Chapter 93
- Fireworks
2024.01.01.
Olivia Blanchett walked through the darkness.
As she moved away from the lavish hotels lining the riverside, the cheerful music and laughter of people faded into the distance.
The secluded Bichen River was quiet, with only the moonlight haloed by a hazy moon shimmering on the black river.
As if in another world, Olivia walked and walked, enveloped in solitude.
With each step, the hem of her water-colored dress, tinged with the scent of grass, fluttered in the river breeze.
The hair that Anne had carefully braided and styled was also half-undone and scattered in the wind.
Olivia walked aimlessly along the riverbank.
Inside her ruined shoes, her instep was swelling again.
‘Giving in to Olivia Blanchett for the sake of it feels like a loss, even with three times the prize money. I lost my honor.’
Sara Pavlova's unbelievable voice echoed in her head like an auditory hallucination.
‘If you haven’t forgotten my contribution to Olivia Blanchett’s victory, that is.’
It was hard to breathe.
It felt like she had been hit by something, like something hurt, and like she was about to cry.
Her eyes, transparent and swollen, wandered aimlessly through the dark void, unfocused.
Olivia squatted by the river and released the breath she had been holding. She panted like a bird shot down.
‘Oh, I happened to see you playing tennis.’
The day she refused Madam Marie, he came to her room and said with a smile as gentle as a spring breeze. Was it really a coincidence? She couldn't believe it anymore.
‘The Dumblein Tennis Tournament. That's the condition.’
When she, the winner of the bet, hesitantly made her wish, Edgar whispered in a soft voice.
‘I'm not interested unless it's a victory.’
Looking back, it was so clear from the beginning what that man wanted…
‘The operating profit is five times that of last year. The clash between the noble princess and the lowly bastard! He’s a genius in business, after all.’
Was that why? Because he was afraid she wouldn't win? So he made a deal with Sara Pavlova and made me… a fool.
Olivia! Olivia!
The cheers of the crowd filling the stadium echoed in her ears.
The shouts of the people cheering and raving below the balcony of the Dumblin Club overlapped and reverberated above it.
Everyone was fooled.
Olivia's pride and self-esteem shattered without a sound.
The blue grass court that had burned through the summer was an illusion. The countless drops of sweat that sparkled in the sunlight were worthless.
There was no new Queen, and the divine could never shine.
Everything she believed she had achieved was just Edgar's scam. A man who turned a season's worth of effort into nothing in an instant.
Before she knew it, it was drizzling.
She crouched on the pitch-black riverbank, where the moon had hidden behind the clouds, and took the rain.
Her thin dress was soaked. The weight of the pouring raindrops pressed down on Olivia heavily.
Tears, a mixture of despair and helplessness, mingled with the rain and streamed down her cheeks.
‘I wonder if Marquis Lancelot will propose today?’
The words that came like a hallucination in that moment of unspeakable misery no longer made her heart flutter.
Everything was a mess.
The Bichen River on a summer night, where starlight shattered and fell, stretched out into the darkness.
That night when I hugged his neck and kissed him meant nothing to you.
Olivia bit her trembling lips hard.
The truth she had accepted so readily was as heavy as the black river.
He probably doesn't know how much courage it took to approach that man.
Everything was new.
Kissing someone, sharing warmth, holding hands, and dreaming of the future together, looking in the same direction.
But to you, I am…
Just one of the many women who passed by him, or who approached him to use him.
Olivia buried her face between her knees. A sob escaped from her lips as she wept silently.
And at that moment, with a roar that soared into the pitch-black sky, fireworks exploded, pop, pop.
It was the very fireworks she had been waiting for with a pounding heart. The raindrops dyed in its light fell in a variety of colors.
Olivia tilted her head back and looked up at the sky.
Dozens of fireworks exploded simultaneously, painting the black night sky with brilliant light that painfully clawed at her heart.
Once again, a condensed burst of sound exploded above the night sky.
‘I wonder if he'll do it during the fireworks display. At the climax of the party. It's so romantic just imagining it.’
It was a moment when she wanted to disappear like the brilliant fireworks that flashed and vanished in an instant.
The sound of steady footsteps echoed in the rain where darkness and light intersected. Olivia's head slowly turned towards it.
“……”
The outline, clearly visible even in the deep darkness, was approaching neither quickly nor slowly.
As Olivia blinked her neat eyelashes, a long shadow fell over her head.
“…Olivia.”
A heavy voice fell with the sound of the rain.
Pop, pop! The fireworks shot into the air again, this time spreading out in the shape of a rose, with red sparks raining down like rain.
