“Have you calmed down now?”
At Jeremyon’s question, Lilliana gently nodded after placing the teacup in her hand down.
She was currently in his living room.
How had she ended up here so suddenly? Lilliana recalled what had happened just moments ago.
It had been when she was crying uncontrollably in front of the main gate, and Jeremyon appeared.
He had asked her:
"Why are you crying?"
It was a simple, straightforward question. She could have easily answered, but Lilliana hesitated.
She remembered that their last conversation hadn’t been particularly pleasant.
She carefully chose her words, but Jeremyon, impatient with the brief silence, abruptly led her somewhere.
“Never mind. You can answer later. Just follow me.”
“Je-Jeremyon? Follow you where…?”
“Are you trying to catch a cold standing like that? Just accept my help quietly.”
“But…”
“Lilliana.”
Only a few days ago, they had been shouting at each other. Because of her, Jeremyon had even been slapped by Vanessa.
‘I have some pride. I can’t just accept help.’
She had been planning to refuse politely, but his firm voice calling her name made her swallow the words she was about to say.
Before she knew it, she had already followed him into the mansion.
Jeremyon led her to the living room in the annex. At first, she wondered why he had brought her somewhere unfamiliar, but soon realized it was to avoid a meeting with Vanessa.
After that, he draped a blanket over her shoulders and handed her a warm cup of tea.
“Drink this. It’ll help you warm up.”
Though the weather outside wasn’t particularly cold, the rain had made her shiver.
As she lifted the cup, the soothing scent of lavender wafted up. With each sip, the warmth of the tea gradually calmed her uneasy heart.
“……”
Lilliana pretended to drink her tea while subtly glancing at Jeremyon, who sat across from her.
Though he crossed his legs arrogantly, there was something different about his expression. The tension that usually tightened his face had slightly relaxed.
She continued sipping her tea, unable to tear her gaze away from him.
The living room remained silent for quite some time.
‘Is he being considerate?’
Surely, Jeremyon had things he wanted to hear from her. Yet, instead of pressuring her, he simply waited.
‘Jeremyon is surprisingly kind.’
Even though their relationship had been contractual, she had never realized this side of him when they were together.
Lilliana finished the remaining tea in her cup.
The warmth from the tea had completely stopped her trembling, and even the headache from crying for hours had subsided a bit.
‘I suppose it’s time I told him.’
She slowly opened her mouth.
“You asked me why I was crying earlier.”
“Yes.”
Jeremyon nodded as soon as she started speaking, his eyes silently encouraging her to go on.
Gaining courage, Lilliana finally revealed the feelings she had been hiding from him all this time.
“I… like your mother.”
“What?”
“I know it might sound strange. But it’s the truth. I really like her. That’s why… I deceived you.”
She shifted her gaze from the table to look directly at Jeremyon. As expected, his face was full of confusion.
It wasn’t hard to understand why. Who could immediately accept that their ex-lover had feelings for their stepmother?
Lilliana raised the corners of her lips slightly and continued explaining.
“You look like you don’t understand. But it’s exactly as I said. I like Lady Winder so much that… I wanted to be near her, even if I had to act selfishly.”
“…….”
“I’m sorry, Jeremyon. Even though I was the one who ended our contractual relationship first, I pretended as if we hadn’t broken up. That way, Lady Winder allowed me to stay by her side.”
“So what you’re saying is that the reason you kept hanging around my estate wasn’t because of me, but because of my mother? But… why?”
“You wouldn’t understand. You have no idea how I felt back then.”
Lilliana closed her eyes, lost in her memories.
“My brother went off to war, and we lost contact. Even though I wasn’t close to him, he was still someone I relied on. Then my father, the only other person I could lean on, passed away. I watched as the family I loved crumbled before my eyes, and I couldn’t do anything to stop it.”
Jeremyon nodded slightly in response, listening intently.
“You know it too, but back then, I was utterly powerless. Even when I asked for help, everyone turned their backs on me. Even the families we had been close with shut me out, as if they had made some secret pact to abandon me. At that point… I thought it was all over.”
“Now, I can talk about it calmly, but at the time, I felt completely stuck in the mud,” Lilliana began, her voice steady. Back then, no matter how hard she tried to pull herself out, the heavy mud seemed to endlessly drag her down.
Jeremyon, deeply focused on her story, kept his lips tightly shut as though something she said had struck a nerve. Lilliana noticed and smiled slightly.
“You don’t have to make that face. I’m still grateful to you.”
“…But I tried to use you.”
“Haha, I didn’t see it that way. You’re surprisingly human, you know? But really, it’s true. Even though it was a contractual marriage, you were the only one who reached out to help me back then.”
It wasn’t a lie. In that desperate situation, Jeremyon’s offer was the only helping hand extended to her.
But that realization only made her feel more wretched. She had understood that her only way out was to mortgage the rest of her life.
And then Vanessa Winder appeared.
“Honestly, I had half given up—on the rest of my life. If I married you, I knew I could live comfortably, but I also knew I’d be miserable. We didn’t love each other. So I had resigned myself to that fate… But that’s when it happened. Your mother reached out to me.”
“……”
“She spoke as if full of malice on the surface, but I could tell. Lady Winder genuinely wanted to help me. And that… that was the first time anyone had ever done that for me.”
Up until then, Lilliana had believed that everything in the world was transactional, that there was no such thing as a selfless act of kindness. But Vanessa Winder was different.
That’s why she had wanted to stay close to her. For the first time, she had tasted something sweet, and she wanted to experience it for as long as she could.
“But… but…”
“Lilliana.”
“I ruined everything.”
As the harsh reality resurfaced, the tears she had barely managed to suppress threatened to spill over once again.
Knowing that crying in front of Jeremyon would only be a burden to him, Lilliana tried her best to hold it in. She clenched her fists and fought back the tears.
But the more she tried, the more Vanessa’s face filled her mind.
“It’s all… hic… my fault. I know it’s my fault, so I shouldn’t expect anything more, but… sniff… Mother… sob…”
With her head hung low, Lilliana wept, her sobs choking out between gasps for air.
“I hate this… I can’t live without her… hic… I don’t know what to do… sob…”
Jeremyon silently watched her as she cried, almost as if she might stop breathing any second. For a few moments, his expression remained unreadable as he stared at her.
Then, impulsively, he stood up and knelt on one knee before her.
Lilliana, who had been wiping her tears with her sleeve, finally noticed him.
“Hic… J-Jeremyon? What are you doing?”
“Use me.”
“What? What do you mean…?”
“Let’s start again—our contract relationship. That way, Mother won’t be able to push you away anymore.”
Lilliana’s tears halted at his sudden proposal. It was certainly something she couldn’t help but feel glad about. With that, she’d have a legitimate reason to stay close to Vanessa again.
But…
“What do you get out of this? Unless… you’re asking for something in return like last time?”
Jeremyon paused for a moment, as if thinking, then shook his head.
“No.”
“Then why…?”
“I don’t need anything in return. Just use me. That way, your problem gets solved too.”
With those words, he gently wiped away the teardrop clinging to the corner of her eye with his thumb.
“So, stop crying now.”
His tone was gruff, far from comforting, but somehow it felt like solace.
•❁ • ❁ • ❁ •By Esraa• ❁ • ❁ • ❁ •
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