Chapter 70
‘He didn’t come in the morning, but… could he be there now?’
The moment she thought of home, an entirely unintended anticipation surged up. Disappointed in the thought that seized her mind without permission, Leila reproached herself.
Has keeping Bjorn in her heart become a habit? Or was it because the man still lingering before her was unbearably dull? Like the unconscious thirst of naturally wanting water, she missed Bjorn.
That didn’t mean she wanted to see him right here, right now.
“Well then, I look forward to meeting you again.”
As she received a kiss on the back of her hand from the unbearably boring man, she suddenly felt an intense gaze and lifted her head. Then she froze in shock.
As if reading her thoughts, Bjorn was there. Right across the street.
The large man standing still while watching her, yet looking as though he might burst into tears at any moment, was unmistakably him. Seeing him, her heart dropped.
It was a familiar expression. Bjorn stood there with the face that had filled her with pity since childhood.
The boy who held back tears the day his mother left him at the temple overlapped with the man across the street, and it felt as if her heart collapsed.
“Yes, then.”
Even while dazed, Leila left a brief farewell to her date and hurried into the carriage. She gave the signal to depart as if fleeing from Bjorn’s pitiful figure that shook her.
But only five minutes later, she impulsively asked the carriage to turn around. Though confused by the passenger’s whim, the driver changed direction at once, and fortunately or unfortunately Bjorn still stood in the same place.
As though something terrible would happen if he moved. Like a lost child waiting for someone to come find him.
An emotion she should not feel toward someone who had deceived her welled up inside Leila. Unbearable pity made her fingertips tremble.
Why do you always look like an abandoned child? So much that I cannot endure without reaching out.
“Sir Bjorn.”
When she called him in a trembling voice, his gaze followed. His rain-soaked violet eyes held many emotions. Joy, resentment, longing, regret, and affection he could not hide.
It felt as though her heart were being dragged into an abyss. She had looked into his eyes many times, but never felt anything this desperate.
“Leila…”
Abandoning even the honorific, Bjorn called her name. Without realizing, she held out her hand, and both his large hands seized hers at once. He was desperate like a drowning man grasping his rescuer. He breathed roughly as if he truly had been underwater. His eyes looking at her seemed unfocused.
“Sir Bjorn!”
Seeing how terribly unwell he looked, she called out loudly without thinking, and he suddenly came to his senses and met her gaze.
“Your face is far too pale, sir. How did you even find this place…”
Startled in many ways, her tone came out almost accusatory.
“I heard from the guards and learned your destination… I had no intention of… eavesdropping on such a scene. I only thought to see your face briefly and leave…”
The excuse was weak and pathetic, yet she could not scold him further. He wheezed with a metallic rasp as if his voice would not come out properly.
His expression showed he was forcing himself to endure something. Looking closer, his usually neat bangs were wet and stuck to his forehead from sweat. His face was pale as paper, his lips dry and cracked, he looked seriously ill.
Could it be… he looks this unwell because of me? Because he was shocked after seeing me with another man?
However, Leila soon erased that assumption from her mind. No one suffers that much over something so trivial. She defensively thought so out of needless guilt.
“Are you… going to marry that man? Did you meet him with that in mind?”
But Bjorn’s question shattered her denial at once. It seemed the scene just now truly had shaken him.
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