There Is No Paradise Where I Ran Away To (14 Chapters Left to Complete) - Chapter 21

Edwin looked down at his palm. The lingering sensation had diluted, worn away, and was gradually turning numb.

Though, to begin with, there had never been any reason for it to exist at all.

The feeling of grasping Vivian’s body had vanished like that. Her body—undeniably not that of a woman to him—could never stir desire within him. Yet despite knowing this fact from the very beginning, he’d wanted to confirm it: whether he felt even the slightest trace of lust toward Vivian Ebelline, as Theo Evans had claimed.

He had confirmed it—and become certain.

He felt no damn urge whatsoever toward Vivian Ebelline.

To him, Vivian Ebelline was not someone drawn by trivial passions, but merely the embodiment of a vow tied to vengeance. She existed solely to serve as the full stop at the end of his long, arduous journey—at the proper time, in the most perfect moment.

To Edwin Beitnes, Vivian Ebelline’s existence amounted to nothing more than that.

Thus, the instant he’d held her body, the sight of her emerald-green dress fluttering as she slipped away, and even her large, round, ashen eyes gazing up at him beneath his touch—all of it faded lightly, like mist.

Edwin headed to his study and opened Gilbert Totton’s “Principles of Land Economics,” which he’d brought from the library. As he immersed himself in the printed words, the western sky gradually filled, layer by layer, with a unique hue somewhere between black and blue.

He didn’t even notice that the servants had lit lamps to ward off the encroaching darkness. Only a faint memory remained—of Abernathy, the butler, interrupting his reading to ask if he’d like dinner.

Tonight must have been rather peaceful.

Swallowing a ridiculous thought about someone, he let out an involuntary chuckle.

Edwin closed the book and rubbed his weary temples. He asked a servant to bring the whiskey Baron Zimmermann had gifted him as a present, then opened the window. A slightly humid, heavy breeze quickly filled the room.

Near the cloudless, pitch-black horizon, the full moon poked its head above the earth. That moon was destined to rise high into the sky, casting a transparent glow over the world—and tonight was a night when he wished to drown himself in things as trivial as Vivian.

Remembering a suitable place to indulge this desire, he rang the bell to summon a servant. He ordered them to bring the remaining whiskey and Gilbert Totton’s book to the lakeside behind the mansion, then turned back toward the full moon, now higher in the sky than before.

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