Chapter 3: There Is No Choice but to Start from the Beginning

Today, I’ll tell Father.

Yesterday, when she actually tried to bring it up, the words would not come out easily. Since her father loved his daughter to the point of being a doting fool, there was a high chance he would oppose the idea.

Today’s lunch was her opportunity. Marian wanted to talk with her father over their meal about the things she had seen, felt, and learned while traveling.

Those stories would prove that the past two years, which had filled her new life with color, were reality and not a dream.

“What did you say?”

Carlton stopped the hand that had been cutting his steak and asked.

Carlton Winrose was well known as a father who could not live without his daughter, a complete fool for his daughter. Before Marian, his sharply raised eyes would soften completely, and his voice would rise by a tone.

Such a Carlton frowned in front of his only daughter.

Marian was slightly frightened by the expression she had never seen on her father before, but she swallowed hard and opened her mouth.

“Please allow me to become independent.”

“Independent.”

“Yes. Independence.”

Bang—!

Carlton slammed his fist down on the table. For an instant, the plates and forks lifted into the air before settling back down.

“You return home after two years, and that’s what you have to say?”

His voice was cold enough to make one feel a chill in midsummer. Sensing danger, the servants silently slipped out of the dining room one by one.

Carlton pressed his forehead with his thick-jointed hand. He could not accept this situation in the slightest.

Truthfully, even when Marian had said she wanted to leave Parthia and travel the continent, he had wanted to oppose it.

But when a daughter who had fought illness all her life suddenly appeared healthy and said she wanted to experience the wide world, what father could coldheartedly stop his daughter?

And yet, at this intimate meal together after two years.

My kind and lovely daughter Marian.

To think she would declare that she was leaving this father!

“I’m not saying I’ll never see you again, Father.”

Marian spoke calmly.

Carlton, who had been staring only at the completely cooled piece of meat with an expression as though he had lost his country, laboriously raised his head. His gaze met his daughter’s clear eyes, which seemed to show that she had already made up her mind.

“I simply want to try living by my own strength.”

“No.”

Marian’s shoulders flinched. In her father’s green eyes, identical to her own, she could not see even an inch of hesitation.

But Marian did not back down either. If she had intended to give up after trying to persuade him a little, she should never have brought it up in the first place.

“Father, I……”

“……”

“I want to be like the people who build their own lives themselves.”

Marian had grown up living in luxury under her father, who had accumulated an enormous fortune through maritime trade.

Though she was a commoner, she enjoyed a standard of living no less than that of the nobility and had freely gone on travels that required enormous expense.

The fact that she had been able to live for twenty-three years in her previous life despite suffering from heart disease was also entirely because she had her father.

Such a Marian met various people during her travels and was shocked.

There were people who had neither money nor status yet moved forward through their own strength. There were people who steadfastly pursued their dreams even when everyone opposed them.

Personally confirming their existence was an entirely different sensation from seeing the world through books.

The shock led to admiration and respect.

Two years of travel had completely changed Marian Winrose.

“I should never have let you go.”

Carlton rose from his seat with a cold, hardened expression.

“The world is not so easy, Marian.”

“I’m not as weak as you think I am, Father.”

Marian straightened her back and stood, facing her father.

The days when she anxiously worried that even a single action might strain her heart were over. The moment Marian traveled back through time, she was born anew.

With a healthy body. With a heart beating fiercely within her.

But Carlton gave a hollow laugh.

“This is why I say you’re still young. Did traveling for a mere two years make you think the world was easy?”

“Father.”

“The reason you were able to travel around safely was all because of me. Because of the money I spent and the people I assigned to you.”

“That is the problem.”

Marian did not waver before her furious father. Each of her words carried her firm determination for independence.

“I want to try living without borrowing Father’s power.”

“Marian Winrose!”

“I’ll accomplish by myself the things Father accomplished.”

Carlton’s brow twisted sharply.

His changed daughter felt unfamiliar. Carlton stared at Marian with wide eyes before giving up on the conversation and turning away.

“Do not speak of independence in front of me again.”

Bang.

The door closed with a loud sound.

Left alone, the tension drained from Marian’s legs, and she sank down where she stood. She clasped both hands together, buried her face in them, and let out a long sigh.

Her father’s angry voice, tinged with sadness, lingered in her ears.

Knock, knock.

“Come in.”

The door opened, and Hagen Weil entered the office.

“The contract with the Cantabile Hotel has been successfully concluded.”

“That old man. I knew he’d give in to the wine.”

“It isn’t just any wine, after all. It’s Vigne Ordre.”

