slowly brushed his hair back.
The feeling of facing the reality of the fear he had tried to ignore and bury for fear of it going wrong was indescribably dirty.
“How long… how long were you going to deceive me?”
Olivia glared at the man, forcing back the tears that were welling up in her eyes again.
How foolish must she have looked? How easy must he have thought she was?
“As long as I could.”
“…”
“If I could, I was going to marry you, roll around in bed with you day and night to have a child, watch that child grow up with you, and deceive you until I died of old age.”
The night breeze suddenly blew, parting the two of them and slowly billowing the silk curtain.
The leaves of a tropical plant made a sound as they clashed. The wind-blown hair stuck to Olivia’s cheek.
“So… was it fun?”
Olivia’s vision began to blur.
“I’m asking you if it was fun watching me, a fool, play along with your game just because you showed me a little kindness!”
At that moment, Edgar’s face crumpled.
An uncontrollable irritation swept over him.
“Don’t cry, Olivia.”
He should have been begging for forgiveness, but upon seeing the woman’s tears, Edgar went crazy for a moment.
He felt as if his heart was being butchered by a sharp, honed knife.
The woman was crying that painfully. Edgar rubbed his eyes nervously and muttered.
“I said don’t cry.”
His low, growling voice was dangerously close to exploding.
“In the end, everything worked out perfectly. You got the title of the Queen of Tennis, and as for me…”
Edgar was momentarily speechless.
And me.
He let out a short, bitter laugh.
And I fell in love with a card I was supposed to use and discard, along with a huge profit.
Truly, there could be no more perfect or beautiful ending than this.
Isn’t that right, Olivia?
“Neither of us lost anything.”
Transparent tears flowed down her cheeks from her eyes, where the light had gone out. Her drenched face was driving him crazy.
He recalled the woman’s eyes, which had looked at him like a savior and shone like brilliant starlight. The me who was, in reality, nothing but a ugly destroyer.
“That’s the kind of person I am.”
“…”
“A person who can do such a thing and still dare to love you.”
“…”
“That’s me.”
If he could just get her to sit by his side, he didn’t care what he did or said.
“I love you, Olivia.”
The flat voice hit the humid night air and created waves. It was like a wave with white foam that swallowed Olivia whole.
“I love you.”
For a person starved for affection, there was no more blind emotion than this.
That was the same for a lowly bastard or for Edgar.
The child who had desperately yearned for his father’s love with tattered eyes had never grown up and was hiding deep inside somewhere in his being.
It was you, Olivia, who came running to me and kissed me.
So I had no choice but to love you.
“That is my only sincerity.”
So this is the kind of man I loved.
With her quickened breaths, the tears that had welled up flowed down Olivia’s cheeks.
This cruel and selfish man.
Olivia’s gaze, which had been wandering in the air, slowly landed on Edgar.
The pale moonlight poured down on their heads and settled in the silence. It was a light so cold that her eyes hurt.
“I regret it.”
Her wet eyes blinked slowly.
“Loving you. …I regret it.”
“…”
Now?
Edgar let out a bitter laugh.
“You were the one who wavered first, Olivia.”
A cold voice flowed from his terribly neat face.
“So. I’ll stop.”
“Stop what?”
“Let’s… us…”
The woman, who seemed to be struggling to bear the weight of the tears clinging to her eyes, slowly opened her lips.
“Let’s never see each other again.”
The moonlight was covered by clouds and lost its light. The sound of the wind blowing from the greenery scattered the woman’s slender voice.
The swift ship carrying Grand Duchess Margaret Wellington was approaching the docking facility, cutting through the calm waves.
Morris, who had come to greet the Grand Duchess, stupidly looked around the other side of the port.
Contrary to his earnest wish, Johann was nowhere to be seen.
Morris, who had been restless since he saw the ship in the distance, felt a cold sweat run down his forehead and back when he saw Grand Duchess Wellington disembarking with her attendants and maids.
The late summer heat was in full swing.
“You’ve arrived, Grand Duchess.”
Morris, who bowed respectfully and straightened up, met Grand Duchess Wellington’s icy gaze without being able to avoid it.
“Where is Johann?”
As if she had brought a polar vortex, the hot air of Litton seemed to be frozen solid. Morris thought that Johann Leopold was definitely a maternal copy.
“He’s staying at Winston. This way, please.”
Margaret made a displeased click of her tongue at Morris, who was respectfully pointing in the direction where the carriage was waiting.
“How badly is he hurt? Dr. Biden said he was lucky.”
Margaret held her throbbing forehead as she listened to Johann’s condition.
