‘You know it well? And you still act like this?’

This is truly maddening…. It’s a curse….

‘Why? Do you have some playboy gene? Is that why you can’t live without a woman and are acting like this with me?’

Erica, trust me. You’re the only woman I love.

‘Even if you love me. What good is that? It doesn’t change the fact that you made a child with another woman and chose her.’

I swear I’ve never made love to another woman.

‘That child is yours, but you’ve never made love to another woman? Are you God? Did you conceive through the Holy Spirit?’

At this point, she burst into laughter at the absurdity.

‘You trash. Wouldn’t it have been better to be honest trash rather than pathetic trash?’

Come to think of it, that wasn’t the only thing that didn’t add up. He claimed Erica was his first, yet his daughter with another woman was born three months before Erica’s child. How could that make sense?

No, wait.

Thinking back to the night Eric was conceived, Roderick had never actually said she was his first.

Why did I think that?

Recalling that night, Roderick had often blushed and acted shy. He was a bit clumsy at first.

Perhaps she had missed the hint that she might not have been his first.

“Tell me anytime if you want to stop.”

Only now did this statement seem suspicious.

Where would he have learned to say such a thing?

It was something the rough men from the mountains would never say. Consideration or manners toward women were things found only in noble society.

‘That woman, she must have been of noble birth.’

So was it something he learned from that woman?

‘Why did I miss this?’

In her previous life, having a promiscuous father, she prided herself on knowing playboys’ tactics better than anyone.

‘Now that I think about it, this is exactly the pattern of men who cheat with old classmates when they go home for Chuseok!’

You know it yet fall for it, you fool.

“Sigh……”

So her first life was ruined because of a philandering father, and her second life was being ruined because of a philandering childhood friend.

‘No, it’s not ruined yet….’

As she thought this while reflecting on how much she had ruined her first life, she suddenly realized.

‘In this life, I’ve become the mistress who bore an illegitimate child!’

And to make matters worse, her child was a son while the other woman’s was a daughter. Suddenly, the image of Roderick embracing Eric in the marketplace with his daughter standing behind him overlapped with her father who treated her as if she didn’t exist while only acknowledging her “brother.”

“What? You also hate daughters and prefer sons? My damn father in my past life was at least a chaebol! You don’t have a damn thing to pass down!”

Thud!

“Flirting with your mistress in the hallway while your legal wife is dying in childbirth!”

Thud! Thud! Thud! Thud!

Now she started beating the dough with a rolling pin.

“Wow! Bread!”

Just as she was taking freshly baked bread out of the oven, Eric ran into the kitchen, drawn by the delicious smell.

Bread is best eaten when it’s warm.

As always, she cut off a corner of the bread, blew on it to cool it, and gave it to Eric. With eyes wide like Puss in Boots from the animation, Eric excitedly popped the piece of bread into his mouth, but immediately made a face.

“Mom……”

“What?”

“Why did you bake leather?”

“…What?”

“It tastes like leather so I called it leather, but why are you asking why it’s leather……”

Erica tore off a piece of bread and put it in her mouth. Her face immediately contorted like Eric’s.

‘My jaw might break.’

The bread was incredibly tough.

“What should I do with this?”

She had spent all day kneading and baking it. What a waste. She couldn’t throw food away.

…As she was thinking this, her eyes fell on the letter envelope sitting in the corner of the counter. At that moment, she realized what this bread could be used for.

‘I should reply.’

* * *

“I baked this while thinking of you.”

“Thinking of me?”

Erica didn’t respond and simply handed Roderick a heavy bag before turning around and going back into her house. When he opened the warm bag, he found freshly baked bread inside.

Had the sincerity in his letter gotten through to her?

With an excited heart, Roderick took a bite of the bread.

“……”

Elodie, who also tried the bread, made the same expression and asked.

“The bread is like leather. Are we so poor now that we have to eat leather?”

“No, Elodie. Leather is expensive.”

Roderick finally understood the meaning of “I baked this while thinking of you.”

Erica’s answer to his letter that was full of love and apology was clear:

Anger.

It seemed he would have to postpone winning back Erica’s heart.

For now, it was enough for him that she was just beyond that door.

* * *

“No customers, just dust piling up. No, wait. Is it piling up more because there are no customers?”

Erica started her day as always by cleaning the shop before opening. Actually, since the shop was small and she swept and wiped it every day, it didn’t take long.

Before opening time, she headed to the place she cleaned as meticulously as her preparation room. That was the entrance to the shop.

Back in the day, when she managed a much larger business, there was one thing she emphasized whenever she visited offline stores.

“Always keep the front of the store clean.”

After all, if the front of the store was hygienic, potential customers passing by would assume that the inside of the store and the products sold there were also hygienic.

Customers judge what they couldn’t see based on what they can see.

Though applying the theories she learned in business school to this hole-in-the-wall shop wouldn’t bring any customers today either.

“Sigh……”

As she sighed and was about to wipe the door handle of the shop’s main entrance, Erica paused.

‘Huh?’

Through the gap under the door, wide enough for Eric’s fist to easily slip through, she could see a pair of old brown shoes going back and forth.

A customer? That thought didn’t cross her mind.

The shoes were too small.

They looked like shoes a girl around Eric’s age would wear. Having a hunch, Erica quietly lowered herself and put her eye to the keyhole.