try begging

When Grace, who was lying on her side next to him, stopped chewing, Leon held out a piece of apple, cut into a bite-sized piece. But she put the last piece into his mouth. Was an apple this sweet? He found it ridiculous to be indulging in such childish sentiments. Even after eating an apple, Grace still looked exhausted. 

As he glanced at the fruit basket on the bedside table, the chocolate box given as a welcome gift from the hotel caught his eye. As he turned to reach for the table, the sheet covering his lower body slipped down. He felt a touch on the outside of his left thigh as he picked up the box.

He looked down and saw Grace tracing the scar left by the gunshot with her fingertips. Her eyes were filled with guilt and worry. Leon remembered the moment when she had hugged him and looked down at him, smiling like a fool. Leon had longed for those turquoise eyes filled with contempt for him. He had not known that those turquoise eyes filled with worry were what he truly longed for.

He was a foolish man, so he thought that just as he had done everything to gain contempt, he might now do everything to gain worry.

Maybe even affection.

He put his thoughts into action without hesitation.

He shook his waist violently and stopped just before Grace reached her climax. Then he apologized, pretending that his left thigh, where he had been shot, was sore. Concern spread across the woman's face in an instant.

"You should have said something." Grace felt sorry, laid him down, climbed on top of him, and shook her waist. If this was a sin, even the punishment would be sweet.

Leon looked down at the woman who was caressing his scar with an apologetic face again and rolled his head for a moment.

If he did more, the quick-witted woman would know that he was babbling. So he covered up the real babbling he was going to do with a smokescreen that looked like babbling.

"If I asked you to suck it while shedding tears, you'd put it in your mouth."

He pointed to the center that had stood up again because of Grace's touch with dry eyes and sneered. When Grace glared at him, Leon pulled up the sheet to cover the scar.

Now, the image of that scar would be stuck in her head. She must think he's pretending to be strong because he's hurt. It was a trick to make him look weak in Grace's eyes.

I'm really screwed.

It just goes to show that human nature never changes. Leon Winston was a rotten person from the start, all the way to the end. It was just a matter of how he showed his rottenness.

Leon took a praline from a chocolate box and placed it in Grace's mouth, asking,

"Remember the chocolate you gave me at Abington Beach?"

She chewed slowly. "I don't remember what it tasted like."

Between the police investigation, the funeral, and everything else, it had vanished without a trace. This wasn't a lie to manipulate her; it was the truth.

"Maybe a maid took it or threw it away."

"They still sell it at the train station near Blackburn..." Grace murmured wistfully.

Then, as if thinking about something, she put her hand under the sheet, touched the scar again, and spoke. "I ate the one you gave me."

"What do you mean?" he asked. She was referring to the day he'd used her as bait to find their base, the day he'd given her the chocolate through the nurse.

'Used her as bait to get Grace who had Ellie.' The moment he heard her with a definite name, a baby and a woman, his guilt deepened.

The image of Grace, weeping uncontrollably without minding the stares of the people as she walked from the post office to the train station, flashed before his eyes. He'd seen her from the back seat of the sedan and impulsively gone out to buy her the chocolate.

"How did you know it was my chocolate?"

"Because I could smell your perfume on the box," he replied.

Leon laughed bitterly.

"So it turns out it wasn't because of that officer, but because of my mistake."

"What are you talking about? I knew from the moment I saw the gun in your coat."

Caught off guard by something that had happened three years ago, he was speechless and simply laughed.

"I should be angry that the chocolate meant you were watching me, but I wasn't. I don't know if I should call it a shred of remorse or affection, but I felt like you were trying to comfort me."

Even in that false time when they were both lying to each other, knowing no one would believe them, Grace confessed that she had felt his sincerity.

But Leon wasn't happy.

"I should be the one shaking you, not the other way around."

