Please Forget Me - Chapter 286

‧₊˚ ☁️⋅♡𓂃 ࣪ ִֶָ☾.

“The owner of those letters is Dana Loveridge, right?”

After that, he went on spewing disgusting things about you, completely at his own whim.

“What, ‘You can call me Dana’? Does she think she’s a princess or something? She’s a sly little thing. Must’ve inherited that talent for playing men from her mother. Killian, women like that need to be kept in line. If you don’t, she’ll squeeze every last coin out of you and then run off with another man. From the look of it, you’re already being pushed around. Wake up and drop her. Girls like that need a strict man like me to straighten them out.”

I was furious and at the same time, afraid. I had a premonition that Rupert might try to ruin me by stealing you away.

Rupert was already a titled noble, and one day he would become a Marquis. I didn’t even come close to the wealth or status at his feet. Even if you abandoned me and took his hand, I couldn’t bring myself to blame you.

All I wished was that you would be wise. That you would see he didn’t truly love you, that he only desired you because I did, and that he would surely toy with you for a while before discarding you…

“Did you know Philomena was actually the daughter of a courtesan? And yet she strutted around like a princess, playing with men, until she met Godwin and suddenly became a proper wife.”

But what if he wasn’t trying to ruin me, what if he truly liked you? What if he proposed to you?

If that happened, my love would end right there.

I panicked. The moment I shoved him out, I summoned a maid and told her to cut some suitable flowers from the greenhouse and make a bouquet.

While I waited, I gathered your letters and hid them somewhere else, then wrote a new one, just in case my voice failed me.

“Dana, my love. I am the man you love.”

I kept muttering what I would say to you, changed into my finest suit, and put on the silver necklace so you would recognize me. Gripping the bouquet and the letter the maid brought, I stepped outside.

I was on my way to propose to you.

Just as I left the main house and was walking toward the annex where you were, a servant came running toward us from the opposite direction, shouting in panic.

“The annex is on fire!”

Only then did I notice the smoke rising from below the hill.

I ran.

The garden in front of the annex was already in chaos. People who had escaped tangled together with those desperately trying to put out the flames.

You weren’t among them.

“Miss! Miss Anne, where are you?”

The annex housed the noble young ladies. As maids frantically called out the names of the girls they served, no one called for yours. Your grandmother and maid were out and not on the estate.

Which meant the only person who knew for certain that you had been inside the annex… was me.

“Heather, Dana Loveridge is in the annex too. Gather the other maids and search for Miss Loveridge first.”

I grabbed one of our household maids and ordered her to look for you. But I couldn’t just stand by. I shoved past the servants trying to stop me and ran into the building.

“Dana!”

I was able to shout your name. There was no one there to hear me.

Despairingly so.

You had told me you stayed on the third floor. I tried to go up, but the fire had already swallowed the stairs from the second floor onward. There was no way through.

I ran back outside and searched for the window of your room. No one was there. I ran around the building, checking every window, terror turning my face pale as I failed to find you.

“Someone… please… help me… sob…”

I heard you crying for help. I heard it clearly, yet no one around me heard a thing. Maybe it was just a hallucination born of desperation, but I was desperate enough to cling even to a hallucination.

If I couldn’t see you from below, then I had no choice but to check the windows myself.

I threw off my jacket and climbed the wall toward the place where the sound had come from.

“Killian! What are you doing?! Leave it to the servants and come down at once!”

My mother had arrived at the annex by then and was practically screaming when she saw me, but I didn’t listen. If I didn’t do this, I knew I would regret it for the rest of my life.

I became certain that it was the best decision I’d ever made when I saw your pale, trembling hand gripping the narrow iron bars of a third-floor window.

“Dana!”

They say that in extreme situations, humans can display unbelievable strength. That saying isn’t a myth.

The man who had never been able to utter a single word in front of you finally called your name.

And that wasn’t the only miracle that happened.