To My First Love, With Regret - 59

—Ugh….

Though she hadn’t put much weight behind it, the man recoiled, his entire body trembling. Eve rubbed the heel of her shoe against the carpet as if she had stepped on a bug.

This was not training. It was merely the instinctive revulsion that flared up the moment one discovered a creeping insect. But the insect interpreted it however he pleased.

—My Lady is already a magnificent Queen. Please, continue to tame me, this wretched slave. Until I reach the pinnacle of obedience and surrender my entire fortune of my own accord.

This was no oath of loyalty. It was a cunning declaration of war, issued by a seasoned slave to an inexperienced queen.

She thought she had seen the rock bottom of humanity, yet a pathological abyss lay even deeper than that. Her belief that she had seen the worst was a mere delusion; perhaps Eve had been living in a hothouse all along.

How on earth am I supposed to handle this man?

Her mind went blank at the demand to play a role she had never performed in her life. Yet, surely even a real Queen would have faltered before this man. Eve had lived as a master, yes, but she had only commanded employees with money; she had never been asked to break a man like a dog.

The evidence that the assets had been stolen was already in her hands. All she had to do was file a lawsuit. But having caught a glimpse of a quick and easy shortcut, she didn’t have the heart to step back onto that long, endless path of thorns.

My head is throbbing.

The moment she slumped back against the windowsill, the heavy documents resting on her felt as hollow as their weight.

She thought she had obtained them easily, but it was an illusion. This was not the recovered fortune; it was merely a list proving it had been stolen. Nothing had actually returned to her hands. A belated fury surged within her at this empty sense of victory.

Suddenly, she recalled why the lawyer had jokingly suggested that marrying the man was the easiest way. It carried the implication that if her husband died, the assets would naturally revert to her.

—I’ll be drafting your will soon, so sign it.

There was no need to explain that it would state he was leaving his entire estate to Eve. Chantal had surely made him do the same. If so, when he died, these assets would be snatched away by Chantal anyway.

The moment she issued the cold command, Owen Callas looked at Eve with eyes that seemed to have woken from an ecstatic dream to face a heartless reality.

—Are you planning to kill me? That is different from your promise to cherish me….

—Don’t worry. I won’t kill you.

Not by my hand. As it has always been.

Eve swallowed a bitter self-mockery as she looked down coldly at the insolent bastard who was brazenly demanding she soothe his anxieties.

Don’t worry. I won’t kill you. It was the least convincing lie in the world coming from the beneficiary of a will. Who would believe it? If so, how had Chantal persuaded Owen to fall for such an obvious lie?

Suddenly, Eve’s face flushed with a sense of intolerable humiliation. I actually want to learn that swindler’s methods. I wanted to become like that filthy woman. Without realizing it, she was being stained by that same foul level—all because she was entangled with a man like this.

—An insolent, fake slave like you is only fit for a vulgar, fake queen. Go back to your original master.

At Lady Evelyn’s cold sentence, Owen turned as pale as a corpse. To him, the prospect of being held captive by Chantal for the rest of his life was more terrifying than death itself. The man, who had foolishly tried to test his new master only to kick away the once-in-a-lifetime chance to serve a perfect Queen, finally became a true slave and began to beg for her forgiveness.

—I … I was wrong. I have committed a mortal sin by daring to test my master when I am a mere slave. I will never do it again, so please, I beg of you, do not discard me.

Was this, too, a trick to manipulate an inexperienced queen? Yet, she could no longer sense any cunning in the trembling man. She saw only pure terror.

The sight was somewhat gratifying, and her mind, which had been set on leaving, changed. Eve pulled out a cigarette, intending to enjoy the moment a bit longer. The moment the wretch lifted his knees from the floor, daring to offer her a light, the toe of Eve’s shoe kicked his chest.

—Ugh… I..I’m sorry.

He repeated his apologies and knelt again. Eve fished her pride out of the mire and poured out words meant to bury him instead.