Grace keeps provoking the desires he had so painstakingly suppressed. He had let her go, feeling as if he were cutting out a piece of his own flesh, and yet, she had returned. Not because she wanted him, but because she needed him. So, he resigned himself to the fact that she would leave when she was no longer useful.

"My promise to let you and Ellie go still stands."

He made sure to say this first. "The rest is up to you."

Of course, he hadn't completely given up hope, so he left the choice to Grace, as if it hadn't been made yet. And he kept hinting that he wanted her to come with him. Desperately.

"Ellie hasn't forgotten about you. She says she misses her dad."

Grace was the one who shook him with those words. If you say things like that, I'll want to take back my promise to let you go. Do you know what you're doing? He had to use all his self-control to keep from saying those words to her at that moment.

"So, on my way to call you, I ran into the remnants..." So that means she wasn't planning to leave me after all. That hope, which would lead to such despair, shook him again. Of course she wouldn't.

Grace hadn't asked him to come with her yet. She'd been battling with her desires, but as time passed, the odds seemed to be turning against her.

"Do you know how much your saying you smelled my perfume is shaking me up right now? 

Every casual word you say, my whole world shakes."

 intentions, so clearly evident, couldn't overcome a woman's unintentional innocence.

Just as he was about to give up his clumsy advances and go take a shower, Grace, who had been smiling to herself, mumbled awkwardly, "It's strange that we're talking about things like this while smiling."

Leon's thoughts naturally turned to how unnatural it felt that their relationship was treating old memories like trivial anecdotes.

"You know," Grace said, as if she had been thinking the same thing. She sat up and faced him, apologizing. "I'm sorry. I wasn't myself a moment ago."

Leon wasn't shameless enough to accept her apology outright, especially considering she had treated him like a torturer during their intimate moment.

He had never had a conscience before. But with this woman, it seemed he had developed one.

A conscience is a restraint. And a means of control.

Grace Ridley, the dominator, had successfully placed a conscience, a dog collar, around the neck of the dog named Leon Winston.

She apologized to the dog, as if she didn't know she was the one in control.

"I don't know why I'm like this."

"I do."

She would hurt him, then turn around and comfort him. After observing Grace for several days, 

Leon knew exactly why she behaved like she was kissing the cheek she had slapped. It was no different from what Leon had done to Grace in the past. Like him, she was clumsy at this. And because she was not entirely sane, she was inconsistent.

She said things that no sane person would say, like how the annex, a place that was a nightmare for her, was the safest place. And to top it off, she used the things he had done to her in the past as a means of self-deprecation, seeking comfort in that familiarity.

"I know you're struggling too, because you can't control yourself."

When he returned her comforting words, she leaned closer and vowed, 

"I'll try to be more mindful. If I lose control again, please remember. I don't blame you anymore. I have no intention of revenge."

He nodded slightly, raising the corners of his lips, but for some reason, Grace pouted.

"I'm serious. Believe me."

He nodded emphatically, but it seemed like a mere formality.

"We're both caught up in this mess. And I don't know what we're trying to prove by blaming each other. I just feel sorry for both of us."

"Sympathy isn't a bad thing."

If it's hard to admit that you love someone, starting with sympathy is a good approach.

"I just thought that sometimes."

Grace leaned against him and murmured.

"What if we had grown up normally?"

It was a thought Leon had occasionally had as well.

"I might have gone to university and traveled the world. Maybe even gotten married. I used to look down on women who cooked warm dinners and waited for their husbands, like I was some kind of enlightened prophet. But now, it seems like that kind of life is also a form of happiness."

Leon followed Grace's words and imagined their ordinary beginnings. Perhaps they would have been in the same university courses, competing for first and second place, and one of them would have impulsively kissed the other. Or maybe they would have met by chance on a train dining car or a hotel restaurant while traveling the world. 

Leon imagined himself politely listening to a woman he'd never met before, rambling about her travels, only to be haunted by her voice even back in his room. And then, the next day, he would casually join her table again. 

