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Chapter : 4
A primal realization that she’d gotten herself tangled in something big.
Blood ran from Lauren’s lips, slid down her chin, and dripped.
The man grimaced.
“Looks like you’ll need to come to my house.”
“Do I have to?”
“You’re a variable right now. It’ll be safer if you stay by my side.
Think it over.”
The words were nearly a threat, and Lauren let out a dry laugh before she knew it.
She finally opened her mouth—what came out was neither refusal nor acceptance.
“So? What’s your name?”
The man said his name was Cedric.
Not James, not Brian, not Ryan—Cedric.
That night at the inn, Lauren and Cedric argued until morning.
Cedric insisted she should follow him no matter what.
Otherwise, she’d be in real danger.
But whenever she asked what danger, he clamped his mouth shut.
“I have a life of my own, Cedric.
I’ve had enough of getting dragged into unpleasant business.”
Dawn was breaking when Lauren was seized by the urge to rip out every last one of his hairs.
The man who had suddenly barged into her life was like talking to a wall—nothing got through.
He only smiled pleasantly and repeated,
“It’s dangerous,”
and “It’s better if you don’t know why.”
Like someone with a broken cog rattling in his head.
“Stop—just stop! Please!
How am I supposed to trust you?
First you harass me, then you drag me into a shoot-out,
and now you haul me to an inn and tell me to follow you?!”
The fear that he might force her to go made Lauren raise her voice.
If Cedric really wanted to, he could overpower her and make her disappear.
The man acted as though he knew much more,
and she couldn’t understand even half of the situation.
“…I’m sorry.
I got carried away.
Then at least tell me your name and where you live.”
Only when the smell of breakfast started drifting softly through the hallway did Cedric finally back down.
Calmer now, Lauren recited her address slowly.
“Your name?”
“Lauren. Lauren Bailey.”
At first she thought about giving a fake name and running,
but exchanging basic information seemed wiser.
Not trusting Cedric was one thing,
but the chain of events was clearly not over.
If she was caught up in something dangerous—as he claimed—
she’d have no choice but to meet him again, for better or worse.
Lauren prayed that wouldn’t happen,
that a few days later all her problems would vanish as if by magic.
Others might disagree,
but Lauren didn’t think her life was all that bad.
She had lost her mother young
and lived alone with a father who fell to pieces whenever there was drink,
but she was managing.
It wasn’t that she was especially optimistic.
She’d simply realized early on that grief changed nothing.
Crying through the night wouldn’t bring her mother back.
Shouting wouldn’t stop her father from drinking.
So she lived.
Once she was older, she spent her days cleaning up after his disasters.
She sold valuables from the house one by one.
She even cried a little when she sold the frame with the family photo in it.
Her father believed the family title and mansion could solve anything.
You could call it naïve—
or plainly, stupid.
It was a turbulent age of explosive magitech advancement.
Nobles with middling land, middling rank, and middling fortune began to fall behind.
The Baron Bailey family was one of them.
She managed anyway.
She learned how to bargain, how to bluff her way out of trouble,
how to hide her fear.
After a few big and small scams,
she also learned that trusting people too easily was stupid.
Still, she never thought she was unlucky.
Calamity always strikes out of nowhere—
to her and to anyone else.
Lauren Bailey lived reasonably well
until she met that man.
Maybe I AM unlucky…
Lauren wondered seriously.
Maybe she should’ve gone to that old fortune-teller who did New Year tarot readings.
With a stiff face, she ran her eyes over the envelope before her.
The neatly folded paper read To Miss Bailey in elegant handwriting.
The crisp white paper even smelled nice.
Inside was a check with a jaw-dropping sum,
but the letter itself said almost nothing.
A humble apology.
Might we meet at your earliest convenience?
Just two lines.
Cedric’s signature sat boldly at the bottom.
Lauren placed the letter carefully on her desk
and glared at it as if it were a mortal enemy.
She was deeply wary of Cedric.
That night at the inn, she had truly thought she was being kidnapped.
Good grief.
And this wasn’t the first such letter.
Four nearly identical ones were already stacked on her desk.
At first she tried ignoring them,
but with each new letter, the check inside doubled in value.
The message was obvious.
“I’m sorry, so please meet me.”
She didn’t want to refuse outright,
but she sure didn’t want to meet him either.
After agonizing for a long time,
she finally wrote a reply—three days later.
She pressed so hard with her fountain pen that she tore two sheets.
Fine.
But only somewhere crowded.
Cedric’s reply arrived in less than half a day.
Understood.
Below it were a time and place,
with a postscript:
Feel free to change the appointment if you wish.
They arranged to meet at an upscale restaurant on the outskirts of the capital.
A four-story building so luxurious it stood out from a distance—
each floor serving a different cuisine.
Rumor had it the top floor required months of advance booking,
but somehow Cedric had secured the best spot with the best view.
At the entrance, she said Cedric’s name,
and a staff member immediately escorted her inward.
The polished glass stairs didn’t have a speck of dust.
“Long time no see, Lauren.”
Long time? It hadn’t even been three days.
Cedric rose from his seat near the window as she approached.
His tidy black hair was a far cry from the wild mess it had been that night.
Lauren had tied her hair back in a single simple tail
and wore a plain navy dress—no decoration, not even a frill.
Her expression rigid, she walked toward him.
“Thank you for coming all this way,” Cedric said politely,
pulling out the chair across from him.
Lauren eyed him sideways, then ignored the offered seat
and dropped into the one he’d been using.
Cedric simply sat where she’d forced him.
“I’ll be blunt.
I don’t want to get involved with you anymore.”
Cedric hadn’t even had time to call a waiter before Lauren spoke.
That was her sole purpose for coming.
Even then, Cedric didn’t lose his faint smile.
“Before that, how about hearing my proposal one last time?”
“What proposal? I want a quiet life, Cedric.”
Their conversation stalled when a waiter appeared with menus.
Cedric read off an order smoothly.
“Smoked salmon and eggplant for the starter.
For mains, mackerel pasta and lamb steak.
Dessert—one coffee and…”
He paused.
“Tea or coffee for you?”
“Shouldn’t you ask whether I even like fish first?”
Disaster.
Cedric twisted his eyebrows.
Lauren reached for the menu he held, snapped it shut, and handed it to the waiter.
“Two teas, please.
For the gentleman as well.”
She stretched out the word gentleman
and slowly raked him over with her eyes.
“Of course. I hope you enjoy your meal.”
The waiter bowed and withdrew.
Silence settled over the table again.
