Chapter 5. I Need a Mother for My Child

Victor spoke lightly, but the money she had to repay was by no means a light amount.

Half of the debt was enough money to buy two mansions in the capital and still have some left over.

The monthly interest payments were already overwhelming, so she would have to increase her work.

If additional private tutoring jobs couldn’t be found, she was looking into doing sewing work for pay.

“Victor, you know my situation. I can’t pay back half right now.”

Asking her to pay back half of the debt immediately was like telling her not to pay it back at all.

“I know. I also know you’re living diligently. That’s why, Jane, we’ve been looking out for you until now. Right? Even though your value is gradually becoming worthless.”

Victor, who had come closer, stroked Jane’s face with the back of his hand.

When Jane, who was disgusted, stepped back, Victor smacked his lips.

“Jane, it’s still not too late. The conditions are worse than when you were twenty and fresh, but there’s someone who says he’ll pay off your debt. He’s a sixty-year-old man, but he’s rich. Age isn’t a flaw, Jane. It’s actually better. If that person marries you and dies, all that old man’s money becomes yours.”

It was a proposal to sell her body. It wasn’t surprising. She had received countless similar proposals.

Thanks to her parents raising her beautifully, despite Jane’s circumstances, there were many people who wanted to take her as a mistress.

Some offered large sums for one night.

However, Jane would rather starve for days than sell her body. She had once almost fallen into danger after being tricked by Victor, but that day Jane broke a cup and cut her wrist.

She said she would rather die.

After that, Victor gave up on forcibly selling Jane. However, whenever Jane seemed to have forgotten, he would make proposals that were obviously going to be rejected.

Jane lowered her head and chuckled softly.

She had thought things had been quiet for a while.

The damn God gave Jane new trials whenever her heart seemed to relax like this.

“I don’t need it.”

“Jane, it’s a body that will rot when you die anyway. Warming an old man’s bedroom and receiving thousands of marks. Isn’t that a completely profitable business?”

“I don’t want to do business. I’ll…… somehow manage to get the money. So get out right now. And if you’re going to propose such vulgar things, don’t come looking for me.”

Jane turned around. Victor frowned.

“What? Vulgar things? Just because I politely call you by name, do you still think you’re a noble?”

Heavy footsteps were heard behind Jane. Then her neck was suddenly yanked backward.

“Agh.”

Victor wrapped Jane’s long hair around his hand and shook it. Her body helplessly swayed along.

Victor brought his vile face close to Jane’s.

“Listen carefully, bitch. If you want to live, marry that old man.”

Whatever he had eaten, a foul smell came from his mouth. Jane scratched Victor’s hand frantically and resisted.

“I said no, I said……”

“Since I’m being nice to you! Hamulin!”

At Victor’s call, Hamulin began destroying the house.

He threw the only table outside and swung a chair around. The carefully washed and dried dishes crashed to the floor. The vase with wildflowers broke.

When the window shattered, rain poured in. The bed placed near the window got soaked.

In an instant, the house became a battlefield.

“You’ve gone completely crazy after getting this tiny nest. Let’s see how long you’ll be stubborn.”

Victor, satisfied as he looked around the ruined house, released Jane.

Jane sprawled onto the carpet marked with Victor and Hamulin’s footprints.

“Jane.”

Victor, as if remembering something to say, crouched down in front of Jane.

He pressed and wiped Jane’s lips with his thumb. He rubbed his finger with her lipstick on it against his tongue.

“Sell yourself before you spoil. Okay?”

Victor smiled kindly. It was a devil’s smile.

＊＊＊

A long time had passed since Victor and Hamulin left. The bluish light of dawn faintly seeped into the dark house with its broken lamp.

“I should clean up.”

Jane, who had been sitting in a daze, came to her senses around the time the torrential rain that had been pouring down madly began to subside.

Jane pressed her hands to the floor.

“Ugh.”

A piece of the broken vase pierced her palm. Nothing was going right.

Jane clenched her hand and barely managed to get up. Her dress, soaked from the rain that had poured in, was heavy. She dragged her dress and found a lamp that had barely survived Hamulin’s merciless hands and lit it.

And immediately regretted it.

“I shouldn’t have turned on the light……”

The state of the house was much more serious than when seen in the darkness.

It seemed like she would have to pour two months’ salary just into repair costs.

“This is driving me crazy.”

In the desperate situation, Jane burst out laughing instead of crying.

She laughed like that for quite a while. The house was a mess, and blood was flowing from her palm where glass was embedded.

Her life was more of a mess than the house.

Then, in this place where everything was chaos, an excessively neat voice rang out.

No. Before that, a fragrance that didn’t match her house tickled her nose.

A scent reminiscent of a rain-soaked forest.

“You seem to have lost your mind.”

“That’s right. I must have gone crazy.”

Jane thought she had really gone crazy. It was a situation crazy enough for that.

‘Cain’s voice. But he couldn’t be here.’

Jane lowered her head deeply. Thinking of Cain, the tears she had been holding back burst out.

On a day like today, she didn’t want to think of him. Because it created the illusion that the imaginary him was watching her miserable self.

She didn’t want to show him her miserable state. If they ever met on the street someday, she wanted to greet him with a bright smile.