He tried to imagine Grace cooking a warm dinner and waiting for him to come home, but the words that followed stopped him.

"So, did you end up becoming a soldier like the family business? I became a journalist and covered your story. I fell for you at first sight, but you had absolutely no interest in me. And then you not only got to see Leon Winston up close, but you even bragged for the rest of your life about how you held his hand."

The woman, lost in her imagination, laughed amusedly. Leon couldn't laugh.

What if we had grown up normally? The imagination started with 'us' but ended with 'you and me.' There was no ending where the two of them were together in the different fate that Grace spoke of.

Leon said nothing. The decision was Grace's to make. At least, it had been until then.

When they went to the bathroom to wash up together, something happened that led him, not 

Grace, to make a completely unexpected decision happened.

"Ah, ahhh!"

"Uh, wait. Stop...."

"Ugh, no."

He hadn't brought any contraception because he had only gone into the shower booth to take a shower.

"Grace, uh, loosen your legs, please. Ha, fuck...."

Grace, who was still in the throes of climax, wouldn't let him go, so he came inside her. Leon pulled out of her as soon as she released her wrapped legs. His dick jerked and spurted with his cum.

Though, there must be some left in there.

He leaned Grace against the wall, who was staggering, and crouched down. He put one of Grace's legs on his shoulder and inserted two fingers into her vagina, urgently scraping out the remaining semen inside.

He couldn't bear to watch Grace wither away from another unwanted pregnancy.

He didn't want to be misunderstood as trying to hold her back with a child again. He didn't want to hold her by his side like that anymore.

Grace, who had been staring blankly at him as he chewed out harsh curses, did something unexpected.

"Don't."

She pushed his hand away. Now, Leon could only stare at her with a dazed expression.

"...Why?"

He asked, even though he knew what it meant to not take out the semen. He couldn't believe it. Grace wants a child. My child. His rationality was slipping away as fast as his heart was racing.

The vow he had made just a moment ago, to never see her suffer from morning sickness again, was defeated by Grace's determination. If you want me, then gladly. Damn it. The craving is coming back. He wanted to kiss her ravenously right now, pick her up and throw her onto the bed. The primal desire to drench the cervix, which was twitching under his fingertips right now, with his seed was starting to boil.

This woman, she both stimulates his twisted desires and shakes him like this. He found himself wanting to willingly lose the battle against his desires.

"Don't do it? Why?" He asked, holding onto his crumbling rationality, craving the final blow.

"...Because I want more children?"

"You know that's not what I mean. Why do you want to have my child?"

She looked taken aback. It seemed like an unexpected question.

"...Who else do I have besides you?"

As Grace asked in confusion, Leon's primal desire cooled abruptly.

This wasn't a declaration of love, meaning that in her life, the only man would be Leon Winston forever. It meant she had no choice.

I can't refuse this, but I have to refuse this.

Leon moved the finger he had stopped and scratched the wall thoroughly. Grace's face turned bright red instantly.

"You're not ready yet."

As if she knew, her hand, which had been trying to stop him, fell weakly.

Night had fallen. The city streets outside the hotel window were bustling with people enjoying the weekend.

Leon didn't forget why he was here and scanned the crowd with his eyes.

But it was a futile effort. Since it was raining steadily, all that could be seen was a line of umbrellas. Leon stubbed out the remaining bit of his cigarette in the ashtray piled high with ashes and closed the rain-streaked window. When the noise of the street disappeared, an awkward silence began. Neither he nor Grace had said much since what happened in the bathroom.

"We're really..."

Grace was the first to break the silence. Leon turned his head towards the woman lying in bed in her pajamas. Her face was a little red, as it had been a moment ago. Was it embarrassment or the reflection of the red neon lights?

"We're really?"

"Terrible parents."

It was probably the former. She seemed embarrassed to have been so recklessly indulging in pleasure all day to forget her pain. Leon leaned against the windowsill and chuckled softly.