It felt like time had stopped, like everything had come to a halt.
\\
The petals of a rose past its prime were falling one by one in the rain and wind.
Edgar, standing motionless on the terrace facing the rose garden, silently took in the scenery shrouded in black darkness.
The scent of roses carried on the rain was particularly strong.
The sound of shoes crossing the banquet hall approached quickly.
“Olivia. Is she still…?”
His uncharacteristic, nervous voice revealed his impatience.
‘Look for her again.’
Gerald, who had already searched the hotel inside and out three times at his command, erased his tired expression and replied.
“She is not in the hotel.”
“The garden?”
“I have already checked there several times.”
His Adam's apple moved roughly as he swallowed hard.
It was already past three in the morning. It was still drizzling outside, and the dazzling lights that seemed like they would last forever had been turned off long ago.
Edgar clenched his fist unconsciously.
Where did she disappear to?
Drip, drip. Raindrops tapping on the marble railing wet Edgar's cheek.
After standing there for a while, Edgar pressed hard on his eyes and then released his hand.
Edgar, who slowly opened his closed eyes, stared at the rainy night garden and ordered.
“Prepare the horses.”
“Pardon?”
“I'm going to Lancelot Castle.”
“A-At this hour?”
Gerald asked back in confusion, but Edgar did not say it twice.
He quickly went up the stairs and headed to the dressing room. Gerald stared blankly at Edgar's back before belatedly chasing after him.
“Young Master!”
Edgar, not caring about the sound of him calling out desperately, threw off his dress coat, changed into riding clothes, put on a raincoat, and headed straight for the elevator.
Disappearing without a word was not like Olivia at all.
So it was clear that something had happened to her.
Anneblin Grace Britt.
She wouldn't have the wherewithal to plot something like this.
Unless her head was just for decoration, she wouldn't have moved rashly now that she was suspected of deliberately injuring her opponent.
So, Edgar Lancaster Lancelot.
No one but his father would plot something like this.
Edgar felt like his stomach was turning inside out. A distant anger seethed and surged from the depths of his being.
‘Edgar, that name is enough.’
Edgar Lancaster Lancelot.
He abandoned his father's name and the name of his family. Just Edgar.
And this was the price.
Olivia had disappeared.
There was no longer any composure left in his deeply sunken gray-blue eyes.
“If you must go, please go by Carriage, Young Master.”
Gerald's persuasion did not work.
“It's dangerous. Please, just listen to me this time, Gerald. Please?”
Edgar, who got out of the elevator, cut through the lobby and exited the hotel's main entrance. He was like a person who couldn't hear anything.
“Young Master!”
Ignoring Gerald's shouts, Edgar got on his horse. Darkstar pawed the ground.
While Gerald was pacing back and forth, not knowing whether to follow in the Carriage or ride a horse, Darkstar roared and kicked off the avenue.
“Y-Young Master!”
The sleek black horse, with the streetlights shining smoothly on it, began to gallop down the rainy street at a rapid pace.
Darkstar's hooves shook the silent Golden Avenue and disappeared into the darkness.
\\
Yohan was watching from afar the woman crouching in the darkness, her shoulders shaking.
The woman's nape, touched by the faint moonlight, was as pale as snow. Raindrops fell and flowed down her white, clean neck.
The sound of leaves rustling in the late summer breeze and the sound of rain. In between, sobs flowed intermittently.
Olivia Blanchett was crying.
When the wind blowing from the river stopped, the sound became clearer along with the sound of the rain.
Yohan's Adam's apple twitched.
You always cried for me.
There was no need to ask why she was crying or why she was crying so sadly.
There was only one conclusion he could draw from seeing her crying alone in such a remote place.
Edgar.
His hand, which he had raised to pull at his tie out of habit, stopped in mid-air. It was because he belatedly realized that he hadn't put it on.
The moment the fireworks shot into the sky on a summer night and blazed brilliantly, Yohan began to take steps.
Olivia, who had been staring blankly at the fleeting illusion that bloomed and then faded, turned her head.
Their eyes met in the rain where darkness and light intersected.
The movement of her slightly heaving shoulders stopped.
The sound of another explosion filled the world with blue light, and Olivia's eyes widened as she looked at him.
Yohan narrowed the distance while holding Olivia's gaze.
As if for the last time, thousands of fireworks exploded simultaneously, and countless shooting stars rained down from the night sky.
He stopped.
“…Olivia.”
Yohan called his wife's name.
“Olivia Blanchett.”
For quite some time, the two looked at each other.
The only sounds were the fireworks exploding in brilliant colors and the sound of rain.