Cedric lightly smiled as he looked over the documents Hagen handed him.

Vigne Ordre, unquestionably the finest in the Parthia Empire. Establishing a wine trade with the Ordenia family on favorable terms had been a brilliant move.

“Are you not going back to the main residence today either?”

“I’m not.”

“Duke Hartmann will be angry.”

Cedric let out a scoffing laugh through his teeth.

“Is that anything new?”

Whenever Cedric had a lot of work, he ate and slept in the private room attached to the company. When documents piled up for review, it was common for him not to return to the estate for several days.

Of course, work was not the only reason. Cedric found the company’s private room, which was not even half the size of his own room, more comfortable than the fully equipped Hartmann estate.

There was also no need to clash with his father.

“Ah, right.”

While clearing the empty teacups on the reception table, Hagen suddenly turned toward Cedric as though something had occurred to him.

“Did you meet your wife well?”

Cedric merely stared at the papers without answering.

Hagen narrowed his eyes as though judging the reason for the silence. The expression Cedric had worn when he returned to the company not long after going to meet his wife flashed through his mind.

He got rejected. That Cedric Hartmann.

Cedric had not yet formally gone through the divorce proceedings, but members of high society treated him as unmarried.

The only son of the Hartmann ducal family. The top graduate of Hohenkranz University, a university said to gather only the most gifted.

More than anything, however, the condition that captured women’s hearts was the man Cedric himself. Refined features that stole one’s gaze, tall and well-proportioned limbs, and even a low voice that melted the heart.

Cedric Hartmann was the ideal man everyone dreamed of at least once.

Cedric already participated little in social activities, yet whenever he appeared at a party, everyone made a commotion trying to dance with him even once. To think she had flatly dumped a man like that.

“Hagen.”

A cold voice settled low. Cedric spoke while keeping his gaze fixed on the neatly arranged contract clauses.

“Hasn’t it been well past time for you to leave work?”

“Yes, yes. I should go home.”

Hagen struggled to pull down the corners of his lips that were threatening to creep upward. It felt satisfying, as though he had landed a blow on his superior.

Hagen finished clearing the teacups and left the office. Just as he was about to close the door, he stopped and poked his head through the gap.

“If you charge at her blindly, she’ll run away.”

“……”

“You have no talent for romance, President, so keep that in mind.”

Click.

The door closed, and silence settled over the office.

Cedric put down the documents in his hand and firmly pressed his temple with his thumb. There was no use holding a contract he could not even take in.

“Whew……”

Cedric opened the window and breathed in the night air. The cool breeze calmed his troubled mind, if only slightly.

In the dark blue sky, a fingernail-like moon illuminated the darkness. Cedric superimposed Marian’s eyes, which curved narrowly, over the crescent moon.

‘I will not return to your side.’

Marian who would not return to his side.

Marian who did not love him.

Cedric did not know such a Marian. Marian had always loved him.

Her voice whispering love was sweet, and the touch of her hand caressing his cheek was gentle.

Marian had even loved Cedric, who did not love her.

“D*mn it.”

But Marian, whom he met again after two years, rejected him. She firmly pushed him away and warned him not to come close.

Perhaps it was only natural that Marian was wary of him. How could she trust a man who had never once expressed love throughout their marriage, only to say that he missed her after they divorced?

It was ridiculous.

The more Cedric thought over his meeting with Marian at Chelsea Station, the more it felt as though his heart were being crushed beneath a heavy lump of lead.

‘If you charge at her blindly, she’ll run away.’

The words Hagen had dropped like a bomb before leaving disturbed his mind.

Should I not have said I missed her? I should have kept a reasonable distance and talked to her.

His mind worked extraordinarily quickly when it came to work, but in matters like this, his brain would not function. It merely creaked like a wheel that had not been oiled.

Would everything be resolved if he submitted the divorce papers as Marian wanted?

Would Marian then smile affectionately at him as she had before?

‘No. I can’t do that.’

Among all the people walking through Chelsea Station, Cedric had found Marian at a single glance. Marian had naturally been drawn into his field of vision.

When he saw her smiling brightly as she enjoyed the summer sunlight, Cedric realized.

He could never let Marian go.

Throughout the two years since he had let Marian leave, Cedric had thought and thought without end. He had to find a way to turn her heart back toward him.

The conclusion was simple.

The past could not be undone.

So there was no choice but to start from the beginning.

Bathed in the blue moonlight streaming through the window, Cedric’s eyes shone intensely. Even crushed beneath the lump of lead, his heart struggled as though refusing to die.