Chapter 8

“Where are we going, Sister?”

Leana rubbed her sleepy eyes.

Her pale face and the white, chapped lips made the child look even more pitiful.

Elena, feeling somehow sorrowful, rubbed Leana’s lips.

“Ow. It hurts, what are you doing.”

Leana grumbled and shook her head.

Perhaps uncomfortable in the rattling hired carriage, Leana kept twisting her body.

Then she clutched tightly at Elena’s arm and asked.

“Aren’t you going to tell me where we’re going? What about Mother?”

“…We’re going somewhere Mother can’t find us.”

Elena spoke as coldly as she could.

The look in her eyes as she regarded her younger sister was more resolute than ever before.

Leana tilted her head curiously and blinked her large eyes.

They were blue eyes that looked exactly like Elena’s.

“Somewhere Mother doesn’t know? Then we won’t be able to see Mother?”

“…Do you not want that?”

Come to think of it, it belatedly occurred to her that she had started all this without even asking Leana.

She had been busy finishing up her translation work, packing their few belongings, and preparing Leana’s medicine for a while—she had not had time to think about it.

Elena’s heart pounded.

Leana blinked and then shook her head.

“No. Leana is fine anywhere as long as Sister goes. You’re coming with me, right? Right?”

Elena nodded with a relieved face.

The hired carriage stopped before long.

She paid the driver who had raced through the dawn streets.

The driver glanced at Elena and Leana and then departed.

“Whoa… Where is this?”

Leana’s world had been confined to the small house in Rebunto.

This was likely the first time in her life she had seen such a huge mansion.

Elena found Leana, eyes sparkling, adorable and stroked her head.

“It’s like a castle where a princess lives! Why did we come here?”

Leana chattered excitedly.

It was the first time in a long while that she had looked so happy.

Elena set down the bag, bent her knees, and sat.

Then she straightened Leana’s clothes and tidied the hair braided in two plaits.

“Leana. You remember the things I taught you, don’t you?”

“Of course! Leana is smart because she takes after Sister.”

My darling little sister.

Elena kissed the cheek of Leana, who was grinning brightly.

“That’s right, whose sister are you? You mustn’t forget how to greet people.”

“Okay!”

Leana nodded.

Elena straightened her back again and firmly readjusted her grip on the child’s hand.

This was the first door to leap into a new life.

Elena pressed the doorbell of the Presto estate.

* * *

Hazel pushed her glasses up with her fingertip.

On the front page of the newspaper that a diligent delivery boy had brought since early morning, Maxim’s photograph was printed.

“Heartless boy.”

Hazel grumbled.

Heartless, and too heartless at that.

Even knowing his aunt’s wish for him to stay longer, heartless Maxim had gone up to Andres.

What honey was smeared on that capital of theirs?

Hazel clicked her tongue briefly.

Seeing that he had gone up leaving that woman behind, perhaps there really had been nothing between them after all.

After Elena had visited, she had grabbed the annoyed Maxim several times and asked.

What their relationship was, what they had talked about, when they would meet next, how he had asked her on a date, and so on.

Amid the barrage of questions, Maxim had sat like a stone without wavering, and she had heard no answer from him.

Then, pushed by the hand of an aide who was watching Maxim’s mood, she had been forced to leave the room as if chased out.

She had endured for several days, and just when she could bear it no longer and was about to go find Elena herself—immaculately dressed Maxim announced he was returning and added a single remark.

[Ah, Elena will come looking for you. Please help that woman. I’m asking you, Aunt.]

Asking! Asking, he said!

And “that woman”?

She had thought he was making no contact at all, but he had been doing something so sly.

How admirable.

For a request like that, she could grant it thousands of times over.

And finally, the guest she had been waiting for arrived.

“Lady Elena has come with her younger sister, madam!”

* * *

Maxim briefly raised his head from the documents he had been buried in.

Having let out a light sigh, Maxim stared ahead.

There sat Camellia, drinking tea with a stubborn face.

“Aren’t you going to leave?”

“Let’s eat together.”

Camellia spoke with a cold face.

On the face that regarded Maxim, emotions that could not be described in a single word were tangled and layered.

It was a face he had not seen since they came up from Rebunto.

Maxim muttered with a furrowed brow.

“I’m busy. Go back now.”

“Maxim, you shouldn’t do this to me, if no one else.”

Camellia spat out a single sentence swirling with emotion.

In Camellia’s catlike eyes glaring at him, emotions difficult to touch carelessly pooled.

Maxim tossed his fountain pen onto the desk with a thud.

Maxim, arms crossed over his chest, spoke.

“Who are you? What makes you so special?”

“Maxim!”

Camellia trembled.

The scene of Maxim dancing with another woman in Rebunto would not leave her mind.

Until now, Maxim had kept his position like a lofty dragon.

No one could covet Maxim, and no one could approach him.

The events in Rebunto had caused a great stir in social circles.

People chattered that Maxim might be thinking of a new woman.

That fanned Camellia’s sense of crisis.

She glared at Maxim with venomous eyes.

“Is there any woman in your life as special as I am?”

Camellia rose chillingly from the sofa and approached Maxim.

Click, click.

The sound of her heels inspired not just foreboding but a chill.

Camellia slowly bent her waist.

Standing with her hand on Maxim’s desk, she soon parted her lips.

“Your sister died because of you. Should you be allowed to be happy?”

In that instant, Maxim’s face hardened chillingly, enough to turn pale.

A silence and cold as if frost would form swept between the two.

A cold light gathered in Maxim’s green eyes.

“You’re unhappy whenever you see me. Isn’t that right? So then, aren’t I the most suited to you?”

Each and every word had bone in it.

Maxim let out a soft, cold laugh.

In Camellia’s sharply raised eyes, black desire pooled.

“Don’t even dream of it, Camellia.”

“Maxim…!”

Maxim rose from his seat.

From Camellia came the same scent that woman had carried.

His stomach churned, and he felt like vomiting.

Everything that made up Camellia stirred Maxim’s hatred.

Maxim sidestepped Camellia and left the room.

Before closing the door, Maxim stopped and muttered coldly.

“Don’t ever come again. You disgust me.”

Slam!

Inside the room after Maxim left, only Camellia remained.

Camellia slowly clenched her fist.

Her whole body trembled.

The dress she had excitedly put on all morning and the makeup she had carefully applied had all become useless.

Camellia slowly drew her breath.

“If not my sister, then it should be me.”

Camellia muttered.

“That’s how it should be.”

It was the inner feeling Camellia had been hiding all this time.

Even the adults were frantic to hush up and bury the past.

But Camellia believed everyone should remember it.

Maxim, more than anyone!

Rosaline, passionate and beautiful, had been Camellia’s light and pride.

On the day Rosaline was chosen as Maxim’s betrothed, Camellia had wept and smiled.

Because it was Rosaline, she could yield.

The feelings she had secretly nurtured for Maxim—she could abandon them freely.

But Rosaline, whom she had loved so dearly, died, and Maxim alone survived.

Maxim was a sinner in Camellia’s eyes.

Seeing Maxim stirred anger and hatred, but emotions equally tender also rippled within her.

Camellia bit her lip hard.

The swollen lip was crimson, as if about to burst.

In her heart, wounded by Maxim’s words, greed pooled abundantly.

How dare he try to escape this shackle alone?

As she herself was unhappy and in pain, Maxim should be too.

Camellia followed and left the room as well.

More composed than anyone.