To My First Love, With Regret - 110

Thump.

The fierce wind shakes the window. However, it wasn’t the wild howling of the night wind outside that chased away Eve’s sleep.

What should I do?

How could she possibly fall asleep while a storm of anxiety raged ceaselessly inside her head?

Though her ship had stumbled after hitting an unexpected reef, it had been sailing smoothly along its set course. Yet, for some reason, an ominous premonition that she might soon collide with a massive iceberg and run aground kept the captain awake with open eyes again tonight.

The next leg of the journey was also following the signposts without any variables. Shepherd had confidently claimed he could break Ethan’s ankles, reporting that decisive evidence was piling up steadily. Soon, the evidence of the crimes he had organized would fall into Eve’s hands.

Then, she intended to go straight to the military police with it. While the state had Ethan Fairchild bound so tightly he couldn’t budge, Eve would vanish like smoke, and everything would be over.

If only I could get a fake passport.

There was only one reason Eve was haunted by the ominous feeling that she wouldn’t be able to avoid the massive iceberg drifting toward her.

Identity.

Because she had not yet been able to cut that heavy anchor shackling the ship.

What should I do? What if I get caught trying to forge an identity….

The storm of anxiety was about to come full circle back to its starting point. Then, a clear solution struck her dark mind like a bolt of lightning.

I just won’t forge it.

A hollow laugh escaped Eve’s lips. For a conundrum that had caused her so much agony, it was an incredibly clear and futile answer.

In any case, the blocked path had been cleared. Feeling a sense of relief, Eve slowly closed her eyelids. Her hand instinctively moved toward her lower belly, gently cradling the life that was not yet visible.

If things go according to my plan… we’ll be able to leave before your existence is revealed to the world.

The smile of relief was soon swallowed by a bitter sigh.

Whether ten years ago or now, my child must always be a secret instead of a blessing.

Once again, she was destined to be driven from her home and give birth to a child in a strange foreign land. The self-mocking lament immediately summoned the ghosts of the past. Memories of the time she spent waiting for Tony to be born rushed in along with regret.

It was just as she sensed she was destined to spend tonight awake as well.

Thump.

A sound, as if a heart itself had been dropped, echoed through the room. This time, it wasn’t the night wind shaking the window.

Eve held her breath and looked toward the firmly closed door on the opposite side of the room where the sound had echoed. Thump. Once more, but this time, the sound of something losing strength and sliding down echoed, and then….

—Eve….

Ethan’s voice calling her reached her ears. For a moment, Eve doubted if she had misheard. The usual arrogance that used to overwhelm people was nowhere to be felt.

A powerless voice, like iron rusted by seawater crumbling away. It was as if someone being strangled was painfully vomiting out their words while barely drawing breath.

—Open… the door.

A man who could break through this door in an instant if he wanted to was pleading for her to open it from behind the shut wood.

—Eve, open up….

Don’t open it. It’s not a good idea to face that man. I don’t want to face Ethan. If I do, I’ll do something I’ll regret.

Rarely, Eve’s head and heart stopped her with one voice.

Thump.

—Eve, please….

Thump. Thump.

Even while Eve wavered, Ethan’s knocking continued persistently. When the excuse that Tony might wake up surfaced, only then did Eve stand up as if reluctantly and grab the doorknob.

The moment she opened the door, it wasn’t just the terrible smell of alcohol that poured in. The man’s body, having lost its balance, collapsed toward Eve.

She had wondered what he was doing coming to find her at this late hour.

Eve pushed hard against the heavy chest trying to embrace her, but the giant frame didn’t budge.

—If you came here because you want to sleep, go back. You can’t even steady your own body.

Let’s see who wins. I’ll keep ramming you until you’re pregnant. She assumed this vulgar man had come here in the middle of the night, intoxicated by such filthy spite. However, Ethan merely shook his head weakly.

—…I don’t want to sleep.

Did she hear him wrong?

While Eve stood frozen, Ethan’s head dropped onto her shoulder with a thud. The breath pouring onto her nape was damp. The chest embracing Eve suddenly heaved greatly and then deflated. Only after taking one deep breath did he raise his head and continue speaking as if spitting out chewed words.