“If you haven’t lost your mind, then did your ears go wrong?”

Again, she heard it.

Only then did Jane’s head slowly rise. He was standing where Hamulin and Victor had been.

Cain Hastings.

Jane blinked several times in disbelief. Forgetting she was holding a lamp, she almost got burned trying to rub her eyes.

Thanks to that, Jane’s mind returned, but the apparition didn’t disappear.

There was a silhouette waiting for someone at the doorway that was wide open with the hinges fallen off.

Jane thought she had seen wrong for a moment. Because he couldn’t possibly appear in her small, shabby sanctuary.

But it was him.

With bright blonde hair, sea-like eyes, prominent eyebrow ridges and a high nose bridge, and a person where elegance and rawness coexisted — there was only one such person in this kingdom.

“You won’t say you can’t see either, will you?”

“……Cain.”

“You should call me Duke Hastings. Miss Whitney.”

Jane’s eyelids trembled.

It’s Cain, really Cain.

Her piercing regret and lingering attachment, and the person she had desperately wanted to see was right before her eyes.

She forgot about rudeness and stared at Cain.

Compared to seven years ago, Cain had grown a bit taller, his shoulders had become broader, and his features had become more defined.

The atmosphere cold enough for ice to drip was unfamiliar, but his straight features, sharp jawline, and highly saturated blue eyes remained the same.

He had become much more magnificent.

You lived well.

Indescribable overwhelming emotion and relief swept over Jane.

If she had said it out loud, everyone who heard would have laughed at her.

The arrogant man’s gaze swept over the broken house.

“You abandoned me and left, and now you’re in a pathetic state.”

Their reunion after seven years happened at a moment she hadn’t expected. At a time when her rock bottom was completely exposed.

He stepped into the house.

“Shabby.”

Each word he uttered pierced Jane’s heart like a dagger.

“Lacking in class.”

Jane squeezed her eyes shut and opened them.

“How…… are you here?”

Jane’s voice trembled terribly.

Clean, noble, and dignified, he didn’t belong in this place.

“Wrong question. You should ask why I came.”

“……Please leave.”

Cain’s expression became fierce. However, he soon erased his expression and spoke.

“I came because I have business. We’re not the kind of relationship to meet without reason.”

Jane nodded.

Cain looked around the miserable room and clicked his tongue. The cramped room without a single place to sit was worse than the stables of the Hastings ducal family.

“I should…… I should at least serve you tea, but there’s nothing prepared right now.”

“It’s not that there are no teacups?”

Jane bit her lower lip slightly. A drop of blood immediately formed on her parched lips.

His words were right. There were no tea leaves or teacups. Even the water cups she had were broken by Hamulin.

“Never mind. I didn’t come to drink tea.”

Jane looked up at Cain.

Come to think of it, she became very curious about why the great Cain had come looking for her.

Cain, who had become Duke Hastings a few years ago, had risen to a position where he was welcomed wherever he went.

It wasn’t simply because he was a duke, but a position he had won for himself.

Except for the queen, there was no one he couldn’t meet when he wanted to. There were even rumors that even the queen’s bedroom door opened when he wanted it to.

Hayes Trading Company.

He who had suddenly left Emblem Kingdom seven years ago began dabbling in trade and built it into a business of tremendous scale.

Not only that. He imported technology from foreign countries to establish a railway company in the Emblem Kingdom and was delegated all authority over the railway business by the queen.

It wasn’t only the queen who trusted him. All citizens of the Emblem Kingdom respected Cain.

Because he had ended the war with the Instan Kingdom that had suddenly broken out five years ago.

He was a war hero, a great magnate, and a duke trusted by the queen.

“Looking at your expression, you seem to have heard rumors about me.”

“Yes. You’re often in the newspapers.”

She was suddenly afraid he might be disgusted if she said she had looked for news about him, but she couldn’t take back words already spoken.

“I……”

She tried to change the subject, but Cain cut off her words.

“No need to speak. I don’t care how you’ve lived.”

Jane closed her mouth.

In the past, he sometimes acted like someone who had gone in and out of Jane’s mind.

When Jane was startled, Cain would smile and say:

〈Because I love you, I can tell.〉

How does he know now?

Jane wanted to ask but held back. It didn’t seem like a good answer would come back.

And she didn’t want to blush with him after meeting him for the first time in so long. Even if her messy state couldn’t be helped, she wanted to remain as a woman he could communicate with.

“I’ll make you a proposal.”

“A proposal?”

It was so unexpected that Jane reflexively asked.

“It would be a proposal that helps you. Since it’s a proposal I’m making.”

He was arrogant. But that arrogance suited him so well.

He, who had been standing still at the doorway, finally moved. Jane gulped.

A familiar face was making an unfamiliar expression. Jane’s eyes, looking at the face of someone who had once been her fiancé, trembled finely.

It was the moment when she barely tore her gaze away from him, feeling like she would be sucked into the time when she had helplessly loved him.

Cain’s lips, which had whispered that he loved her, moved businesslike and spat out a cold voice.

“I need a woman to act as a mother to my child.”

“A child? Yours?”

Jane’s head spun from being so shocked. She reflexively tried to lean against the wall but stopped.

Glass was still embedded in her palm. Cain’s gaze touched her hand and fell away.