To My First Love, With Regret - 49

That Lady Evelyn had been married to Ethan Fairchild—the shock hit the guests like a physical wave, their eyes darting toward Eve all at once. Even as their gazes pried at the scars hidden beneath her white dress, she did not lower her head.

Thanks to him, there was no longer any need to hide. With eyes that now openly displayed her hostility, she glared at the worst stain of her life, the man currently ruining it. He started to say something else but stopped, appearing unsettled. Tilting his head slightly, he looked Eve dead in the eye and asked:

—Wait, isn’t it a crime to marry another man when you haven’t even divorced me?

The blood rushed to her head. You were the one who abandoned me. Even though he was the one who drove the marriage to catastrophe, he was now framing Eve, making it look as though a decadent woman had betrayed him.

—Ah, honored guests. By now you’ve realized Lady Evelyn wasn’t kidnapped, so I suppose you’re wondering if she conspired with me to kill her brother. I swear on my unfairly deceased grandfather, that’s a misunderstanding. Because we didn’t kill him.

He turned his gaze from the buzzing crowd back to Eve.

—I hear some ladies collect jewels and others collect art, but the Lady of Cantrell has much more ambitious tastes, given her hobby of collecting husbands. Though, the first was a beggar-bastard who bought a ring with someone else’s money, and the second is a parasite sucking your fortune dry…

Eve couldn’t hide her surprise when Ethan delivered the exact same assessment of Dr. Kallas that she held in her own heart.

How did he know that man was a parasite sucking my wealth?

Ethan raised his champagne glass high. However, what he offered was no toast.

—Let us all pray fervently! May Lady Evelyn, with her pitiful taste in men, find a third husband with the financial power to reclaim her Laurel Tiara!

No one joined him. Alone, Ethan drained the champagne for the third husband at Eve’s second wedding.

As he set the empty glass down, his hand froze in midair. Eve was approaching him.

Why are you…

On her face, which should have been a mess of agitation, hung a flawlessly alluring smile. The moment he faced that smile again—the same one that had made his heart stop ten years ago—Ethan’s chest tightened with a painful ache. Standing before him was not an enemy to be destroyed, but the woman he believed he had forgotten.

Ethan, having inadvertently dropped his mask of a third-rate villain to reveal his true face, was met by her eyes, which burned like fire within a calm gaze. She didn’t condemn him, nor did she slap him; she just watched him. Then, her eyes drifted down to the cake sitting at his place.

—Do you remember? We didn’t even have a wedding cake.

Eve had admitted to the marriage. In front of all these witnesses. With those words, he had achieved his goal of transforming her party into his own stage. It had been so easy.

But what was even more unbelievable was that Eve took the cake plate and fork into her hands.

Lady Evelyn lifted a piece of cake with the fork, standing directly in front of Ethan Fairchild. It was the classic pose of a bride feeding her groom.

Surely she isn’t going to play ‘newlyweds’ with her ex-husband in the middle of her reception, right in front of her current one?

The guests gasped, covering their mouths and holding their breath. They only exhaled once the fork entered Eve’s own mouth.

—Mmm. This taste makes enduring today worthwhile.

Ethan’s breathing, too, turned heavy. Eve watched him as she licked the white cream from her red lips with her tongue. It was a provocation whose intent remained a mystery.

—You try some, too.

With a lethally beautiful smile, she lifted another forkful of cake. A suppressed scream erupted from the guests.

Is she really going to put it in that thug’s mouth this time?

Amidst the guests’ horrified stares, Eve’s movements did not falter for a second.

Thwack.

The bride took the entire plate and slammed it into her former lover’s arrogant face.

Clatter.

As the plate crashed to the floor, a face covered in cake was revealed. Crushed clumps of sponge fell onto his prestigious uniform. The puree—smashed red like her fury—trailed down his cheek like bloody tears, staining his shining medals.

—Ethan, thank you for providing the entertainment for this modest party.

