To My First Love, With Regret - 90

—H-how dare you… do not insult a chaste lady.

The protesting voice trembled thinly. It was hard to tell if he was shaking with rage because his queen had been insulted, or if he was simply paralyzed by the other man’s madness. Still, his courage to stand his ground while trembling was almost admirable….

—The Major and my… m-my w-wife… are no longer involved in such a way, are they?

Wife. It was a reckless word that incited murderous intent not just in Eve, but in Ethan as well. If he lost his reason now, there would be no turning back.

—Owen, let’s go.

As soon as the command fell, the man wiped away his toxicity, assumed a submissive gaze, and bowed his head. Then, he turned away, clinging to Eve for all to see.

Ethan was speechless at the farcical sight. To think that the puny cur who had just barked so fearlessly would tuck its tail and obey at a single low command from its master.

On the other hand, he couldn’t laugh at the reality that no matter how much he barked, he could never be the ‘husband’ Eve kept by her side. The woman he loved had traded him in for a wretched creature like that.

A searing sense of betrayal and sorrow welled up, as it always did. This time, he failed to suppress it. Ethan shouted at the callous back of the woman climbing into the car.

—Are you prouder of that bastard than me? Is that why you came all the way to this battlefield to see him? I suppose you never visited the husband you threw into prison because you were so damn ashamed of him!

He poured out the raw resentment that had been simmering inside him ever since he heard she was coming to see her ‘husband.’ Today, he didn’t stop at merely tarnishing Eve’s reputation. Ethan finally stripped off the pride he had been guarding like armor and hurled it into the mud.

The woman who had been ignoring him like a beggar pleading on the street suddenly stopped in her tracks. The eyes she turned toward Ethan were frozen, as if she couldn’t believe what she had just heard. But soon, that chill melted into a burning rage.

—When did I ever put you in pr……

The sentence was sliced clean off the moment Eve’s body flinched. It was because Owen had dared to wrap his hand around her waist without permission. Knowing his own guilt, the man—whose hand was trembling and whose face had turned deathly pale—whispered urgently.

—We must go.

Seeing Owen’s face, Eve regained the reason that had been momentarily buried in anger. If she continued to be lured by Ethan’s vulgar tongue, her secrets would be exposed and her plan would be completely derailed.

Eve turned her back on him coldly once more and climbed into the car. Thud. The door closed ruthlessly. As if severing his world from hers.

That woman… truly has no heart.

The woman in the retreating car never looked back, not even once. Eve answered through her attitude alone: that the desperate pain Ethan had poured out like blood, even at the cost of his pride, meant absolutely nothing to her.

That a man like him no longer held any value.

She reinforced the fact that she had discarded him long ago. While Evelyn Sherwood shook off the stain that was him and moved forward dispassionately, Ethan suddenly found himself unbearable for choosing to remain a forsaken man.

The only reason he remained locked in this self-made prison was that, despite being the king of the underworld who ruled the night and wearing the hollow mask of a war hero adored by the day, his soul was still stuck at nineteen—an innocent boy who loved a certain girl and waited for her return.

Even as his mouth swore revenge, he was ready to utter words of forgiveness and love with that same mouth if Eve would only say, ‘I’m sorry for betraying you.’

You pathetic fool.

What welled up in Ethan’s eyes was not tears. It was something closer to venom. Within his blurring vision, he forged his last remaining scrap of affection into a murderous edge.

Kill him. Kill that foolish nineteen-year-old boy inside you.

He, too, had to discard all lingering regret and move forward heartlessly. He would seize Kentrell without fail, trap Evelyn Sherwood in the prison that was himself, and slowly tighten the noose around her neck.

By then, even if she apologized, it would be worthless, for the nineteen-year-old Ethan Fairchild who would have accepted it would already be dead. He no longer needed apologies.

His resentment toward the woman who abandoned him had finally crossed the threshold of hatred. If a twisted love could not be restored, the only path left was total destruction.

Despite the growing distance, Ethan Fairchild’s piercing murderous aura ignored the space between them, piercing through the car window to choke Owen. Terror surged up his spine, and he hurriedly turned his head forward.

