Blair struggled to open her eyes and blinked slowly. As her blurry vision gradually cleared, memories from before she lost consciousness slowly returned.

At the founding anniversary banquet, she had accidentally overheard a conversation between Herdin and Luth, and after returning to the mansion, she had argued with Herdin. Then she had turned to leave the bedroom, pushing him away, and after that…

Blair’s heart sank as she recalled up to that point. Her trembling hands instinctively wrapped around her lower abdomen.

“My baby, my child…”

She shouldn’t have overexerted herself in early pregnancy. No matter how angry she was, she should have restrained herself for the sake of the child in her womb…

Everything since returning to the past had been for that child. If anything happened to Asiel, she felt she could no longer endure.

As Blair anxiously worried whether something might have happened to the child in her womb, a cold voice came from beside her.

“The child is safe.”

As she turned her head, she saw Herdin’s face looking at her with cold eyes. Blair’s pupils shook violently as she faced him.

Since she had suddenly collapsed, he must have called for the court physician to examine her.

And what he had heard from the physician who finished the examination could be inferred just from his words moments ago.

In the end, he had found out about her pregnancy.

Blair sat up and moved back. One hand still cradling her lower abdomen, her large eyes revealed wariness toward him.

It was as if she was trying to protect the child in her womb from him.

Seeing this, Herdin’s lips twisted.

It was ridiculous that she was trying to protect the child from none other than the child’s father.

So really, this woman only thought about running away from him. He had never existed even once in the future she envisioned.

Even after spending countless nights with him, and now even carrying his child in her womb.

Thinking that she would naturally be by his side if she became pregnant was wrong from the premise.

That fact scraped at his heart.

Herdin tilted his head crookedly and opened his mouth.

“Judging by your reaction, it seems you already knew you were pregnant.”

“……”

“Since when have you been hiding it?”

“……”

“Just when did you start having the audacious thought of divorcing me with my child?”

“…It’s my child.”

All she could manage to say while trembling was to claim ownership of the child.

Herdin looked at the flat stomach hidden by the blanket and her small, delicate hands, and replied indifferently.

“And it’s my child too.”

“No, it’s not!”

Blair vehemently objected to his words.

It was my child that you had turned away from. My poor baby who grew up not knowing a father’s love.

Only I loved this child, and thus it became my everything throughout two lifetimes, so Asiel was rightfully my child no matter what anyone said.

“Then did you make that child by yourself?”

“…This child is… Mikhail’s…”

Before Blair could finish her clumsy lie, Herdin cupped her cheek and met her eyes. The blue eyes looking at her were colder than ever.

“If you’re going to lie, at least make it plausible.”

“……”

“After rolling around with me day and night like that, you’re saying the one in your belly is someone else’s child? You expect me to believe that?”

“But the medicine…”

Blair stopped as she tried to refute his words.

He must have known that she was diligently taking contraceptive pills. But his reaction now seemed to suggest not that he was surprised by the pregnancy, but that it was expected.

No, rather… it seemed as if he had been waiting for this news.

The moment she realized this, she recalled what he had said when arguing with her before she collapsed.

His words that he needed her for negotiations with Ivan.

At the same time, a chilling thought crossed her mind.

“Don’t tell me… you knew? That I would get pregnant?”

Blair’s voice trembled as she asked.

Please, let it not be what she was thinking.

Let it not be that not only herself, but this child too had been put on that negotiation table he spoke of.

But the answer that came from his lips after a moment of silence plunged Blair into despair.

“Yes. I’ve been waiting for it.”

Blair was at a loss for words in the face of his calm answer, without even a hint of trying to hide it.

For her, it had been a desperately desired pregnancy.

In her past life, it was because she loved him, and in this life, it was solely to meet Asiel, that child, again.

But for him, who was trying to use her, her own wishes were unnecessary from the start. As long as it was to achieve his own goals.

‘In the end, in my past life and in this life too, you’ll do anything to use me.’

The fact that he wouldn’t have hesitated to bring her down made her skin crawl and her teeth chatter.

The absurdity of the situation made her laugh. No, it might have been crying.

“…You know, you’re really awful?”

In this moment, he became so unfamiliar to her.

