“Scarlett Dirnant, Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Is Elliot here?”
With my hair swept high in an elaborate style, my makeup refreshed, and my attire properly straightened, I marched up to the knights’ quarters and knocked on the door. The knights sparring in the training grounds, looking tense as if they had already heard about what happened this morning, muttered, “One moment,” and hurried into the lounge. Surrounded by the complicated stares pouring in my direction, I stood with unyielding poise.
Before long, a handsome man with familiar brown hair emerged from the distance. The moment I laid eyes on his face, I wanted nothing more than to slap him across the cheek, but I curled my lips into a practiced smile and spoke.
Even to my own ears, my voice sounded sweet and lovely. Whenever I called his name with such affection, Elliot used to blush and kiss me. Though we had been seeing each other for nearly three months, he still seemed utterly vulnerable to the sound of it—judging by how his neck flushed scarlet even now.
I wanted to grab that familiar face and scream every curse I knew. My rawest instincts urged me to murder the man before me, but murder was one thing not even my mother could smooth over. So, I had no choice but to simply step toward Elliot.
“You came, Scarlett.”
His greeting was more than enough fuel for my fury. Delivered as though he had been expecting me all along, it sent my blood pressure surging straight through the roof.
“Indeed, I did, Elliot. It seemed you had something to explain. Since you didn't bother coming to me, I had no choice but to come to you.”
Having openly carried on an affair with another woman, Elliot seemed thoroughly stunned by my composure. Watching his face stiffen, I tilted my head slightly to the side, silently daring him to speak. As if discerning the fury beneath my smile, his expression contorted, and he dropped his gaze.
“I am sorry, Scarlett.”
“Oh, my. Whatever for?”
“Scarlett, please break up with me.”
I stared at the bowing man, genuinely wondering if striking him would quell the rage churning in my chest. But the conclusion I reached was that it wouldn't bring me any real satisfaction.
Good heavens. I scoffed, completely dumbfounded.
Anyone watching would think I was the one desperately clinging to him, while he, weary of my persistence, had simply broken free to seek true love. My face hardened into ice at this absurd farce.
“Elliot, look up.”
At my commanding tone, his shoulders twitched, and he raised his head once more. I met the gaze of this man, who stood a handspan taller than me, and spoke with unwavering resolve.
“Elliot, when did I ever hold you back?”
“You… never did.”
“Elliot, when did I ever cling to you?”
“You didn't.”
“Elliot, when—haah—when did I ever say I would kill you if you fell for another woman?”
“Then, one last question, Elliot. Did you not know that Isabel and I were friends?”
“…I knew.”
I drew a long, deep breath and let it out. So this was what people meant when they said their insides were burning with rage. I lifted a hand and gently massaged my throbbing temples.
I tended to throw myself into love, but my romances were rarely long. Over the span of ten years, I had dated so many men that counting them required all my fingers and toes. Yes, you could say I had an extensive romantic history.
Even so, I had never once cheated, not in all my life. My affections ignited in an instant and extinguished just as fast, but whether I initiated the parting or the other person did, things always ended cleanly and decisively.
Focusing solely on one person, loving passionately while it lasted.
I had lived and loved according to those principles, and I took pride in having kept every relationship aboveboard, no matter how many men had come and gone.
Which was precisely why I despised Elliot's conduct. Before falling in love and entering a relationship, I always told my partners the same thing:
‘If your feelings change, just tell me. I will let you go. I will wish you happiness.’
And with the exception of the ones tangled up with Isabel, most men had honored that. When their affection faded, we parted, and when mine cooled, we ended things cleanly. To say there was no grief at the end of those relationships would be a lie. Getting your heart broken ten times doesn't make you numb to it, and there were times I fell ill for days after an ending.
Yet even so, I never once clung to someone whose heart had turned cold.
It was consideration for the other person, and basic respect for my own pride.
And yet, here Elliot was—
“I told you to let me know if you wanted to end things. Did I really have to hear about this through someone else? And with Isabel, of all people?”
He was walking the exact same path as the others before him. Identical to the six men who had dated me only to carry on with Isabel behind my back.
Perhaps feeling the bitter rage dripping from my dropping the polite honorifics, Elliot's pupils trembled uncontrollably. I had to admit, this man had always had a soft spot for me. And yet he had still betrayed me.
“Scarlett, I am so sorry.”
“Don't bother apologizing. I respect your choice. Yes, ridiculous as it sounds, I'll let you go so you can be happy.”
I smoothed down my clothes and delivered my verdict in a freezing tone. ‘I'll let you go so you can be happy.’ Looking at Elliot with an expression so thoroughly cold that it surprised even me, I laid down my absolute terms.
I wasn't even angry anymore. Dragging this out to tear into him further would only hurt me in the end. It would only leave me exhausted and miserable.
