Chapter 58. Proposal for a Deal

Sezad growled with an excited face.

“Isn’t it clear that something’s up if I had so many lovers and no illegitimate children? Did you think I only fooled around with you?”

“Huff, huff.”

Helen panted and trembled. Seeing her reaction, Sezad let out a shallow sigh. He didn’t mean to scare her.

He was just excited to see the figure he hated—someone trying to use his weakness to gain the upper hand—just like Helen.

‘If you had behaved, I wouldn’t have to discard you. If it weren’t for you, my life wouldn’t have gone downhill like this!’

The words of his mother, who sold him off, still tormented Sezad. She had gotten pregnant with another man’s child, yet she acted as if he ruined her life, which disgusted him.

If Camilla hadn’t saved him, he would have either become disabled from hard labor or died.

Sezad rubbed his face dry as he looked at the trembling Helen. The overlapping image of his detestable mother made him angrier, so he avoided looking at her.

“Out of consideration for our past, I’ll let it slide. But why don’t you find the child’s father? I heard many men followed you around. Some even committed suicide out of despair. You won’t lose out by picking any one of them, right?”

“…….”

Helen flinched at his suggestion to find the child’s father. The remaining men, aside from Sezad, were insignificant.

Besides, Helen loved Sezad. Even if she was a woman who had been with many men, she wanted to be in a happy marriage. Her wandering stemmed from a lack of affection.

With the sudden appearance of a child, it felt like her life was over.

Suddenly, she recalled the men she had coldly discarded. Some had confessed their love for her sincerely. Now, it felt like karma was catching up for treating them so heartlessly.

She deeply regretted meeting other men and attending parties out of habit even after meeting Sezad.

“Why don’t you just marry me? You won’t lose anything. Blanche will give a huge dowry. If you love me even a little, please do it.”

Helen clutched Sezad’s pants. She had never begged so desperately in her life.

Was this karma for treating others poorly with the backing of the Blanche family?

If her father found out about her pregnancy, he might finally send her to the outskirts. The thought of living as a country girl, expelled from the glamorous life in the capital, made her despair.

“I can’t live in the countryside!”

Sezad looked at her with an incredulous expression. Even in this situation, Helen’s vanity about being expelled from the capital was absurd.

“You really are something.”

When Sezad tried to shake her off, Helen clung to his waist and pleaded.

“Just marry me. I won’t ask for anything more. Please save me!”

Her desperate actions made Sezad laugh inwardly.

He knew she was foolish, but not to this extent. Camilla had been right about ending things quickly.

Sezad didn’t know what to do with this naive woman. Helen Blanche was a vain woman who tried to alleviate her loneliness by dominating men.

And Sezad knew another woman like her. It made him wonder if his life was doomed to attract such women.

Without her beauty and family’s power, she would have been discarded quickly. She focused on her appearance while neglecting her inner self.

Now, with a child on the way, she was lucky if she wasn’t expelled from her family. Even if she found the father and married him, she would have no financial power and would cling to her family’s scraps.

The men clinging to her were mostly like hyenas, eyeing the Blanche family’s wealth.

Helen didn’t seem to realize that the worst of those men was Sezad Vaikan.

He turned around and grabbed her chin. Her reddened eyes blinked, pleading for mercy.

“Ha. You should have behaved better from the start.”

“Ugh, Sezad…”

Helen cried pitifully, reaching out her hand. But she didn’t know that his outstretched hand wasn’t for salvation but to drag her into hell.

Since it had come to this, Sezad wanted to confirm something using Helen. He recalled something she had said drunkenly.

‘My mom has a strange habit of collecting things. She has a compulsion to record everything.’
‘Wouldn’t it be a big deal if someone found out? She didn’t seem like someone who only did good things.’
‘Of course, she hid it where no one could find it. I found it by accident. Mom doesn’t know I know about that place.’

Considering she had told him such an important story, she must have trusted him. This made it hard to be completely heartless, but only as long as it didn’t interfere with Camilla.

He had been waiting for an opportunity, and now he could make Helen bring it herself.

‘If I get that notebook, Camilla will be pleased.’

Sezad was a scoundrel who would do anything for Camilla. Yet, he didn’t cross the line because he instinctively knew that crossing it would mean he couldn’t stay with Camilla as he did now.

Recently, a white nuisance hanging around her irritated him, but it also reassured him.

Blanche was too harmful to her. Just looking at Helen’s state showed how rotten the family was.

Helen’s lack of affection made it easy to seduce her. Just by looking at her, he could tell she was a noble lady who should have grown up surrounded by love, but was instead starved for affection and consumed by loneliness.

Only those who knew loneliness could recognize others suffering from it.

“Hey. If I marry you, what will you do for me, princess?”

Hearing him call her ‘princess’ again, Helen’s face brightened.

“I’ll do anything, anything you ask! I’ll make sure the child doesn’t bother you.”

“Really?”

Sezad whispered in her ear as if he had been waiting for this.

“Then bring me Duchess Blanche’s notebook.”

“How, how do you know about that…”

“Ah, you don’t remember saying it when you were drunk?”

Helen’s face showed she realized she had let it slip. She had unknowingly opened her heart to Sezad.

Helen rolled her eyes and mumbled.

“How could I… Just tell me what you’re curious about. I know all the contents of my mom’s notebook.”

“Did you sneak and read your mom’s diary like a rat?”

“Don’t insult me. I had no choice if I wanted to survive.”

Helen glared at him with a look of humiliation. She hadn’t abandoned her last shred of pride.

She had discovered the location of Isabelle’s diary ten years ago. On a rainy day, she had followed her mother, who had hurriedly disappeared somewhere. To be precise, Isabelle appeared at a place where Helen had been playing hide-and-seek.

When she found a study in a place full of overgrown bushes, Helen thought she had found a secret room.
After Isabelle left, she opened the study in the same way and snooped around.

When she found the things her mother had left behind, Helen was terrified. They were assassination requests. Requesting assassinations from the guild was illegal. Moreover, killing illegitimate children was severely punished.

It was right after the law protecting the rights of illegitimate children had been revised.

Helen was shocked to see something she shouldn’t have and fled the study.

The next day, when she heard about Francis’s carriage accident, she understood why Isabelle had anxiously checked the documents.

The time and place of the assassination request matched Francis’s accident. It meant her mother’s plan had gone awry.

Since then, Helen had secretly visited Isabelle’s study and read her documents. She feared that her mother might kill her someday.

In Isabelle’s eyes, Helen was just a troublesome nuisance, which made her even more anxious.

“Well, fine. I’ll hear the contents first and get the actual notebook later.”

Sezad laughed at the absurdity of Helen holding her mother’s weakness. The saying ‘a house divided against itself’ was true. He couldn’t help but laugh at the thought of the old fox unaware of the darkness under her lamp.

Sezad said,

“I need the notebook recording the events around September 14, Imperial Year 458.”

Helen’s face darkened instantly upon hearing the date from Sezad. She asked in a trembling voice,

“Why that day?”