He felt like a different person from the man who had once climbed the clock tower with her, who had put roasted marshmallows in her mouth.

That sense of dissonance made her breathless and nauseous.

“Ugh…”

Blair could no longer hold back the rising nausea and covered her mouth with her hand.

Nothing came out because her stomach was empty, but once it started, the dry heaving wouldn’t stop.

“Blair.”

As Herdin reached out to check on her condition, Blair sharply swatted his hand away.

“Don’t touch me!”

Blair swallowed her nausea with her back turned to him. Her whole body tensed up, reflexively bringing tears to her eyes, and her strength drained away.

Only after a long while of expelling nothing but air did her stomach finally settle.

She wanted nothing more than to collapse onto the bed and rest, but she found it terribly unpleasant to be in the same space as this strange man who resembled her husband.

She hated herself for wanting to lean on him even at this moment, using her weakened body as an excuse.

Blair forcibly raised her trembling body, weak and unsteady, and left the bed. Her slender frame looked as if it might collapse at any moment.

Noticing that Blair was trying to leave the room, Herdin sighed and approached her.

“Blair, come here and lie down.”

But Blair didn’t even pretend to hear him. Her bare white feet heading out of the bedroom weren’t even wearing indoor slippers.

“You need to rest right now.”

Herdin approached Blair to turn her around and embraced her. Blair struggled frantically to escape his arms.

“No! Let go!”

His wife’s fists, driven by anger, mercilessly pounded his chest, but there was no strength in those hands. If anything, he worried those hands might hurt more.

In the end, Herdin reluctantly let Blair go.

Freed from his arms, Blair left the room as if fleeing. But as soon as she faced the dark corridor, she stopped in her tracks.

She couldn’t escape from his mansion anyway. There was nowhere here where she could rest with peace of mind.

She had said she wouldn’t repeat her past life, but in the end, nothing had changed.

No matter how much she struggled, she only realized that she was still pathetically naive and powerless.

That fact made her laugh.

“…How foolish.”

The oppressive darkness weighed heavily on her, lost and without direction.

* * *

As the predawn twilight began to seep into the deep darkness, the door to Pipi’s room opened silently.

Pipi, who had been sleeping curled up inside a hollowed-out log on one side of the room, jumped out at the sound, even in its sleep.

“Pi?”

The person who entered the room was Herdin.

Pipi sniffed around, perhaps thinking he had come to play, but Herdin ignored the small creature and headed for the sofa on one side of the room.

Blair was sleeping on the sofa, which had become tattered from Pipi’s chewing. Curled up as she was, her already small and petite frame looked even smaller.

Herdin approached her quietly, stifling his footsteps, and gazed at her sleeping form. Unshed tears clung to her long eyelashes.

This was where she had fled to escape from him. A place just a few steps away from the bedroom.

No matter how much she struggles, she can’t escape from his domain. That fact, which was terrifying to Blair, brought him reassurance.

The wife who had always quietly stayed by his side now only allowed him near when she was asleep, but Herdin did not regret his choice.

Even if we go back to the past countless times, I will make the same choice to keep you by my side.

And for Blair too, staying by his side would be a far more rational and better choice.

Rather than watching her become another man’s contract wife, or fleeing in the night with a man too incompetent to prevent it, only to be caught and live a life of dishonor.

Herdin watched the sleeping Blair for a moment, then carefully lifted her into his arms. She was too light for a body carrying two lives.

“Mmm…”

Perhaps sensing his presence, Blair let out a moan, but fortunately didn’t open her eyes. It seemed the exhaustion from a grueling day, carrying more than just herself, had taken its toll.

Herdin quietly left the room carrying Blair, ultimately ignoring Pipi who lingered at his feet.

* * *

The next day, when Blair woke up, she was in bed.

Herdin must have moved her while she was asleep. Thankfully, he wasn’t by her side.

Blair lay still, her body feeling heavy, and stared blankly at the scenery outside the balcony window. As her vision cleared, her thoughts became more distinct.

Last night she had acted somewhat emotionally, but as her emotions settled, her mind began to work rationally.

Herdin had no intention of divorcing her.

And she had no intention of repeating her past life by his side.

If so, there was only one conclusion.

‘Let’s leave.’