Winter sank heavily to the floor but immediately tried to get back up, insisting that she was all right.

She assumed her exhaustion was the result of overworking herself while preparing for the exhibition.

Above all, she did not want to worry her master.

When Ellen saw her stumble again, she grabbed her wrist without hesitation.

“You need to take care of your health first. Let’s go to the hospital.”

“No, really. I’m fine now.”

“Winter, I’ve told you this countless times. People like us, who spend long hours concentrating on our work, need to take the best care of our bodies.”

As though refusing to accept any further objections, Ellen picked up her coat and headed for the door.

Unable to resist the firm insistence, Winter eventually followed her to a nearby hospital.

“It’s probably just exhaustion from overworking yourself. Get some medicine, go home, and get a few hours of proper sleep. Understood?”

Before they went in to see the doctor, Ellen gently patted Winter’s slender shoulder.

Ellen had practically dragged Winter to the hospital, knowing that her apprentice would never have come on her own.

Even so, Ellen assumed it was nothing serious.

Perhaps exhaustion.

Or maybe a minor illness brought on by overwork.

However, after they stepped into the examination room, Ellen did not utter a single word until they left.

Her eyes drifted to Winter’s flat stomach, as though she could not quite believe the doctor’s diagnosis.

Then her gaze moved to Winter’s face.

It was completely drained of color — pale with shock.

“So… you didn’t know either, did you?”

“…”

“It’s the Duke of Mayer’s child, isn’t it? What in the world were you thinking, Winter…?”

Even while reprimanding her, Ellen kept her voice as low as possible, wary of being overheard.

She had long suspected that Winter and Eden Mayer were more than just acquaintances.

Nevertheless, she trusted Winter to manage her own life responsibly.

But a pregnancy?

On top of that, the newspapers had been filled day after day with reports of the Duke of Mayer’s marriage negotiations with another woman.

The situation was almost too shocking to comprehend.

Stunned, Ellen pressed a hand to her temple.

She looked at Winter, who stood there, unable to say a word.

After a long moment, Ellen slowly turned away.

Winter had always been her proudest apprentice — someone she had never found fault with.

Perhaps that was why the disappointment hurt all the more.

“Go home. We’ll talk another time.”

Unlike when they had arrived at the hospital, Ellen walked away with a noticeably darker expression.

Winter remained frozen in place.

Even long after Ellen disappeared from sight, she could not make herself move.

“You’re in the early stages of pregnancy. Other than the dizziness, have you experienced any other symptoms?”

Winter could hear the doctor’s words echoing in her ears as if from a distance.

She walked on, letting the wind blow against her face.

Even when her period was delayed, the idea of being pregnant had never crossed her mind.

This was not a relationship built on promises of marriage.

She had been taking the pill to prevent pregnancy.

Winter stopped abruptly at the corner of the street and slowly lifted her head.

Ah… It was probably that night.

The night she had come straight from the studio without taking anything with her.

“Winter.”

The man who pulled her into his arms made no attempt to hide the desire in his eyes as he held her wrist.

He was warm against her.

Their breaths mingled.

The intensity of his gaze held her captive.

Every moment was overwhelming, consuming and impossibly intimate.

Unable to resist his touch that day, she finally gave in and kissed him.

No matter how many times she replayed it in her mind, that was the only possible explanation.

If hearts could be torn apart, hers felt as though a gaping hole had been ripped through it.

The cold spreading from deep within her chest was far harsher than the winter wind brushing against her skin; it seeped through every layer and settled in her bones.

“The baby…”

Winter stared blankly into the empty air and whispered the words under her breath.

Instead of feeling grounded, she was overwhelmed by uncertainty about what to do next.

There was still plenty of time until five o’clock, when her father was due to arrive at the station.

Until then, she couldn’t bring herself to think about anything else.

None of the things that Eden had told her had been confirmed by her own eyes.

She didn’t want to jump to conclusions until she heard the truth directly from her father.

So please…

Please let none of it be true.

That was the only thing she could bring herself to pray for.

***

“You look pale, Winter. Is life away from home treating you that harshly?”

Sitting across from her father in the quiet atelier, Winter struggled to decide where to begin.

They had just finished dinner at a restaurant and moved here afterward.

“So this is where you spend all day painting and working.”

As she watched her father look around the studio, she gradually became more hopeful that perhaps Eden had misunderstood something.

After all, the father she remembered had never known anyone in Vartz.

The countless memories she had made with him in their hometown of Ceres were not enough to stop her doubts from overwhelming her.

‘Please… let what I heard that day not be true.’

With trembling eyes, Winter looked at Jeffrey.

After agonizing over it for what felt like an eternity, she finally asked a simple question.

“Father… do you know someone named Harriet Mayer?”

All she needed was one answer.

Had her father simply said that he didn’t know Harriet Mayer, she would never have asked another question.

Instead, an unsettling silence fell between them.

The longer it lasted, the tighter Winter’s brows drew together.

