try begging
"Huh? How many times has Mom told you that?"
The smile that had spread across his pale face disappeared. The child, who looked back at the man with bewildered eyes, sucked his thumb and whispered to Grace.
"But this is Ellie's dad."
At that moment, Grace was speechless. She had never been told not to follow the person who called her father. She followed him obediently just because he said "father," not candy or a toy. She was dumbfounded because she thought it meant she wanted a father.
"It's my fault, don't do that to the child."
Leon stood up and approached the mother and daughter. A pair of turquoise eyes glared at him as if to kill him, while another pair of turquoise eyes wavered between the two in confusion. The child's eyes, looking up at Leon, trembled anxiously, then suddenly widened.
"...Not your dad?"
As soon as the child took a deep breath, tears burst out.
"Whoaang!"
"Ellie, it's dad."
Leon was rejected as soon as he bent down to hug her.
"Sir, Sir!"
The child shook off his hand and clung only to his mother.
"Mom! Ellie, you surprised me. Hug me. Hug me."
All it took was a single word from her father saying that she was right. But Grace didn't even say that, let alone hug the child who was clinging to her.
"If you're angry, take it out on me. Do you really think you'd feel better if you made a kid who doesn't know anything cry over something like this?"
"Who are you to scold me? If you did something wrong, then just keep your mouth shut."
"Mom, Ellie, I feel sick. Hold me."
Only when the child began to kick her feet did Grace stand up and pick her up. When her mother patted her back, the child stopped crying, but she continued to hiccup.
"Ellie, don't ever follow strangers without your permission again."
Ellie nodded, rubbing her eyes against her mother's blouse collar. Leon picked up the stuffed rabbit that had fallen from her mother's neck, and the child snatched it away. The child, who had said this morning that she wanted to live with her father when her mother came home, glared at him. With eyes just like her own mother's.
It felt like my blood was drying up.
I thought I gave affection too easily. I didn't know that taking it back would be as easy as giving it.
"You called me a kidnapper, but you were the one who kidnapped me."
As the child became quiet, burying his face in her shoulder, Grace turned to face the man and lowered her voice to question him.
"Do you know how dangerous something you did today?"
"No, I don't agree with that."
Leon bent his head down enough to feel Grace's body heat and breath, then whispered so the child couldn't hear.
"There is no human being in the world who would kidnap a child just by saying 'dad.' Children usually don't follow along when they hear 'I am your dad.'"
He placed his hand on the child's head, which occasionally stirred and sobbed.
"This child also knows that I am his father. It also means that he wants his father. You don't have the right to take his father away from him just because you don't want me."
Grace raised her head so that their noses were touching, looked into his eyes, and quietly, but clearly, chewed and spat out each word.
"If a father creates a child just to satisfy his own desires, it's better for him not to exist."
The man who was accused of using the child for his own greed laughed as if he couldn't understand.
"Grace, all humans create children for their own selfish desires. To continue the family line, to provide for them in their old age, or simply because they like children, or even accidentally do so while having fun. No one creates children for the sake of children."
While Grace was speechless, the man slid his hand from where it had been stroking Ellie's head to place his hand on hers as she patted the child's back.
"What matters is whether or not you take responsibility until the end. You are taking away my right to take responsibility."
Grace shook her hand away.
"Don't try to sway me with sweet talk about responsibility. You just want this child as a means to catch me."
"That's not it. I wish you had left the child at the townhouse that day. Then it would have been much harder to find you. But I would have been so happy to raise you. Maybe it would have made it a little easier to endure the time without you."
He tilted his head, brushed past Grace's cheek as she tried to step back, and kissed Ellie on the head. The man looked at his daughter, not her, with eyes that seemed to be loving and not knowing what to do, and the corners of his mouth curled up. He couldn't use her as a means of capturing her, nor could he make her his successor. No matter how much he thought about it, it was hard to understand why he wanted a useless girl so much.
"away."
Before she knew it, the man's hand was wrapped around her waist. Grace pushed away the man who had been secretly embracing her while they were arguing, and sat down on the sofa. It was hard even for an ordinary two-year-old, but it felt like her waist and arms would break if she kept holding a child who was bigger and heavier than her age.
Grace, who was catching her breath, grimaced. The scent of the man's perfume was strong on her daughter, who was clinging to her arms like a baby koala.
I know it's not something you should think of a child who's not even three years old, but it's sad. She's done everything she can to protect this child from her father's clutches, from her body to her head and heart, but the child brought his father home with his own hands. I would have laughed if he had picked up a puppy instead.
It was my fault for not teaching him what kind of person his father was. No. How could I tell a child that his father was a bad person? In the end, it was all the fault of that man who slyly tricked the child.
"Ellie, Johnny?"
The man approached and asked the child. Grace slapped his hand away as he reached out to the child. The child shook her head, which was buried in her shoulder, and answered, but the man did not back down and asked again.
"My daughter, aren't you hungry? It's past dinner time."
The man lowered his body and continued talking to the child, looking her in the eye, regardless of whether Grace glared at him or not.
"What does Ellie want to eat? How about lobster like we had for lunch? You said it melted in your mouth. What about Mom?"
The moment the man's hand came up to her shoulder, a sharp click rang out.
"Don't touch Mom."
"Our daughter, you have spicy hands just like your mother."
The man smiled, caressing Ellie's cheek with the back of his hand that had been hit.
"Mister, you're annoying. Mom is upset because of you."
"I said it's dad, not uncle."
"Mom, I'm not angry anymore. It's okay."
Grace, whose mood suddenly lifted, hugged Ellie and kissed her head. As she wiped away the long tear stains on her cheeks with her hand, the child raised her head and asked.
"Aren't you angry, Mom?"
"No, it didn't work out. But now you can't follow people you don't know."
The child nodded quickly, then pointed at the man sitting next to him and shouted.
"Tell that old man to get out."
The man who had been called uncle and then told to leave looked like he had been hit and glared at Grace. It was a silent pressure to tell her that he was her father. Grace pretended not to see and just picked up the fluff on Ellie's pajamas.
"Ellie, it's your dad."
"No, I don't know you, sir."
"I don't know you. Get out."
"Come on. Get out."
As Ellie continued to ignore him and Grace also started to interfere, the man's expression grew worse. As it did so, Grace became more and more confused.
Clearly, in the past, he would have been a man who couldn't stand the humiliation of being rejected and would have forced her to come out. However, this man now tried to persuade her with words rather than force. No, it was closer to pleading than persuasion.
Is the Leon Winston I knew dead?
It was as if someone had killed him and taken only the outer shell. A man who thought it was funny to be hated by the king was at a loss over being hated by a two-year-old, and was going back and forth between heaven and hell over a single reaction from the child.
"I had fun playing with Dad today."
A color came to the man's face as the child nodded.
"Do you remember that Dad said he liked Ellie?"
"Sir, it's time to go now."
The color of the flowers turned into a deep shadow in an instant.
"Daddy bought a present for our princess too."
"Mom told me not to accept anything from a stranger I don't know."
And with that man, Grace also went through heaven and hell based on one reaction from the child.
"Ellie, do you really want Daddy to go away and never come back?"
The moment the man asked me a question while putting me at a disadvantage, the child became lost in thought.
"But you're not Ellie's father...."
The child sucked his thumb and mumbled.
"No... Mom said that Ellie's dad is in heaven... "
The child looked at Grace as she said those words. With the eyes of a greedy Ellie. Then she looked at her father with the same eyes.
"Mom said Ellie would carry Dad...."
Both the man who didn't know Ellie well and the woman who knew Ellie well were discouraged.