"You were the one who suggested it first, so why am I being lumped in as a terrible father?"

Grace rolled her eyes and opened her mouth, then seemed to remember that he was right and chuckled, changing the subject.

"And a younger sibling at that. If I were Ellie, I'd feel betrayed."

The fact that she had been considering having another child while her child's life was in danger also seemed to contribute to her thinking of herself as a terrible mother. Leon gazed at Grace and suddenly thought. I wonder if she misunderstood when I said I wasn't ready.

Just as her body had accepted him before her heart, her body might accept having his child again, but her heart didn't seem ready. Exhausted, Grace looked sleepy and soon closed her eyes. Leon quietly approached her and brushed the stray hair from her cheek with his index finger.

'You're the bravest and yet the most cowardly person I know.'

While standing by the window a moment ago, Leon had emotionally distanced himself and analyzed Grace Ridley as a person. By already agreeing to have another child with him, Grace had made a tentative decision. To be with him. Not by choice, but by force. 

Grace had decided not to leave, not for herself but for the child who wanted him. She was trying desperately to force out the negative feelings she had for him, purely for the sake of the child. 

Since she was being pushed, she couldn't help but keep going back and forth. Even though he wanted at least sympathy from Grace, it was miserable that he needed patience and effort to stay by her side. Grace was miserable too. I wish Grace could realize that she doesn't just need me, but wants me. Only then can we start a new life together. He wanted her to sort out her own feelings completely, in a place where no one was pushing her. Just like he had done.

If it were the old Leon, he would have been blinded by the fact that Grace desired his child, not him. But having experienced Grace as a person for so long, Leon had become more cautious. In the end, he lost the battle against his desires. A new battle had begun. Knowing his enemy well, he abandoned his passive tactics and chose a flanking maneuver, pretending to retreat.

"Sleep well. I'll bring Ellie into your arms tomorrow. And I'm sorry."

If Ellie returns, then just one more time.

"Just one more time, I'll try my tricks."

* * *

When Grace, who was lying on her side next to him, stopped chewing, Leon held out a piece of apple, cut into a bite-sized piece. But she put the last piece into his mouth. Was an apple this sweet? He found it ridiculous to be indulging in such childish sentiments. Even after eating an apple, Grace still looked exhausted. 

As he glanced at the fruit basket on the bedside table, the chocolate box given as a welcome gift from the hotel caught his eye. As he turned to reach for the table, the sheet covering his lower body slipped down. He felt a touch on the outside of his left thigh as he picked up the box.

He looked down and saw Grace tracing the scar left by the gunshot with her fingertips. Her eyes were filled with guilt and worry. Leon remembered the moment when she had hugged him and looked down at him, smiling like a fool. Leon had longed for those turquoise eyes filled with contempt for him. He had not known that those turquoise eyes filled with worry were what he truly longed for.

He was a foolish man, so he thought that just as he had done everything to gain contempt, he might now do everything to gain worry.

Maybe even affection.

He put his thoughts into action without hesitation.

He shook his waist violently and stopped just before Grace reached her climax. Then he apologized, pretending that his left thigh, where he had been shot, was sore. Concern spread across the woman's face in an instant.

"You should have said something." Grace felt sorry, laid him down, climbed on top of him, and shook her waist. If this was a sin, even the punishment would be sweet.

Leon looked down at the woman who was caressing his scar with an apologetic face again and rolled his head for a moment.

If he did more, the quick-witted woman would know that he was babbling. So he covered up the real babbling he was going to do with a smokescreen that looked like babbling.

"If I asked you to suck it while shedding tears, you'd put it in your mouth."

He pointed to the center that had stood up again because of Grace's touch with dry eyes and sneered. When Grace glared at him, Leon pulled up the sheet to cover the scar.

Now, the image of that scar would be stuck in her head. She must think he's pretending to be strong because he's hurt. It was a trick to make him look weak in Grace's eyes.

I'm really screwed.

