I Won’t Accept Your Regrets

"Carlisle!"

I heard the voice of my child, and no more dizziness or trauma played a role.

My father stepped back after my cry from the heart. Then I saw Carlisle running to me.

Black hair and black eyes.

The true appearance of my child, what I so scrupulously covered, has been revealed.

As my father said, Carlisle's origins have become clearer than ever.

"Ah."

I froze when I saw this, and Carlisle, who ran up, froze too.

"Mom?"

Anxiety was felt in the quiet child's voice.

"Carlisle, go to mom."

"Mom… Is everything okay?"

"Of course."

Only then Carlisle threw himself into my arms with a bright smile.

My burns were still aching, but knowing Carlisle was okay, everything else had no weight.

Holding Carlisle tightly, I patted him on the back and rubbed my face against his shoulder.

"Mom isn’t in pain?"

"It's getting better. You have nothing to worry about. Carlisle, look at your mom."

Carlisle looked up.

"Does it hurt?"

He looked good from the outside, but I was worried nonetheless.

"Nothing hurts! The doctors uncles treated me well so that I wouldn’t get sick, so that even my mother wouldn’t get sick!"

Carlisle put his arms around my waist with both hands.

"I’ll never get hurt again. So you have nothing to worry about, okay?"

"Okay."

As I hugged Carlisle tightly, black leather shoes came in front of my sideview.

Raymond.

I slowly looked up.

The same black eyes that Carlisle had were now looking down at my son.

I instinctively hugged Carlisle even tighter, as if scaring off other emotions.

Trying to protect Carlisle from him, I involuntarily showed hostility.

Even though he was Carlisle's father.

Ray rolled his eyes as if he already sensed my attitude.

He looked at me with shining eyes and moved his lips:

"I have a lot of questions for you."

I let go of Carlisle.

"Would you like to walk with your grandfather for a minute? Mom… needs to fix something."

"Are you going to talk to this uncle?" Carlisle whispered to me. Even though Raymond was our savior, Carlisle was now looking at him apprehensively.

"Don’t worry. Everything will be fine with me."

"I'll go, Mom."

"Um, yeah."

I waved my hand and smiled until Carlisle left the place.

So Carlisle left, and the butler led the crowd of healers on their way.

The atmosphere in the room suddenly cooled down.

I turned to Raymond. As if he was staring at me all the time, our gazes met in a moment.

Taking a deep breath, he opened his mouth first.

"Are you feeling okay?"

"Now everything is fine."

"As you can see, Carlisle is also alive and well, so you better worry about yourself. And furthermore…"

Not knowing how to proceed, he licked his lips.

Then I took over the initiative.

"I've already heard from my father. His Majesty knows everything."

I tried to portray calmness.

"The doctors found his earring. Even if they hadn't found it, I would still have understood."

"Carlisle…"

I squeezed out of myself with difficulty, but he didn’t give me time to explain.

"You told me clearly. Carlisle isn’t my child. Explain now. Why does the boy have black hair and eyes?"

He looked at me without blinking.

I felt it was about to break.

"Why?!"

His angry voice shook the walls in the room.

There was a sense of betrayal in his eyes, coupled with mixed emotions.

"Why the hell didn't you tell me?! Oh yes! You said that…"

My calmness was cut short by a momentary feeling of guilt.

"How would I tell you?"

My trembling voice interrupted his speech.

I clenched my hands into fists and looked straight into his eyes.

"What?"

"Your old love has returned. And you told me as if nothing had happened that you would make Edmund the crown prince. How would I tell you that I'm carrying Carlisle?"

He immediately threw an answer at me:

"I made you understand that I wouldn’t accept Edmund if you don’t want to. I gave you a choice."

"Huh, a choice?"

I remembered everything so clearly, as if the divorce happened only yesterday.

Ah, gave me a choice. It's just ridiculous.

Raymond could be seen frowning, as if he was perplexed by my reaction.

"You made a decision, but you just presented me with a fact. But is this a choice? What would have happened if I had rejected Edmund? The Empress, who didn’t bring an heir to her husband, was blinded by jealousy and took revenge on someone else's child. As you can see, I have no choice here."

"I…"

"All our life I have been running after you like a dog. How could I take your word for it? If you took Edmund's hand, how will our child be…"

At some point, I fell silent. Tears caught in my throat.

Memories of the times when I had just decided to leave him came to mind.

The moment when I decided to raise a child alone in order to protect him.

My eyes were red with intense emotion.

Raymond saw this change and held out his hand.

"Ellie."

But I avoided his hand.

"I had to protect Carlisle. I can’t lose my second child either. And I don't regret anything."

Even if I come back to that moment, I will do the same choice.

Raymond wouldn't have bothered to protect Carlisle back then.

Even if he knew that I was carrying his child, Carlisle couldn’t have a future at the Imperial Palace.

If I had stayed in the palace, no one would have given me a guarantee that my son would be born safely.

I looked at the Emperor with a determined look.

Carlisle's existence can no longer be hidden. The hour is not far off when the people know that I took the Emperor's child and hid him in foreign lands.

"I have nothing to say. If Your Majesty commands to punish me, I will gladly accept it."

That was my choice, to protect my child, but I knew well what I would get for it.

His attention, which was momentarily dissipated by my quiet voice, suddenly gathered.

"Do you think I can really punish you?"

I no longer knew what was inside his heart.

However, now that all the cards are on the table, is it important at all?

In such a situation, I didn’t care about his feelings.

I just want to know what he's up to. Then I would have decided how best to protect Carlisle.

"It deserves punishment," I said without thinking twice.

His eyes trembled and he answered with an angry face.

"I’m not going to punish you or the Duke. But we can't hide Carlisle anymore."

"I know."

"So I want to explain the whole situation to Carlisle and give you time… And today we will officially announce Carlisle’s existence."

"Yes? Like this right away?"

"I don't want to rush things either, but Duke Drua was found dead."

I looked up at him.

"What does it mean?"

"They found him in a noose this morning. In his suicide note, he said he would kill you and Carlisle."

Duke Drua commits suicide.

Jeremy's letter was fake, so I assumed Duke Drua might have something to do with it.

However, Duke Drua would never have do a suicide.

It's all Lisa.

"Duke Drua wasn’t the only one who wanted us dead."

"I know it was Marquis Sios."

Marquis Sios was always to blame for him. But why not Lisa?

However, I'm not even surprised.

He thinks that Lisa isn’t capable of this.

It won’t be easier for our business.

In addition, Lisa has seriously gone over the edge, and I will never let her go that she dared to encroach on Carlisle.

"It wasn’t the Marquis."

"What? Then who…"

"Lisa Sios. Everything is her work."