CH 66.2

The door closed and the Grand Duke slammed his fist into the table. Bang, there was a loud crashing sound of cutlery.

“Shit. Even such people are family.”

He didn’t mean to speak like this… In the end, she couldn’t hold back her anger.

He was literally shattered, and with his dry hands, he splashed water on his face. His efforts were not reaching her at all. No, on the contrary, it was like pouring fuel on her fiery anger.

He intended to be her husband in the future. In order to loosen up her tender heart and do it properly, he instructed the meal to be served perfectly, but she never reacted as he expected.

* * *

As soon as she left the dining room, Anne dismissed the maid. She was belatedly regretting that she became greatly agitated in front of the Grand Duke.

“I’m sure he’ll find it strange.”

However, at that time, it was difficult to hold on to her reason. Her hand, which had habitually tried to touch the necklace to soothe her upset stomach, stopped. The shape of the ring her grandmother had given her overlapped with the one in her dream.

“Ha… Was this originally mine?”

The burst of ridicule became scattered in the wind. She wondered why she was so familiar with this ring, and it was because she was the original owner. She used to say to her sister who came to see her from time to time, saying that when a child was born, she would definitely have it in their tiny hands. Through the hands of her grandmother, a descendant of her sister, it finally came into her hands now.

Thinking that far, the events before leaving this place also followed. Anne moved her legs, possessed.

Grabbing her dress and running, she reached the greenhouse. She threw open the glass door and stepped through the flowers in full bloom.

“It will still be here. If it’s not a dream, if it’s real.”

Anne, who looked at the bare, dry land located in the farthest corner, sat down on the spot. When she looked for a tool to dig nearby, there happened to be a shovel for digging a garden because they were digging to give it nutrients.

Anne hastily started digging. She later used her other hand in digging into the hard soil. Damp dirt clung to her fingers. Just as dirty dirt filled the inside of her manicured fingernails, something hard caught on her fingertips.

She casually threw the small shovel she was holding in her hand and spread her palms to sweep the dirt. As she concentrated and dug, a small wooden box came into view. The box that passed the years was old and dirty, but it was clean as if no human hands had touched it.

Long trembling fingers opened the box. The dirt fell down next to the box.

“Ha…”

A hollow breath came. Inside was a small ring. Something a little thicker than the ring on her necklace that she was wearing now.

This was what the girl from her previous life had done before leaving. As much as she liked the greenhouse, she thought that she would take it out and give it back to him one day.

Anne pulled out the necklace from around her neck. An identical ring on her palm glistened in the light. It was given to her as a gift by Daymond, saying that it looked exactly like her blue eyes.

It was a distant time, but she remembered the time she had accepted the gift with twinkling eyes. She thought that she would be full of only happiness, but the warm days came to her unfamiliarly as if they belonged to someone else.

“Stupid…”

It was unfamiliar to her, as if the ridiculous proof of that desperate love was never hers.

“Even so, it’s all over now.”

Anne violently rolled up the ring and spurred her feet. All the way through the woods, the ring pressed against her palm painfully.

It was the oval bridge over the lake that stopped her frantically running feet. Anne stood on the railing of the bridge in silence, and she looked down at the now-melted lake. The sound of running water holding the moon was calm and dreary.

“I don’t need anything like this.”

Anne raised her arm as if she was about to throw the ring into the lake. The two rings on her hand were rough.

If she just opened her fist, it would roll down and become a ring she would never find again…. She could only flinch a few times.

“Why…”

Anne tried again, swallowing her tears, but she couldn’t open her fingers. Her hesitation made her grip her fisted hand. As if the existence of this ring was the only bond that held them together…

“What is this? Ahhh…”

The suffocating sobs spilled over into tears. Unlike her body, which was cooled by the cool wind, the water on her cheek was excessively hot.

It’s just a piece of metal, she didn’t know why her heart was torn.

Anne burst into tears as she sat down on the cold stone floor. She was so sad that she couldn’t stand it.

This is a place where the guards would never come, so no one passed. There was only the lake shining softly in the moonlight, the surrounding bushes, and the intermittent sound of bugs.

In the meantime, no one was there to wipe her tears.