It just goes to show that human nature never changes. Leon Winston was a rotten person from the start, all the way to the end. It was just a matter of how he showed his rottenness.

Leon took a praline from a chocolate box and placed it in Grace's mouth, asking,

"Remember the chocolate you gave me at Abington Beach?"

She chewed slowly. "I don't remember what it tasted like."

Between the police investigation, the funeral, and everything else, it had vanished without a trace. This wasn't a lie to manipulate her; it was the truth.

"Maybe a maid took it or threw it away."

"They still sell it at the train station near Blackburn..." Grace murmured wistfully.

Then, as if thinking about something, she put her hand under the sheet, touched the scar again, and spoke. "I ate the one you gave me."

"What do you mean?" he asked. She was referring to the day he'd used her as bait to find their base, the day he'd given her the chocolate through the nurse.

'Used her as bait to get Grace who had Ellie.' The moment he heard her with a definite name, a baby and a woman, his guilt deepened.

The image of Grace, weeping uncontrollably without minding the stares of the people as she walked from the post office to the train station, flashed before his eyes. He'd seen her from the back seat of the sedan and impulsively gone out to buy her the chocolate.

"How did you know it was my chocolate?"

"Because I could smell your perfume on the box," he replied.

Leon laughed bitterly.

"So it turns out it wasn't because of that officer, but because of my mistake."

"What are you talking about? I knew from the moment I saw the gun in your coat."

Caught off guard by something that had happened three years ago, he was speechless and simply laughed.

"I should be angry that the chocolate meant you were watching me, but I wasn't. I don't know if I should call it a shred of remorse or affection, but I felt like you were trying to comfort me."

Even in that false time when they were both lying to each other, knowing no one would believe them, Grace confessed that she had felt his sincerity.

But Leon wasn't happy.

"I should be the one shaking you, not the other way around."

Grace keeps provoking the desires he had so painstakingly suppressed. He had let her go, feeling as if he were cutting out a piece of his own flesh, and yet, she had returned. Not because she wanted him, but because she needed him. So, he resigned himself to the fact that she would leave when she was no longer useful.

"My promise to let you and Ellie go still stands."

He made sure to say this first. "The rest is up to you."

Of course, he hadn't completely given up hope, so he left the choice to Grace, as if it hadn't been made yet. And he kept hinting that he wanted her to come with him. Desperately.

"Ellie hasn't forgotten about you. She says she misses her dad."

Grace was the one who shook him with those words. If you say things like that, I'll want to take back my promise to let you go. Do you know what you're doing? He had to use all his self-control to keep from saying those words to her at that moment.

"So, on my way to call you, I ran into the remnants..." So that means she wasn't planning to leave me after all. That hope, which would lead to such despair, shook him again. Of course she wouldn't.

Grace hadn't asked him to come with her yet. She'd been battling with her desires, but as time passed, the odds seemed to be turning against her.

"Do you know how much your saying you smelled my perfume is shaking me up right now? 

Every casual word you say, my whole world shakes."

 intentions, so clearly evident, couldn't overcome a woman's unintentional innocence.

Just as he was about to give up his clumsy advances and go take a shower, Grace, who had been smiling to herself, mumbled awkwardly, "It's strange that we're talking about things like this while smiling."

Leon's thoughts naturally turned to how unnatural it felt that their relationship was treating old memories like trivial anecdotes.

"You know," Grace said, as if she had been thinking the same thing. She sat up and faced him, apologizing. "I'm sorry. I wasn't myself a moment ago."

Leon wasn't shameless enough to accept her apology outright, especially considering she had treated him like a torturer during their intimate moment.

He had never had a conscience before. But with this woman, it seemed he had developed one.

A conscience is a restraint. And a means of control.

Grace Ridley, the dominator, had successfully placed a conscience, a dog collar, around the neck of the dog named Leon Winston.

She apologized to the dog, as if she didn't know she was the one in control.

