To My First Love, With Regret - 81

Please, let enough of it have remained inside.

Eve sat on the edge of the bed with cautious movements, cradling her lower abdomen as if she were already carrying a child.

She gazed at Tony’s sleeping face. Only then did the rigid lines of her mouth soften into a faint, lingering curve.

My angel. The only reason I willingly cast myself into this hell. As long as I am looking at you, I can smile in any inferno.

Like a thief stealing something that didn’t belong to her, Eve carefully laid her body down on her child’s bed. She closed the distance until his warm breath tickled her cheek, watching him intently—until her smile began to fracture.

My baby, did I hurt you again?

Tony must have cried himself to sleep; dried tear tracks remained on his eyes and cheeks. Eve gently wiped away the evidence of her ‘sin’ with her fingertips and whispered.

—I’m sorry.

Her lips didn’t close immediately. With great difficulty, she forced out the words she had hesitated to say countless times.

—I love you… my baby.

She confessed her love as if making a final confession, then leaned down to steal a kiss from her child’s cheek. The moment her skin met that soft flesh, a flood of buried emotions threatened to burst through the cracks in her heart.

Her love with Ethan Fairchild was over. Including tonight, she had confirmed it a thousand times, yet she still struggled to accept it—but the truth remained: it was finished.

Instead, she had another love now, didn’t she? But this love was a cruel secret that had to be hidden even more deeply than any forbidden romance between a man and a woman.

The resentment of not being able to love her own child openly shifted into a coward’s hatred for the irresponsible man who had fled, leaving her to give the child up. This tangled, knotted fate was hers alone to unravel. In her profound loneliness, her chest grew cold enough to make her whole body shiver.

As the urge to break into violent sobs nearly overcame her, Eve bit her lip and forced herself to pull away.

I’m sorry. I love you, baby.

She repeated the words behind tightly shut eyes. It was a confession and a penance sent in advance to the child she could not yet truly claim.

This child might call her ‘Mother’ one day, but he would live his entire life believing another man was his biological father. It made her heart ache even more for Tony, who would live in ignorance of his true mother’s identity. Worse still, the two children—full siblings with the same parents—would grow up calling each other ‘nephew’ and ‘uncle.’

In this twisted family tree, two lives would grow, nourished by lies.

With the first child, Eve had been a victim. With the second, she was a perpetrator without excuse. Yet, could she ever truly be proud in front of Tony? Eve had always created her children as means, never as ends.

Eve admitted it. With her cold, calculating maternal instinct, she was a hypocritical demon.

And so, Eve made a vow. I will become a total instrument for these children. Even if it kills me.

My babies, no matter what kind of monster I must become…

—I will protect you. I alone will protect you.

The precarious smile of a woman who knew no way to love or atone except through blind obsession was soon soaked in tears.

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That day, her mood had been in the gutter since morning.

Because she had seen blood.

Eve confirmed that she had gained nothing from her transaction with Ethan Fairchild except a humiliating price. The miracle of conceiving in a single night had, unsurprisingly, not occurred.

The tryst fifteen days ago had been the first and last. The ‘capable’ Major Fairchild had immediately deployed to the Northern Front. His unit was still based at Littlewick, and since he had left his belongings in Harry’s room, he would return eventually.

…To think I am actually waiting for that man.

That thought, too, played a part in sinking her mood further into the mire.

—This was your doing, wasn’t it?

In the midst of this, Chantal barged in, screaming like a woman who had lost her mind.

—You’re the one who encouraged him to go to his death!

Owen had become a military doctor, just as he had proclaimed. He had ignored Chantal’s protests, seemingly too greedy for Eve’s ‘child’ to stay behind.

How revolting.

Regardless, why was Chantal so obsessed with such a mediocre man? She had even gone so far as to grovel, begging Eve to use her influence to get Owen stationed at a nearby military hospital or, at the very least, in the rear.

—I wonder. What power does a Princess of Kentrell, married to a commoner, truly have? Why don’t you ask the Queen yourself, Dowager?

Naturally, Eve had refused with a sneer. When Owen was stationed at the front lines exactly as expected, Chantal pointed the finger at Eve.

—Do you think I don’t know you’re trying to kill Owen? You’re too ashamed to be a divorcee, so you’re planning to become an ‘honorable widow’ and swap husbands!

