“I’ll definitely pay back the investment.”

“That’s not what I mean.”

Unable to face his wide, glaring eyes, Shiloh bit her lower lip and looked away.

A brief, uncomfortable silence passed.

“Why are you so foolishly kind?”

Shiloh slowly lifted her gaze at Kyle’s words, which she couldn’t quite tell were a scolding or something else.

“Pardon?”

“Is there anyone without hardship?”

When Kyle stared at her, she dropped her gaze and spoke in a subdued voice.

“That child needs the protection of a parent.”

“……”

“I don’t want him to live like I did.”

“……”

Kyle’s eyes wavered faintly at Shiloh’s quiet murmur.

Kyle steadied his breathing and spoke in a quiet, measured tone.

“Don’t meddle in things that aren’t your business. There are parents in this world whose absence is better than their presence.”

“Denis at least wants to be a good father to his son.”

“……”

“I want to give him a chance as a father, as a provider.”

“……”

“Everyone can make mistakes.”

A bittersweet smile touched the corner of Shiloh’s mouth.

In her previous life, after her mother passed away, she and her younger brother had been left with their grandmother.

Her father had been too busy paying off business debts to look after his children.

But even on weekends, he never came to see her and her brother.

At the time, the feeling of being abandoned made her resent her father and close her heart.

But after her father passed away, Shiloh regretted never giving him a chance.

She wondered if perhaps he had had his own hardships, if he had wanted to be a good father but circumstances hadn’t allowed it.

“Let’s say everyone makes mistakes, as you say. But this wasn’t a small one, was it?”

Kyle’s cold words pulled Shiloh out of her thoughts.

It seemed utterly impossible that he would grant her request.

On top of that, based on the novel’s description, Kyle was someone who was not good at lying.

There was no way he would agree to make a false statement on behalf of a criminal.

The thought that a child’s future would be made harder because of her brought tears to Shiloh’s eyes.

Kyle’s eyes widened at the sight.

He paused, pulled back the hand he had been reaching toward her, and let out a long sigh.

“I’m sorry for making such a request.”

Even nearly resigned to failure, Shiloh made one last earnest plea and bowed her head.

“Ha……”

Kyle turned his back to Shiloh and ran a rough hand through his hair.

After a long pause, he grabbed the shop door, then turned back.

“What do I need to do?”

Kyle asked with a sigh of resignation, and Shiloh’s wet eyes flew wide.

*

Kyle, Shiloh, and Denis coordinated their stories and constructed Denis’s alibi.

“This man is absolutely not the culprit. He was with me looking for the robber.”

The guard’s scribe recorded his statement, given in the guise of a wandering mercenary, onto parchment.

“I walked the area with Denis looking for the robber. No matter how long we searched, we couldn’t find him, so we eventually gave up and went into Denis’s confectionery together. Denis offered to at least have breakfast. That’s when we ran into the robber again at Denis’s shop. He took one look at us and bolted.”

“You’re saying the robber went to another confectionery as well?”

“He might be a vagrant looking for food.”

Kyle put on a suitably grave expression.

The guards who had been tilting their heads at first looked at each other and nodded as Kyle’s account continued.

After the statement was complete and they stepped out of the guard building, the sunset was already casting long shadows in front of it.

‘Everyone can make mistakes.’

Shiloh’s voice seemed to drift to his ears for a moment.

He had lived his whole life surrounded by people who seized on the smallest misstep.

And yet here was someone this generous toward others. It was remarkable.

“The more I see her, the more extraordinary she is.”

But more extraordinary than her was himself, shaken because of her.

‘Such a small woman has me wrapped around her finger.’

Kyle drew in a deep breath as he became aware of what he had just done.

He let out a hollow breath and walked on, stepping into the alley.

A short while later, Kyle looked around to confirm no one was watching, and wings sprouted from his arms.

Soon his entire body was covered in dark reddish-black feathers.

Kyle spread his wings wide and soared high into the sky.

Beating his wings rapidly and stirring a fierce wind, Kyle circled Shiloh’s confectionery for a while on his way back before finally flying off.