She already knew the answer.

It was written plainly across her father’s rigid, frozen expression.

After an awkward pause, Jeffrey cleared his throat and tried to change the subject.

“Why would you suddenly ask something like that? Winter, I don’t understand what you’re talking about. Why would you—”

“Father.”

“Did someone fill your head with nonsense?”

Jeffrey desperately tried to feign ignorance.

He did not know where his daughter had heard such things or what exactly she had been told, but it was all in the past.

Then her tearful question left him completely frozen.

“Arthur Helburn… was that really your former name?”

The moment she spoke the name he knew all too well, Jeffrey gripped the edge of the table with his thin, weathered hand.

It had happened a long time ago.

After fleeing Vartz as though his life depended on it, he had settled in a remote rural town.

Winter was just shy of her fifth birthday at the time.

Having changed both his first and last names, he lived quietly.

Jeffrey picked up his glass of water, his hands trembling.

“Father, there’s something I want more than anything. I want to go to Vartz and become a painter.”

Jeffrey was naturally concerned when his capable, independent daughter told him that she wanted to move to the capital.

However, as the years passed without incident, his concerns gradually faded.

Harriet Mayer had died a long time ago.

He had also recently heard that the Duke of Mayer had died.

He had convinced himself that there was nothing left to fear.

Nothing could go wrong.

Yet more than a decade had not been enough to bury the shameful past he had tried so desperately to leave behind.

The strength slowly drained from his body.

In that moment, Jeffrey realized that he could no longer turn a blind eye or hide from the truth.

“…I’m sorry.”

The apology barely left his lips.

He lowered his head, unable to bring himself to face his daughter, who was probably looking at him with disappointment.

He first met Harriet while working as an art dealer, travelling throughout Karten in search of rare pieces and clients.

He was tasked with finding an item that the Duchess had been searching for, which is how their acquaintance began.

Harriet Mayer — the King’s sister and mistress of House Mayer — was a stunningly beautiful woman.

What began as a simple acquaintance gradually grew into something far deeper.

Behind her graceful smile was a passionate heart, and before either of them realized it, their relationship had taken on a life of its own.

Jeffrey took satisfaction in knowing that such an extraordinary woman loved him so devotedly and openly.

Even when he whispered sweet words to Harriet about running far away together, he had not thought it was anything serious.

He had assumed she, too, was merely enjoying a forbidden escape from her life.

He had never imagined she would truly abandon everything and follow him.

But contrary to his expectations, the woman who had lived her entire life in nobility threw herself into it blindly.

“Let’s leave next month, on the first weekend. This is all the emergency money I can get my hands on for now. Arthur, I want you to keep it.”

Only then did he realize how serious the situation had become.

To him, Harriet had never been anything more than a passing fling.

He had no intention of becoming the man who convinced the King’s sister and the Duchess of Mayer to abandon their lives and run away with him.

Ultimately, he disappeared without a word.

He fled as though he were escaping the consequences of his actions.

He took his unsuspecting wife and young daughter with him and settled in a distant, unfamiliar town.

There were moments when he felt guilty.

Nevertheless, he used the money Harriet had entrusted to him to change his name and start a new life by opening a shop.

Fragments of old memories surfaced, flooding his mind chaotically.

Jeffrey closed his eyes for a moment and struggled to steady himself before continuing.

“Winter. Shameful as it is, that was nothing more than a mistake from my youth. After that, I lived as an ordinary husband and father.”

“Father.”

“You know that, don’t you? I was the one who took care of your mother through her long illness.”

At his desperate excuse, Winter let out a low, pained breath.

Remembering her mother’s final days, she asked weakly,

“Did Mother know about all of this?”

“…”

“Did Mother know nothing until the very end?”

At the mention of his wife, Jeffrey pressed his lips tightly together.

Only after a long while did he answer.

“It was a secret I intended to take to my grave.”

Ultimately, it was an admission that he had hidden everything from her.

Had her mother never asked why they had moved to such an unfamiliar place?

Or why her husband’s first and last names had changed?

And what about when her own surname and her daughter’s changed too?

No.

To hide one lie, countless others must have been necessary.

“Father, why… How could you do something like that…?”

Her resentful words emerged fractured and strained, as though tearing their way through a dry throat.

Faced with a side of her father that she had never known — the man she had trusted and relied on more than anyone — Winter felt utterly shattered.

Disappointment, anger, and condemnation tangled inside her, clawing relentlessly at her heart.

Her father, her only remaining family member, had become a wound in someone else’s life — a betrayal that could never be erased.

From the very beginning, she had never truly belonged at Eden Mayer’s side.

Now, she felt she no longer had the right to hold on to him either.

This cruel realization cut even deeper.

The child growing inside her might be unwelcome to everyone involved.

This thought pierced her chest with merciless force.

At that moment, Winter stood frozen to the spot, unable to speak, as her father slowly reached out a hand towards her.