try begging
It was the night that her mother said that the cruelest way to destroy an enemy is through love. To Grace, who laughed it off, her mother also said this.
"They say men become fools when they fall in love."
"Then is your father also an idiot?"
Now I know why my mother's face hardened when I asked that question as a joke.
"No. He doesn't love me. Even if all the men in the world loved me, he wouldn't do it."
When I look back on that moment, my eyes go dark. Only after I know the truth do I realize how cruel the question I asked was. I felt like crying.
I also came to realize how it felt to raise an enemy's daughter, whom I lost in an accident during a mission. When I love my daughter, at least unlike my mother, I don't have to worry about what anyone else thinks. It was a great fortune.
Grace, like Ellie, suddenly became curious.
Did my mother have any affection for my biological father? Or maybe even love and hate for him?
It makes me sad. It makes me incredibly sad to think that I was just the product of an unlucky and careless mistake.
Who am I hugging right now? Grace thought sadly, hugging her daughter tighter.
Ellie, at least you weren't born by mistake.
Whatever his intentions, this child was definitely not the product of a mistake, as the man created him of his own volition.
She looked up and met the child's eyes as she waited for an answer.
"Dad loves Mom."
It was the truth. I don't know what it is, and I don't know if it's still true.
"Mom, your dad too...."
Grace could only move her lips, unable to continue speaking. It was difficult. In fact, this was the most difficult question. Looking at the face that resembled the man with a depressed heart, Grace sought an answer.
Leon Winston, what do I think of you?
"Mom, your dad too...."
Grace, who had been hesitating for a long time, finally brought out the old truth that had been buried in the past.
"I loved you."
It's true that it was my first love. Even though it's already over.
It was a convenient and cowardly answer.
After Ellie fell asleep, Grace quietly came into the living room. She retrieved a forgotten bottle of red wine from somewhere in the kitchen cabinet, poured herself a glass, and sat down on the sofa.
She stared blankly at the side table where framed pictures of Ellie and me were stacked one on top of the other. She put down her wine glass and reached for her handbag, which had been carelessly placed in front of the frames. Several magazines and a newspaper were sticking out of the handbag.
In the end, I brought all the magazines from last month without throwing them away. On my way home from work, I also brought today's tabloid.
This is just to check the guy's movements.
It was basic to understand the enemy's movements. The first thing I opened was a tabloid with a large headline that said, "Wedding is imminent."
So, are you really getting married?
No. I was fooled by the sensational headline again. What did the Archduke's recent purchase of a castle have to do with the wedding? It was just a baseless and speculative article.
What did you expect from a gossip magazine that was more about interest than facts in the first place? After repeating this several times, it becomes annoying.
So, if you're going to get married, do it quickly.
Every time I saw the bright smile on page 1, I felt annoyed.
Are you happy? I'm happy without you too.
But you can't be happy. How can you be happy without me, without Ellie?
The photo was torn to pieces. A crumpled wad of newspaper was flung and scattered across the stove.
I'm unhappy. Please be unhappy.
As soon as I wiped my face with both hands, a phrase caught my eye among the pile of magazines scattered on the sofa.
[Leon Winston, the man who had everything]
You have everything. Don't make me laugh. I don't have it.
Grace picked up the magazine and asked the man in her head.
You still want me? Don't you?
The October issue of Modern Lady didn't even include an interview with the man. It just had Leon Winston at the top of a list of the most ridiculous. It made me even more angry that so many women in the kingdom were adoring that son of a bitch.
Are you still chasing me or have you given up? Make sure of that.
I hope you will never forget me and chase me for the rest of your life. But I hope you won't chase me. I'm tired of running away now. Grace scolded the man, even though she herself couldn't figure it out.
Grace, who had been flipping through a magazine full of stories with no nutritional value, suddenly got up and headed to the kitchen. She turned on the stove, set fire to the bundle of magazines and newspapers she was holding in her hand, and threw them into the sink.
The man burst into flames and turned into a handful of ash. Grace, who had been watching the traces of something that was truly uncharacteristic of Leon Winston, asked.
What on earth are you thinking?
It was a question that needed to be asked of me.
º º º
[Jimmy is really nice.]
"No, Grace. That bastard will eventually betray you."
Leon was teasing an eleven-year-old girl on the table, and he was drawing lines in the girl's diary with a fountain pen.
[Jimmy is really good .
Leon, who was leaning against the bed and reading Grace's diary when she was 11, couldn't take his eyes off the diary entry from May 21st.
[Why am I not blonde? When I grow up, I will definitely marry a blonde man. I will have lots of pretty blonde babies.]
"Our wish came true, thanks to me."
I guess I'll have to give up on 'a lot' now.
He turned his gaze back to the table and spoke to Grace. She smiled brightly at him as they stood in front of the Abington Beach train station, but Leon's half-smile reflected in the glass frame quickly faded.
"Why didn't you write a diary there?"
Didn't he bring his diary? There was no diary around the time the two met in Abington Beach. I want to know Grace's inner thoughts, from the day she first met him, to the days when she would sneak peeks at him every day, to the last day when they went up to the sky together and fell down.
Leon, who had been staring at the empty space for about two weeks, finally looked away and closed the diary. He opened the drawer of the nightstand and inserted the diary into the empty space between Grace's diaries, which were arranged in chronological order.
Ironically, Leon got to know Grace better while she was away.
Scones are eaten with strawberry jam spread first and then a thick layer of clotted cream on top. It was the opposite of Leon.
I love reading magazines. That was a good thing.
I learned how to drive from my fucking brother. The day Leon found out, he hired Jonathan Riddle Jr. as a truck driver for one of his businesses and slashed the budget for his family.
Leon took out the last diary in the lineup. Since he was 16, he had been mobilized for operations frequently, so there were many blank spaces in the diary. The last one was written a few days before he went undercover.
[I can't sleep.]
"me too."
Leon turned a few more pages of Grace's last diary, as he did every night. When he came to a blank page, he wrote in his diary with a fountain pen.
What did you do today? My daughter? Did you have a good day? I didn't have a good day today. Are you happy?
On top of that, there was a diary filled with entries written every day. The only difference was the date, but the phrases were always similar. If that woman saw this, she might say that Leon was a schizophrenic.
I put the diary back in and put the picture frame that I had left on the nightstand back in the drawer. Then my eyes fell on the flyer lying on the bottom of the drawer.
Why are there no reports?
According to the maid who helped with chores when the child was first born, the woman tried to give the child to someone else. Eventually, she tried to abandon him, but she couldn't do that and changed her mind and took the child with her. So even now, she must be unable to separate from him and is raising him.
So I distributed flyers with Grace and the child's information to police stations and pediatric clinics around the country. If you have a child, you're bound to have to go to the pediatrician.
I refrained from plastering the streets with flyers like I used to. I was afraid that those who were after the woman might end up reaching out to the child.
But there has been no plausible report so far.
I wonder where and how he lives. Unless he received a chest of gold from his mother, it is impossible for him to escape with only the inheritance.
How does she make money? It must be extremely difficult for a woman to raise a child alone and earn money, even if he doesn't know it.
I'll give up. If you just come back, I'll give you everything you want. If you just stay by my side, I'll gladly accept any kind of revenge you may have on me.
Of course, the woman will not come back on her own feet because she considers my absence as revenge.
Surely she didn't marry another man, so she has no feelings for me anymore, and so she doesn't react to my provocations.
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Distributed by Ajit Novel (formerly Ajitoon Novel).