—Why should I take in something like you? You don’t have the caliber to serve me as your master.

—No. I will prove it. Please, just give me a chance—one more chance. I will be a far better caliber of man than Ethan Fairchild.

Eve froze just as she was about to light her cigarette. Ethan Fairchild. Why was that name being brought up here?

—I was sincere when I said the man a Lady needs is not a wolf running wild, but a submissive, loyal hound like me. That man had the audacity to abandon you and leave, but I will never betray you.

Only then did Eve realize the massive delusion Owen had fallen into.

He believed that man, too, had once been a slave under Eve’s «dominion.» He misunderstood every past action that man had committed as being under Eve’s orders. In his mind, he was the «perfect slave» who fled because Eve told him to, and did not hesitate to kill because Eve told him to.

Now she understood why a man who enjoyed being dominated had only ever challenged Ethan Fairchild—a man who was clearly «master» material.

Because he didn’t see him as a master. He saw him as a fellow «slave.»

Just as ordinary men loathe their lover’s first man, Owen had felt jealousy, competitiveness, and a sense of inferiority toward Eve’s first slave all along. And so, almost by chance, Eve obtained the leash with which to collar this man.

—In what way are you submissive? At the very least, Ethan Fairchild obeyed my words unconditionally.

—But in the end, he abandoned you and fled.

—Aren’t you the same claiming you’ll disobey my orders because you fear death?

Owen’s silence was a perfect admission of defeat. It was the moment the trap he had set while daring to discuss «betrayal» snapped shut around his own ankle. Realizing the scales of power had shifted entirely in her favor, Eve finally smiled with the composure of a ruler.

—Do you want to prove you’re a slave more worthy of me than Ethan Fairchild?

Click.

She sparked the lighter and, instead of bringing it to her cigarette, moved it slowly toward the tip of the man’s upturned chin. As it reached a precarious distance, Owen flinched at the heat that felt as though it would sear his skin. Eve’s single sentence shackled the man who was about to dodge the flame.

—A true slave has no right to rebel against their master.

Owen froze. If he dodged his master’s flame, he would be forced back into the status of a «fake slave» …. a role fit only for a whore playing Queen in a brothel.

Watching the man grit his teeth and endure a threat to his life over just a few words, Eve realized: Ah, so this is what it means to dominate. She coldly declared to herself: A master has no obligation to persuade a slave.

—From now on, thinking is forbidden. You will only obey me.

—Yes, My Queen. I will never rebel again; I will obey unconditionally.

Only then did the slave submit perfectly.

Eve finally grasped the essence of this bizarre relationship.

A dog is not to be persuaded. It is to be commanded.

She sent Owen out and was left alone. As she cast off the mask of the Queen she had forced herself to wear, the bare face of an utterly exhausted woman was revealed.

Tony, reclaiming what is ours is such a difficult task.

Of course, you don’t need to know. Please, don’t ever know.

But Tony was a child who didn’t even know what he should know. The fragments of the words he had hurled like a bomb remained lodged in Eve’s heart, making her chest ache.

—Why do you only hate me!

As if I could ever hate you. You’re the only person left in this world whom I love.

It was a contradictory love. That child was the shackle that bound Eve to this mansion, yet at the same time, he was her sole reason for enduring this demon’s den.

Eve did not deny that had it not been for Tony, she could have gone anywhere. It wasn’t because of the assets or the family name; she couldn’t flee because she simply could not leave her child in the clutches of those demons.

Even during the days after Ethan left, when she had to take responsibility for the child in her womb alone, she had never hated Tony. What she hated was her own fate; for the child born only after love had ended, she felt nothing but sorrow.

In the beginning, that emotion was far too dark to be called love; it was nothing more than another name for duty and guilt.

However, the child she had once thought of only as a shackle had unknowingly become her only comfort ….. the thing that kept her alive. Watching the child’s growth from afar, even in secret, was a single ray of light shining into her ash-colored life.