His heart was still pounding as if it would burst through his ribs. Owen stole a nervous glance at the woman sitting beside him.

Lady Evelyn was staring straight ahead. Yet, Owen could not be at ease. Her eyes held the fierce rage of someone who had been falsely accused.

The husband you threw into prison.

She was likely trying to make sense of that incomprehensible accusation. It was only a matter of time before she noticed someone wedged between the mismatched pieces of the puzzle. Now, the silence of the deep-thinking Lady Evelyn began to choke him.

Please, let her dismiss it as the ramblings of a madman. Please, let her not go and question that man.

If she did, she would eventually discover that the petition Lady Evelyn had written to save Ethan Fairchild had been twisted into the decisive evidence used to indict him.

And she would learn that Owen had known about that hideous conspiracy all along, yet remained silent—even adding the lie that the letter had been published in the newspapers.

The sinner bowed his head as if in penance, but the prayer he offered with his trembling, clasped hands was not a confession.

Owen merely prayed that his sins would remain forever hidden.

There was only one hotel open near the military hospital. As night fell, black curtains were drawn tight over every window. Though the darkness veiled the ashen shadows of war cast over the ruined city, Eve could not forget that this was a battlefield where enemy air raids could pour down at any moment.

Yet, the hotel restaurant where they went for dinner was, paradoxically, filled with a vitality that felt worlds away from the conflict. Most of the patrons occupying the scattered tables were officers, desperate to escape the hellish battlefield, if only in spirit.

Amidst that desperately frantic atmosphere, Eve alone was sinking deep into thought.

—Are you prouder of that bastard than me? Is that why you came all the way to this battlefield to see him? I suppose you never visited the husband you threw into prison because you were so damn ashamed of him!

The husband you threw into prison.

She was crushed under the weight of those words.

I put you in prison? Even if you resent me, why fabricate such a lie? When my father was raving, trying to kill you, I was the only one who stood in his way.

While you were enduring hell in that cell, I was struggling to escape my own prison, doing everything in my power to save you. All while protecting our child.

It wasn’t that I never visited you; it was that I couldn’t go….

Eve bit her lip, desperate not to let even a single drop of her surging sorrow spill over. The metallic taste of blood spread across her tongue. The harder she tried to suppress her emotions, the more they threatened to surface.

—Lady Evelyn….

She couldn’t avoid the eyes of Owen, who sat across from her, carefully reading her every expression.

—Are you still distressed because of the nonsense that man spewed earlier today?

—Owen, keep in mind that for the rest of this meal, your mouth is a digestive organ for swallowing food, not an excretory organ for spitting out words.

—I understand, but… please, let me say just one thing before I fall silent.

He took her silence as a self-granted permission.

—It is unbearable to me that he would denounce you as a traitor after the sacrifices you made for him. If you give the order, I will find him and set the record straight to restore your honor.

A dry, hollow laugh escaped Eve’s twisted lips.

Restore my honor? How?

He surely didn’t mean a primitive challenge to a duel; he meant he would defend her with a few words. And he intended to do this while being a coward who trembled in that man’s presence? Setting aside how ridiculous that was for a moment….

—What do I gain by clearing up that man’s misunderstanding?

The bridge between them had long since been burned. If Ethan accepted that Eve was innocent, would he stop his revenge? Unlikely. He was a man addicted to his vengeance.

One had to ask if he would even believe her in the first place. He was a man who, consumed by hatred, had pointedly ignored her desperate efforts from ten years ago and chosen to brand her a traitor. That blind distrust was not something that would waver for a few paltry sentences.

She had thrown herself to the wolves, letting the world bite at her as an ‘unchaste woman’ just to save him, yet in the end, her strength had failed, and she couldn’t pull him from that cell. Perhaps that was her true crime.

In Ethan Fairchild’s world, did failed effort count only as an excuse, and an un-saving love as mere hypocrisy? It hurt bitterly, but what could she do? Apparently, for him, what she gave simply wasn’t enough.

Fine. I’m sorry. I’m sorry that I was such a small, insignificant woman… honestly, it cuts me to the bone how sorry I am.