Eve was the only one enjoying the chaos.

—But if you’re going to be the clown at my wedding, shouldn’t you at least look the part?

Eve sneered at the man who glared back at her, sticky cream tangling in his eyelashes, and leisurely turned away.

Leaving the carnage behind her, she elegantly placed the remaining bit of cake from her fork into her mouth. Then, as if discarding something filthy, she dropped the empty fork to the floor.

Cling.

It was the final period on that wretched farce.

No matter how thick-skinned a person might be, no one could hold their ground while caked in layers of frosting.

Once the uninvited guest departed, the reception resumed, but the atmosphere could never return to what it had been before his intrusion. Eve was grateful that no one dared ask her how she had fallen in love with the groom anymore, but the sudden questions about whether she was a bigamist were absurd.

—How could it be bigamy when that marriage was never even recognized here?

The marriage certificate had long since vanished. Though Eve had publicly acknowledged the union, it wouldn’t cause any legal issues.

—Why on earth would he choose now of all times to make such a revelation…?

—Maybe he still loves you and was blinded by jealousy because you’re getting married?

Eve couldn’t help but let out a hollow laugh at the words of Emily, who was strolling with her through the garden outside the banquet hall.

—I’d sooner believe he just wanted to clear his name of the kidnapping charge.

After all, no one would believe Ethan had kidnapped her now.

—I’m sure he feels vindicated now. He made a sinner out of me just to soothe his own sense of injustice. But what sin did I actually commit?

She could empathize with the vengeful fire he held for the Sherwoods, but the people who had driven Mr. Robinson to his death and thrown Ethan into prison were already dead by his own hand. Shouldn’t the revenge be over?

—Why must he trample over me? I trampled my own honor long ago just to save that man. Has he forgotten that, or is he just pretending not to know…?

But if Ethan Fairchild were a man who understood the weight of that sacrifice—of her discarding her family and her reputation—he would never have cowardly left her behind in that hell and fled in the first place. Eve stopped her pacing and stared through the window with hollow eyes.

—In his eyes, I’m no longer the woman he loved. I’m just the daughter of his enemy.

Through the glass, she saw Ethan clinking glasses with Dr. Kallas. He had returned to the hall just as the late hour thinned the crowd. That was why she had used the excuse of getting fresh air with Emily to avoid him.

However, it seemed she wasn’t his target, as he didn’t follow her. She couldn’t fathom why he had cornered Dr. Kallas and started drinking heavily with him.

Dr. Kallas was equally incomprehensible to her.

—How can he clink glasses with a man who clearly killed his own father?

Robert Kallas had disappeared after heading to the capital, Richmond, to meet a business partner. Ten days later, he reappeared in a vacant lot by the Connaught River—with an iron stake driven through his mouth.

The police speculated that Kallas had been murdered after a conflict with a gang during a business venture, but they never identified which gang was responsible. His son, however, believed it was Ethan’s revenge.

Both Chantal and Dr. Kallas had been shaken by Ethan’s appearance, but the doctor had been the most visibly unnerved.

—But I had no part in Mr. Robinson’s death…

He had muttered it like a victim, paralyzed by the fear that Ethan had come to kill him as well.

—Is he so terrified that he can’t even refuse or stand up?

Emily’s interpretation made sense. The doctor was exactly the kind of man to be such a coward. Eve watched as he choked down a glass of strong liquor in one gulp, his face contorting in agony, while Ethan looked on. Then, she noticed something strange.

—Doesn’t it look like he’s trying to show some backbone? Does he think winning a drinking contest counts as getting revenge on his father’s killer? It’s pathetic, really.

—If he backs down from even that, he might as well give up on being a man.

Before Eve had retreated to the garden, Ethan had been relentlessly picking at Dr. Kallas. It was more accurate to define it as an alpha asserting dominance, a direct test of the man’s masculinity.

—Doctor, I hear all your friends are serving the country as military surgeons. Why are you still idling away at the Duke’s manor?