She accused Eve of conspiring with her ex-lover to push her current husband into a death trap.

Strictly speaking, it wasn’t a false accusation.

In the military, members of the high social class or their relatives were rarely stationed at the front lines. The fact that the husband of the Princess of Kentrell was sent to a hospital on the Northern Front meant that someone’s ‘influence’ had been exerted.

It was obvious who had done it.

Ethan Fairchild.

It wasn’t that he had read Eve’s mind and filed the request on her behalf. He simply couldn’t stand the thought of Eve sharing a bed with Owen, so he had sent him far away. Whether it was possessiveness or some twisted sense of purity, it didn’t matter. Ethan was playing the role of a contract killer, dancing to Eve’s tune without even realizing he was a puppet.

—Chantal, Dr. Kallas is fulfilling a duty he chose for himself like an adult. Perhaps you should follow his example and grow up. At times like this, you look like a mother who can’t emotionally detach from her child. It’s pitiful.

—Don’t change the subject! I know you’ve been seeing him again!

A dry laugh escaped Eve’s lips.

Seeing him again? Wasn’t that a bit too grand a phrase for two people who simply met to settle a transaction and then turned their backs on each other?

—How can I be seeing a man who isn’t even here? I should really look for a psychiatrist as my new primary physician.

When Eve dismissed her as a lunatic, Chantal’s face contorted. As if determined to prove that Eve was the crazy one, she shot back with venomous intensity.

—On the night of the party, you were alone in the game room with Ethan Fairchild.

In that fleeting second, a cold shiver ran down Eve’s spine.

She already knew she was suspected of a tryst. Owen had knelt before her, begging, before he left for the front.

—Lady, please… I, your humble servant, implore you. Do not let Ethan Fairchild into your bedroom.

—Why would I let a man like that into my bedroom? Do you see me as a woman so vulgar that I would flirt on the lap of a man I despise, like Chantal?

—It… it is not that… I thought you might need him for his blood type….

—…What?

Was it because he had spent so many years as a slave, living only by reading his masters’ moods? Owen had seen right through Eve’s scheme. There was only one answer that would lead her safely out of that trap.

—That is an excellent idea.

She had pretended she hadn’t thought of it, acting surprised and even praising Owen for coming up with such a ‘brilliant’ suggestion. Owen had turned pale, slapped his own cheek for his stupid slip of the tongue, and clung to her, begging her not to have Ethan’s child. It was almost comical.

He had even insisted that the blood type—the one the specialist had recently confirmed was definitely hereditary, even if the mechanism was unclear—might not be inherited. Truly pathetic.

—I would sleep with Ethan Fairchild? You couldn’t have come up with such an outrageous thought yourself. Chantal told you, didn’t she? You dared to believe another woman’s words over mine? Then go back to her.

—I… I am sorry, Master.

—You fool. Don’t you see she’s trying to drive a wedge between us because she noticed you’ve sided with me? I told you to keep it hidden. What have you done?

—No! She couldn’t have found out. Please, forgive me.

Of course, Eve was the one driving the wedge. Owen, paralyzed by the fear of being abandoned, would no longer dare to team up with Chantal to interrogate her.

But Chantal had never mentioned finding proof of the tryst before. How did she know they had been in the game room?

Leaving aside any physical traces of the encounter, Eve hadn’t left a single shred of evidence that she was the one who had made that mess.

—Chantal, I don’t know why you’re under such a delusion, but I have never been alone with that man in that dreadful game room.

Eve denied it firmly, but Chantal didn’t back down. She acted like an investigator who held the smoking gun. Then, she reached into her pocket and threw something onto the book Eve had been reading.

It was a cigarette butt, the tip heavily stained with red.

She even scoured the ashtrays. How relentless.

As Eve stared down at it, Chantal asked triumphantly, as if she had finally caught the culprit:

—Then why was a cigarette with your lipstick on it in that room?

—What…?

Eve couldn’t help but sneer. It was hilarious that this was her only ‘evidence.’

—If there’s lipstick on a cigarette, is it automatically mine? Was I the only woman smoking at the party that night?

How do you even know that’s my lipstick shade? To think you expected me to get caught in such a flimsy net. How tragic.

But on the other hand, the fact that Chantal’s intuition had led her to pinpoint the exact location of the tryst was more than a little unsettling.