try begging
"Give it to me now!"
"What's wrong, honey? Calm down."
Grace, terrified, lunged forward. When he grabbed her by the collar, the man embraced her and tilted his head as if he had no idea what was going on.
It was incredibly shameless.
Well then, that's right. You couldn't have changed. The fact that you acted like you had changed was just a trap to make her let her guard down and take away her means of escaping from me.
I was so foolish for falling for it. I was so blinded by lust that I started to get angry at myself for being so easily fooled by this man.
"I told you to give it to me right now!"
The man, who had been looking down at her as if he didn't understand why she was making such a fuss as he pulled at the collar of her shirt as if it was going to rip, turned his gaze to the dressing room.
"I put it in the safe."
Then he took the key out of his pocket and handed it to her trembling hands. Grace immediately let go of the man's collar and ran to the dressing room. When she opened the safe in the closet, she saw a familiar pocket. After opening it and checking it, Grace let out a deep breath that she had been holding.
"I don't need your diamonds."
The man behind her, who was changing the wrinkled shirt into a new one, spoke nonchalantly as he buttoned it up.
"Such stones were all over the mine I owned."
What a stone. To Grace and to that man, this wasn't just a stone.
A means of escape.
The man must not have been unaware of the meaning. If he did not want to run away again, he had to take away the means of escape first. Then there would be no need to waste time on incoherent persuasion. However, even though the man knew this, he gave Grace the means of escape back to her own hands at any time.
While she was staring at him with eyes of disbelief, he went to the bedroom and brought out the clothes Grace had left undressed. Then, as if she were Ellie, he began to dress her with his own hands, as if she were Ellie herself. Up until now, he had only taken her off.
It seemed as if she could hear words he hadn't said from the diamond pocket he had placed in the middle of her bra.
I hope you choose me because you want to.
There's no way I'd want you.
The man grinned all the way down the hallway to the living room, not seeming to understand what she was saying with her eyes.
"Did you get really surprised, honey?"
"... ... ."
It must have been a trick to not immediately mention that he had put it in the safe. The moment he was deeply distrustful of him, that distrust would crumble away.
In the past, he gave hope and then despair. Now, he gave despair and then hope. Wasn't he the man who loved dramatic psychological warfare more than anyone else?
"Come to think of it, your brother hid the fact that he inherited diamonds. That means it's time to move to a smaller house."
Grace, who had been glaring at the man, opened her eyes wide in surprise as soon as the living room door opened.
"mom!"
Ellie, who was looking in the mirror surrounded by women who looked like tailors, came running over to me. At that moment, I realized why the man had told me to see it.
"Look at this. Ellie is a real princess."
Literally, Ellie was a princess from head to toe. Grace looked down at her daughter, spinning around in her flowing dress, and muttered in amazement.
"Wow... That's true."
"Isn't it so beautiful that it leaves me speechless?"
She could only nod as the man bragged about her as if she were his own daughter.
"I need to take a picture...."
I didn't bring my camera from home.
"Should I tell him to buy a camera?"
"No, it's okay."
I decided not to interfere with what the man bought for Ellie, but I refused to let him buy me anything, big or small.
Grace began to take in her daughter's dazzling features one by one.
The skirt of the dress, which reached down to her knees, was made of layers of thin and delicate fabric, like the wings of a dragonfly. She looked like a fairy wearing white roses in full bloom.
"Who did this?"
Grace asked the man, carefully running her fingertips over her beautifully curled blonde hair, fearing it might get ruined.
"beautician."
Calling a hairdresser just to get a child's hair done? I blinked in shock, but the man looked at me as if he didn't know what the problem was.
"This is...."
Moreover, the man placed a real crown on the child's head. It was a golden crown, inlaid with colorless and turquoise crystals, shining brightly.
"It's sparkly."
Ellie smiled contentedly at the mirror. The man said that he had to use crystals to make it light, and promised that when the child turned twenty, he would replace the crystals in the crown with real diamonds.
Meanwhile, Grace's gaze was on the fake crown lying on the table. It was the toy crown she had bought for Ellie. Grace's face gradually darkened.
It was only then that I realized why I couldn't just be happy to see my daughter dressed in the finest items from head to toe.
"Mom, these are all Ellie's."
The child pointed to a number of dresses hanging on hangers. Each one had expensive decorations such as beads and embroidery.
"Dad, Mommy made a princess dress too."
"I wonder?"
"it's okay."
Grace quietly stopped the man from calling the tailor so that Ellie wouldn't hear.
"Ellie, Mommy is going to take a bath."
"Why? Take a look at this too."
"Take a bath first."
She kissed the child who was swinging the hem of another dress hanging on a hanger, then turned around and met the man's eyes. His eyes had lost their smile.
Living with Ellie, she developed a terrible habit of not locking the bathroom door. When she turned around while sobbing in the bathtub, the man had come in without making a sound and was leaning against the door, watching her.
"get out."
But instead of leaving, he came over and sat down on the opposite end of the tub.
"I think I did something wrong, but if I'm going to apologize, I need to know this first."
"... ... ."
"What did I do wrong?"
If someone asked if it was her fault, she couldn't answer without hesitation. But Grace didn't want to honestly reveal her weak feelings either, so she started venting her anger in an unexpected way.
"You're spoiling Ellie's routine."
The man tilted his head as if he couldn't understand.
"Grace, I got a sailboat as a gift when I was a kid. I don't know if I have a bad habit."
"What? Do you know what habit means?"
"Anyway, you have to have everything to develop a sense of economics worthy of Winston."
"What do you have to say, you who couldn't stand not having it and chased me for three years, throwing money away?"
"Only when you have everything do you learn what is most precious."
The man rolled his eyes and laughed slyly. Grace, who couldn't find any grounds to win against him in this argument that had no basis to begin with, grumbled and turned her arrows to something else.
"That's not all."
The man nodded as if telling me to hurry up and talk. I was even more annoyed by his extremely relaxed attitude.
Grace pointed out that she was carrying the child, who would be three in five months, without letting his feet touch the ground. Yesterday, when we finished eating at the table, Ellie opened her arms to her father as if it were natural. The man had picked up the child, smiling as if it was rewarding to make the child mischievous.
The man who had been staring at Grace with those annoyingly calm eyes the whole time she was complaining asked.
"That's not why you're feeling down right now, is it?"
The man had already figured out that she wasn't really angry with him.
If it's your fault, it's that you made me look shabby.
Grace couldn't continue speaking, and just moved her lips until her voice cracked.
"I tried to endure it for Ellie's sake because she liked it...."
The man's hand reached out and stroked Grace's cheek. The tip of his thumb was wet.
"...you make my love worthless."
I feel sad about that.
To be honest, she burst into tears. Grace, who is almost thirty, cried, shaking her shoulders like a child.
"The same goes for the dollhouse. If you buy it for me right away, what would I be if I didn't buy it for you because it was too expensive? What about the Christmas present I prepared? I won't even bother with such trivial things anymore."
She worked hard to earn money and saved it to buy it for her, and even if it wasn't pretty, she made it with love. Every time her child happily received everything Grace gave her, she felt a sense of accomplishment, as if she was the greatest person in the world.
But to Ellie, who had a rich father and found money funny, Grace's cheap love might have seemed funny. Ellie's pure happiness and love were all Grace had, but it felt like everything was taken away by the child's father who showed up late.
"I only have Ellie... From now on, Ellie will think that everything I do for her is worthless."
"Speak sense."
The man who had been comforting her suddenly lost his temper.
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