—No matter how much of a low-life thug I am… I’m not the kind of human trash who’d go around dicking or screwing on the very path where my own child died.

The words he had spat out with such certainty now turned back to cut him. The color drained instantly from the face of the man who had been hacked to pieces by countless nights of guilt.

—…Damn it.

For Ethan Fairchild was already that very human trash—the kind who had held a festival upon his own child’s grave.

At that horrific realization, Ethan writhed and groaned in agony like a beast thrown into a bonfire.

He shoved Eve away as if even her touch was loathsome, but instead lost his own balance and staggered backward. Then, as if punishing himself, he began to tear at his own hair with both hands. If he could not forgive himself, it was only natural that he could not forgive another accomplice to the crime.

—Why on earth did you!

The man lunged forward, gripping Eve’s shoulders as if to crush them, pouring out his resentment.

—Why are you so cruel! How could you even think of taking a man in on the very path where you sent your child away? Are you even hu…..

The cascading accusation cut off abruptly, as if severed by a blade. The man’s face, distorted like a demon’s, collapsed in an instant, exposing raw shame. As if he had been briefly possessed by a devil to corner her, Ethan hurriedly released her shoulders and apologized.

—I’m sorry. I mean… please, just forget what I said.

He had clearly remembered Eve’s confession—that she had slept with him because she wanted to find her dead child again.

Even heavy intoxication could not hide the pain in Ethan’s twisting features. The alcohol he had relied on to forget his pain had only ended up eating away at his mind, leaving him fragile. To the point where he could no longer bear the heavy sense of sin crushing his windpipe.

To shed even a fraction of that guilt and find room to breathe, he had dared to try and shift the burden onto the victim of his crime. Did he have the brains or the conscience to realize that doing so only added more weight to his sin of abandoning his lover and killing his child?

Like a beast caught in its own trap, Ethan retreated, moaning in distress. Through the gap he left behind, Eve saw the opposite bedroom door open by a finger’s width. It had definitely been firmly closed just a moment ago.

Eve shook her head, signaling the bodyguard who would be watching the situation with bated breath from behind the crack.

Don’t step in. There’s no need to subdue him.

Because the man now hanging his head low, face buried in one hand, looked infinitely weak despite his intimidating physical stature.

This was for the best. Bound by guilt, he would no longer be able to treat Eve recklessly. He wouldn’t fawn over her like a dog in heat anymore, either.

A part of her felt vindicated. It felt as if he was finally paying the price for heartlessly abandoning her all those years ago. The choice that had once destroyed Eve had eventually come full circle to destroy Ethan himself.

They say it’s never too late for revenge, and it was true.

So, in many ways, this was a perfect lie.

But why do I feel so wretched?

Was it because she realized she had been mistaken?

This afternoon, when he despaired at the pronouncement that Eve could no longer have children, she had interpreted it merely as his ten-year ambition going up in smoke.

An Ethan Fairchild who grieved purely because he had lost a child was not in Eve’s calculations.

Though Ethan was currently covering his face with his hands, he couldn’t hide what he was doing behind them. His broad shoulders were heaving irregularly.

Did he want a child enough to cry so sorrowfully?

He had. Ten years ago, definitely. There was a time when he, too, had dreamed of holding a child with Eve and pictured a future as a parent.

But the Ethan Fairchild of today had to be different. Because he had changed. From a father who would protect his child to a demon who would use one.

Or so she had mistakenly thought.

She felt as if she had fallen into a pit she dug herself. Not knowing how to get out, Eve cautiously reached out toward the weeping man.

—Ethan….

The moment her trembling fingertips landed on his heaving shoulder, he collapsed, unable to withstand even Eve’s slight weight.

The man fell to his knees and sobbed, burying his face against the stomach where his child was growing—believing that child was dead.

A scream that sounded like his very breath was failing echoed down the long hallway. Eve’s frozen gaze darted toward the far end of the corridor. There, at the edge of the deep darkness, a small figure shimmered faintly.

It was Tony.