"I don't know why I'm like this."

"I do."

She would hurt him, then turn around and comfort him. After observing Grace for several days, 

Leon knew exactly why she behaved like she was kissing the cheek she had slapped. It was no different from what Leon had done to Grace in the past. Like him, she was clumsy at this. And because she was not entirely sane, she was inconsistent.

She said things that no sane person would say, like how the annex, a place that was a nightmare for her, was the safest place. And to top it off, she used the things he had done to her in the past as a means of self-deprecation, seeking comfort in that familiarity.

"I know you're struggling too, because you can't control yourself."

When he returned her comforting words, she leaned closer and vowed, 

"I'll try to be more mindful. If I lose control again, please remember. I don't blame you anymore. I have no intention of revenge."

He nodded slightly, raising the corners of his lips, but for some reason, Grace pouted.

"I'm serious. Believe me."

He nodded emphatically, but it seemed like a mere formality.

"We're both caught up in this mess. And I don't know what we're trying to prove by blaming each other. I just feel sorry for both of us."

"Sympathy isn't a bad thing."

If it's hard to admit that you love someone, starting with sympathy is a good approach.

"I just thought that sometimes."

Grace leaned against him and murmured.

"What if we had grown up normally?"

It was a thought Leon had occasionally had as well.

"I might have gone to university and traveled the world. Maybe even gotten married. I used to look down on women who cooked warm dinners and waited for their husbands, like I was some kind of enlightened prophet. But now, it seems like that kind of life is also a form of happiness."

Leon followed Grace's words and imagined their ordinary beginnings. Perhaps they would have been in the same university courses, competing for first and second place, and one of them would have impulsively kissed the other. Or maybe they would have met by chance on a train dining car or a hotel restaurant while traveling the world. 

Leon imagined himself politely listening to a woman he'd never met before, rambling about her travels, only to be haunted by her voice even back in his room. And then, the next day, he would casually join her table again. 

He tried to imagine Grace cooking a warm dinner and waiting for him to come home, but the words that followed stopped him.

"So, did you end up becoming a soldier like the family business? I became a journalist and covered your story. I fell for you at first sight, but you had absolutely no interest in me. And then you not only got to see Leon Winston up close, but you even bragged for the rest of your life about how you held his hand."

The woman, lost in her imagination, laughed amusedly. Leon couldn't laugh.

What if we had grown up normally? The imagination started with 'us' but ended with 'you and me.' There was no ending where the two of them were together in the different fate that Grace spoke of.

Leon said nothing. The decision was Grace's to make. At least, it had been until then.

When they went to the bathroom to wash up together, something happened that led him, not 

Grace, to make a completely unexpected decision happened.

"Ah, ahhh!"

"Uh, wait. Stop...."

"Ugh, no."

He hadn't brought any contraception because he had only gone into the shower booth to take a shower.

"Grace, uh, loosen your legs, please. Ha, fuck...."

Grace, who was still in the throes of climax, wouldn't let him go, so he came inside her. Leon pulled out of her as soon as she released her wrapped legs. His dick jerked and spurted with his cum.

Though, there must be some left in there.

He leaned Grace against the wall, who was staggering, and crouched down. He put one of Grace's legs on his shoulder and inserted two fingers into her vagina, urgently scraping out the remaining semen inside.

He couldn't bear to watch Grace wither away from another unwanted pregnancy.

He didn't want to be misunderstood as trying to hold her back with a child again. He didn't want to hold her by his side like that anymore.

Grace, who had been staring blankly at him as he chewed out harsh curses, did something unexpected.

"Don't."

She pushed his hand away. Now, Leon could only stare at her with a dazed expression.

"...Why?"

He asked, even though he knew what it meant to not take out the semen. He couldn't believe it. Grace wants a child. My child. His rationality was slipping away as fast as his heart was racing.