“How could you have served him so poorly?”
Grand Duchess Wellington’s face became stern.
“I apologize.”
“Why did he come to Litton, of all places, with his body in that condition, without even a scheduled trip? And how could you, with your healthy body, not stop a person in such poor health and let him come all the way here?”
“…I’m ashamed.”
Morris bowed even lower than before.
I shouldn’t have sent that telegram to Leiden.
By the time his back, which had been bowing the whole time, ached, he had reached the front of the carriage.
The carriage carrying Grand Duchess Wellington, a maid, and Morris began to move cautiously among the laborers who were unloading luggage from a cart.
The carriage, which had completely left the bustling port, slowly began to pick up speed toward Golden Avenue.
The light of the dusk sun streamed into the silent carriage.
Margaret gave a short command to Morris, who was sitting as stiffly as a well-trained soldier.
“Go to Winston.”
“Yes. …Yes?”
Morris licked his lips once. At the same time, his mind raced.
Leaving Johann alone was a mistake. He should have had people both inside and outside the bedroom.
The thought of Grand Duchess Wellington and the former Duchess Leopold meeting made his vision go black.
Margaret Wellington was a person who had made the marriage between Johann and a lady named Josephine her last great mission in life.
So if she were to witness her bastard grandson and daughter-in-law, whom she had never approved of in the first place, being together after their divorce, she might grab her neck and slap Miss Blanchett.
“He must have received the news of your arrival, so he’s probably on his way here.”
He had urgently sent a message to Winston, but there was no news from Johann.
What on earth was he thinking? Morris was the only one who was anxious to death.
“It’s too late to depart now. You might miss each other on the way, so it would be better for you to go to the hotel and rest and then meet the Duke after that.”
Morris held his breath and watched the Duchess Wellington’s reaction.
“Tell him I’ll have breakfast with him tomorrow morning.”
“Yes. I’ll make the arrangements.”
Morris, who finally let out a sigh of relief, was just about to look at his notebook, which he had pointlessly opened, when Grand Duchess Wellington asked.
“Did he move without a scheduled trip because of that child?”
“…”
It was a woman’s intuition. Even though she was old, Margaret’s intuition, which she had to hone sharply her whole life, was still highly accurate.
“Oh, no. There was an urgent problem at the hotel—”
“What urgent problem could a hotel that opened just over a month ago have?”
“There was some friction with the Litton city hall when they acquired the hotel site, and that problem has resurfaced, so he came here.”
Morris scratched the bridge of his nose and stammered out an excuse. The carriage had already entered Golden Avenue.
Morris, who was sweating profusely, turned his head, and his vision was filled with the banner hanging in front of the Lancelot Hotel.
The new queen of the Dumblin Championship, Olivia Blanchett, who was smiling broadly while holding a golden trophy, was fluttering gently in the breeze.
“I must have lived too long.”
Grand Duchess Wellington, who had witnessed a century where bastards ran rampant, clicked her tongue in disapproval.
As if she had neuralgia, the carriage turned the corner of the Fallet Hotel while Grand Duchess Wellington was rubbing her throbbing forehead.
Olivia, who had cried for a long time and fallen asleep, woke up earlier than usual. The room was bathed in a rosy hue from the light of the rising sun.
‘I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that. You should rest for today, Olivia.’
Without a single word of apology.
Of course, it wasn’t a crime that could be forgiven by just begging for forgiveness. This, too, was a very typical reaction from him.
At first, she was wary, and then she relied on him.
Then her heart fluttered, and she gave him her heart. For some reason, this first love of hers was so easy.
Without even knowing that she was being deceived.
How foolish.
A bitter smile came to her lips as she recalled the lyrics of a common pop song that said easy love is not love at all.
He was a man she should never have wavered for in the first place.
She should have been suspicious when he so easily wavered like a leaf fluttering helplessly in the wind.
The events of the nightmarish night felt distant. Olivia wished that time would flow and flow like this and slowly fade away.
She had lived steadfastly even when her mother abandoned her and when her father passed away.
What is love anyway…
She just had to pass him by, just as she had passed that man by with a limping gait on the balcony.
She just had to move on. What great love was it anyway…
Unless it was being caught up in a great scam.
The morning glow was rippling in the sky beyond the large glass window.
Olivia, who had been staring at the sight blankly, slowly got up. She felt a presence when she looked for the wall clock.
“…”
Her eyes met with Johann Leopold’s. Olivia’s face hardened.
“Is this… the only room here?”
“I doubt it.”
He laughed at her serious question.