*

Denis was released on the third day.

On the day he got out, he came to Shiloh’s Bakery.

“I’m sorry.”

Shiloh grabbed his arm as he tried to drop to his knees and stopped him.

“Please get up.”

But Denis knelt to the end and expressed his apology.

“If there was anything I said before that upset you, please forget it. I spoke without thinking……”

Shiloh looked down at him steadily and said with a straight face.

“Think before you speak from now on.”

Denis bowed his head and let out a small sigh.

“Understood.”

Shiloh let out a short laugh at that and looked at him warmly.

“I’m joking. Honestly, I was hurt at the time, but your apology has settled it. Not everyone can genuinely reflect and apologize.”

“……”

Denis scratched his head sheepishly.

“You’re continuing with baking, aren’t you?”

“I’m going to move first.”

“What about the confectionery?”

Shiloh’s eyes widened.

“Things worked out fortunately, but I’m embarrassed to face the other bakers here and I’m ashamed of myself…… for now I’m going to close the shop and try farming on the outskirts of the capital. I might open a confectionery again, but I’ll think about that later.”

Denis laid out his plans in a matter-of-fact tone.

Shiloh was quiet for a moment, then spoke.

“I have something to ask you…… it’ll be harder to say with you like this, so would you please stand up?”

He slowly rose from his knees and looked at Shiloh.

“Please say anything.”

“I’d like to buy your shop. Would that be possible?”

“My shop?”

Denis’s eyes went wide.

“My current space is too small. If you’re going to sell it anyway, how about selling it to me?”

Shiloh had recently been thinking she needed to expand, given the flood of customers.

There had already been plenty of customers, but after a story about a thief who broke in and ate only bread before running off was published in the Imperial Gazette, the confectionery had become even more well-known.

Denis’s shop, roughly seven times the size of hers, would be far better suited to welcoming the growing crowd.

“I’d be more than grateful if you’d buy the shop.”

“And since you’re heading to the outskirts anyway, how about not letting go of baking and opening a second location of Shiloh’s Bakery?”

“Pardon?”

Denis’s eyes went wide.

“If you take on the second location, I’ll teach you how to make the yellow cheese pound cake you love, and the Earl Grey madeleines and hazelnut cookies you enjoyed when you came by that time. You’d just need to pay a small commission.”

She smiled, then bit her lip where he couldn’t see.

‘He seems proud. Will he accept my offer?’

Shiloh watched Denis think it over with nervous eyes.

After a brief silence, he spoke.

“To be taught Miss Shiloh’s yellow cheese pound cake recipe…… it would be an honor.”

A quiet smile spread across his face, and her cheeks lifted right along with it.

It was the moment Shiloh’s confectionery became a chain.

‘My confectionery is becoming a chain!’

That night, Shiloh tossed and turned in bed and couldn’t sleep.

The fact that a chain location was opening in less than half a year since she had started the business was overwhelming and moving.

She was grateful to Kyle for helping things work out so well.

“Honestly, he acts like he won’t do something and then quietly does it all anyway……”

Shiloh smiled to herself in the dark, lying on her side, and drifted off to sleep before long.

The day after that landmark day in the business, a new apprentice named Minoel arrived at her shop.

The new employee at Shiloh’s Bakery, Minoel, was a young man four years younger than Shiloh, with light brown hair, a boyish and pretty face, and a mischievous smile that left an impression.

But despite his bright appearance, he had been through a great deal.

Minoel, who said he had tried every kind of work to escape poverty back in Belmae, confided that he had happened to eat her bread one day and begun dreaming of becoming a baker.

“I want to learn how to pipe cream.”

Shiloh found Minoel’s enthusiasm genuinely endearing.

She wanted to be a source of support for him one day in achieving his dream of having his own bakery.

That day too, after business hours ended, she diligently taught Minoel baking.

Watching him hold a piping bag and pipe cream onto a moist carrot cake layer, Shiloh’s eyes sharpened with focus.