The vow he had made just a moment ago, to never see her suffer from morning sickness again, was defeated by Grace's determination. If you want me, then gladly. Damn it. The craving is coming back. He wanted to kiss her ravenously right now, pick her up and throw her onto the bed. The primal desire to drench the cervix, which was twitching under his fingertips right now, with his seed was starting to boil.

This woman, she both stimulates his twisted desires and shakes him like this. He found himself wanting to willingly lose the battle against his desires.

"Don't do it? Why?" He asked, holding onto his crumbling rationality, craving the final blow.

"...Because I want more children?"

"You know that's not what I mean. Why do you want to have my child?"

She looked taken aback. It seemed like an unexpected question.

"...Who else do I have besides you?"

As Grace asked in confusion, Leon's primal desire cooled abruptly.

This wasn't a declaration of love, meaning that in her life, the only man would be Leon Winston forever. It meant she had no choice.

I can't refuse this, but I have to refuse this.

Leon moved the finger he had stopped and scratched the wall thoroughly. Grace's face turned bright red instantly.

"You're not ready yet."

As if she knew, her hand, which had been trying to stop him, fell weakly.

Night had fallen. The city streets outside the hotel window were bustling with people enjoying the weekend.

Leon didn't forget why he was here and scanned the crowd with his eyes.

But it was a futile effort. Since it was raining steadily, all that could be seen was a line of umbrellas. Leon stubbed out the remaining bit of his cigarette in the ashtray piled high with ashes and closed the rain-streaked window. When the noise of the street disappeared, an awkward silence began. Neither he nor Grace had said much since what happened in the bathroom.

"We're really..."

Grace was the first to break the silence. Leon turned his head towards the woman lying in bed in her pajamas. Her face was a little red, as it had been a moment ago. Was it embarrassment or the reflection of the red neon lights?

"We're really?"

"Terrible parents."

It was probably the former. She seemed embarrassed to have been so recklessly indulging in pleasure all day to forget her pain. Leon leaned against the windowsill and chuckled softly.

"You were the one who suggested it first, so why am I being lumped in as a terrible father?"

Grace rolled her eyes and opened her mouth, then seemed to remember that he was right and chuckled, changing the subject.

"And a younger sibling at that. If I were Ellie, I'd feel betrayed."

The fact that she had been considering having another child while her child's life was in danger also seemed to contribute to her thinking of herself as a terrible mother. Leon gazed at Grace and suddenly thought. I wonder if she misunderstood when I said I wasn't ready.

Just as her body had accepted him before her heart, her body might accept having his child again, but her heart didn't seem ready. Exhausted, Grace looked sleepy and soon closed her eyes. Leon quietly approached her and brushed the stray hair from her cheek with his index finger.

'You're the bravest and yet the most cowardly person I know.'

While standing by the window a moment ago, Leon had emotionally distanced himself and analyzed Grace Ridley as a person. By already agreeing to have another child with him, Grace had made a tentative decision. To be with him. Not by choice, but by force. 

Grace had decided not to leave, not for herself but for the child who wanted him. She was trying desperately to force out the negative feelings she had for him, purely for the sake of the child. 

Since she was being pushed, she couldn't help but keep going back and forth. Even though he wanted at least sympathy from Grace, it was miserable that he needed patience and effort to stay by her side. Grace was miserable too. I wish Grace could realize that she doesn't just need me, but wants me. Only then can we start a new life together. He wanted her to sort out her own feelings completely, in a place where no one was pushing her. Just like he had done.

If it were the old Leon, he would have been blinded by the fact that Grace desired his child, not him. But having experienced Grace as a person for so long, Leon had become more cautious. In the end, he lost the battle against his desires. A new battle had begun. Knowing his enemy well, he abandoned his passive tactics and chose a flanking maneuver, pretending to retreat.

"Sleep well. I'll bring Ellie into your arms tomorrow. And I'm sorry."

If Ellie returns, then just one more time.

"Just one more time, I'll try my tricks."

* * *