Turning my back on Elliot, who stood there like a statue with his face contorted in distress, I began to walk away. But after taking only a few steps, a strange mixture of irritation, fury, and incomprehensible emotions flared up again, forcing me to spin right back around.
Elliot, who had been watching my retreating back with a conflicted expression, flinched in surprise as I whipped around. Glaring at him, I spat out one final remark.
“Never cross my path again. Don't even think about greeting me if you see me.”
And just like that, my passionate… tenth-something romance came to a close.
Leaving behind rather sour memories of my split with Elliot, I threw myself back into my duties. Violetta dropped by whenever she had a free moment to nag me—asking things like, “Why haven't you ripped that bitch Isabel to shreds yet?”—but I had no time to spare for that. Setting aside the sting of heartbreak, burying myself in work was a wonderfully effective remedy. I prepared for the negotiations scheduled two weeks out, and within a week, I had managed to erase Elliot from my mind entirely.
The war with Sierra had been fought on the frontier, and the troops remained stationed at that border outpost of Sorel. Every last one of them was waiting for the diplomats dispatched by the royal court. Having kept my thoughts off Elliot for days, I was now completely numb to it and able to devote my full attention to work.
Celine still watched me with cautious concern, but truth be told, I was genuinely fine.
That was, until Isabel came looking for me in person.
A headache. An absolute headache.
“Are you seriously telling us to conduct negotiations on this pathetic pittance of a budget? Do you not even see us as human beings?!”
Bellowing passionately in the Ministry of Finance's office, I shot a bewildered look at Celine as she came running up behind me, panting for breath, before turning back to slam my hand down on the finance officer's desk.
Yet the moment she grabbed my arm and whispered in my ear that Isabel had arrived, all the fury I had kept clamped down beneath the surface erupted.
As I took Celine's arm and pivoted away, the finance secretary let out a sigh of relief, only to sink into utter despair the moment I yelled, “I'm coming back this afternoon!”
My expression hardened. Over the past few days, I had deliberately avoided Isabel. I was afraid that if I saw her, I would end up forgiving her all over again. Shrugging off over twenty years of fond attachment was no easy feat, and I had little faith in my own ruthlessness. My foolishly sentimental nature bore part of the blame for that.
Yet the moment I saw Isabel sitting there, looking as delicate and pure as ever, the sheer depth of my disillusionment became undeniably clear. An appearance that once would have tugged at my heartstrings now struck me as thoroughly abhorrent.
Truly, it takes a shock for a person to come to their senses.
Of course, I had harbored something resembling disappointment toward Isabel ever since she stole my third lover. But sentimentality always caught my ankles, and a few pathetic words from her were all it took to soften my resolve. Naturally, the relief of knowing I hadn't left anything unsaid or undone in those relationships played a part as well. But from the moment she stole my fifth lover, I had begun keeping my distance.
Once was a mistake; twice was a coincidence; three times, I wrote off as having shared tastes.
The fourth was a prank, the fifth was deliberate, and the sixth was malice.
And by the time it reached the seventh, I concluded that what she harbored toward me was absolute apathy.
Indifference, far more than malice, explained how one person could continually wound another. Unlike me, who genuinely cared for Isabel as a friend and a younger sister, Isabel felt nothing for me whatsoever. If she had, there was no way she could have torn me to shreds like this without a shred of guilt.
As I approached the reception room, the foreign ministry staff clustered around the door stepped back with awkward smiles. Apparently, they were all curious about the woman who had crossed their notoriously formidable colleague seven times and still lived to tell the tale. Paying them no mind, I threw the reception room door wide open, quietly commending myself for feeling far calmer than expected at the sight of her.
“Isabel.”
“Scarlett!”
At my call, Isabel, who had been gracefully sipping tea, addressed me with a voice half-choked with tears. A sour expression flitted across my face, disgusted by how effortlessly my name rolled off her tongue, but I forced my feet forward and took the seat across from her.
“Scarlett, I'm so sorry.”
“For what?”
My voice came out far more frigid than usual, surprising even me. I didn't speak with such icy detachment even when handling negotiations where I had no personal stake. Seemingly shocked by my tone, Isabel bit her lower lip, tears welling in her eyes.
“Elliot… It wasn't intentional. I only wanted to treat him well because he was your lover…”
So it's this pattern this time. And why on earth did I fall for it every single time?
There was always a pattern to Isabel's excuses after she stole my boyfriends.
Pattern number one: ‘A cheater like that isn't worthy of you! Why would you date such trash?!’ And pattern number two:
‘Sob… I'm sorry, Scarlett, I never meant for this to happen, but your lover just… sob…’ And pattern number three: ‘Goodness, Scarlett, your lover insisted he liked me so much, I just didn't know how to turn him down…’
And this time, it appeared Isabel had settled on pattern number two.
Why had it taken me so long to see something so painfully simple? Was it that some part of me had constantly denied it, or—
I had to admit it. I had been stupid. Unbelievably stupid.
