Dirty Heart - Chapter 5

Courtney’s hands moved busily as she scrubbed the apron hard in cold water.

After staring blankly for a moment at the way the red stains spread out into the water, she bit her lip hard.

“What the hell?”

Even though she knew perfectly well that Lionel was a bad bastard aiming for her heart, the moment he so much as showed he was in pain, one corner of her heart kept getting restless.

It was the same earlier. She could’ve just ignored it whether he got a nosebleed or not, but instead she’d made a fuss and even stopped the bleeding herself.

“That thing about not loving me, that was a lie, wasn’t it?”

She could see why Lionel acted so confidently. She’d said she didn’t love him, but her actions were the exact opposite.

“Could it be… Courtney’s heart is reacting instinctively?”

She wondered if there might be some kind of setting value from the original work. In possession stories, that sort of thing happened sometimes.

“No way. It’s just because I’m weak to a pretty face.”

But she quickly shook her head.

If Courtney’s feelings from the original were really still lingering in her chest, then this tragic ending wouldn’t change much either.

“Absolutely not.”

So she had no choice but to grit her teeth and deny it even harder. There couldn’t be any setting value, she told herself, everything depended entirely on will.

Scrubbing the apron hard, she sank into thought. If her memory was correct, to raise the odds of the surgery, the donor’s heart reaction toward the recipient was more important than anything. In other words, Courtney’s heart had to sincerely beat for Lionel for the success rate of the surgery to go up.

In that case, drawing a firm line and telling Lionel she didn’t love him anymore had definitely been the right choice.

The odds were slim, but Lionel might get scared and give up on the surgery. Or even if he didn’t, she could at least buy time.

As Courtney rinsed the apron over and over, she quietly placed a hand over her chest.

“Mm….”

It was quiet. Even when she thought of Lionel, her heart didn’t beat faster. At least, not right now.

There was no telling, though. When that radiant face would show up again and shake her up….

Narrowing her eyes sharply, she spoke to her reflection in the washroom mirror like a warning.

“Courtney, get a grip! A face doesn’t feed you. Don’t you know the saying that handsome bastards always come with a price?”

The death she’d faced in her past life without any warning had been more miserable than she’d ever imagined. She didn’t want to go through something that horrific again.

Even if Lee Haerin had met an absurd death, now that she’d possessed Courtney Balkan, she wasn’t going to die easily. Never.

***

“I hear there’s quite a buzz about you kneeling before a maid.”

Alex snickered at Lionel, who was sitting in an armchair with a handkerchief held over his nose.

“So, did you turn her heart around at all? Hmm, looking at your expression, Young Duke, it seems you’re screwed.”

Lionel didn’t say a single word, but maybe his stiff expression was answer enough, because Alex clicked his tongue.

‘Rejected again. I should’ve seen that scene myself.’

He’d even knelt in front of so many people and still got refused, so that proud young duke’s pride had to be shattered.

As he offered comfort, Alex’s lips curled up in an annoyingly smug line.

“Don’t be too sad. Courtney isn’t the only woman in the world, is there?”

“Shut up.”

Lionel muttered irritably. If Courtney Balkan disappeared, he too was a mayfly life that might die at any time. And yet, another woman?

“It didn’t seem like her heart had completely left.”

“Based on what?”

“…Her eyes.”

No matter how much she babbled about wanting a healthy man and whatever else, she couldn’t hide the look in her eyes when she looked at him. What was held in those amber irises was pity and compassion, and unmistakable affection.

“Pfft! How can you tell just from her eyes? If delusion were a disease, yours would be in the terminal stage.”

Alex’s frivolous laughter scraped at Lionel’s nerves.

He desperately wanted to kick him out right then, but then as now, inside the estate, the only person he could idly talk to was Alex Lanchester.

“Let me ask you just one thing. How do I definitely turn a woman’s heart back?”

“Who knows. It’s not like I can give you some amazing answer when I’ve never even held a woman’s hand, but….”

Resting his chin in his hand, he sank into thought for a moment, then opened his mouth.

“There is one classic method.”

“What is it?”

“Saving her when she’s in danger. You know, that sort of thing.”

“Danger?”

Lionel’s eyes flashed.

“You know the picture. A woman falls into a dangerous situation and a man shows up in a cool way and saves her.”

Lionel nodded slowly. He seemed to think it wasn’t a bad idea.

“What kind of danger would be good?”

“Ah! Then that works. When Courtney’s being bullied by the head maid, why don’t you show up with a ‘Ta-da!’ and help her? Isn’t that perfect?”

“Well….”

Muttering softly, Lionel smiled crookedly.

“I’ll need a danger that’ll really snap her awake.”

Simply saving her from bullying wasn’t enough.

He had to create a situation where Courtney genuinely felt fear, and in that fear, she could only cling to his hand.

So she wouldn’t even dare think about leaving again.

***

A silent dawn where only crickets cried.

Courtney stood in front of the oak tree with her face tightly furrowed.

Because the task she’d been given at this late hour was to feed nutrients to this oak tree.

After sweeping her eyes up and down the towering tree, she muttered dully, “Ha… seeing it in person makes it even more damn annoying.”

It might feel awkward to say a tree was damn annoying, but if you knew the inside story, this was practically polite.

“Father, when all the leaves of that oak tree fall off, I’ll die.”

It was when Lionel was thirteen. At his son’s out-of-the-blue words as he looked out the window, the duke was horrified and gathered every servant in the estate. Then he issued a thunderous order.

“If even a single leaf falls, you should know your arms and legs will all be cut off!”

Terrified, the servants began taking the utmost care of the oak tree.

They set a schedule to water it, and on days when the weather was bad, they covered it with a massive canopy, and they even tied the leaf stems with thread to keep them from being blown away, pouring their hearts into it.

But how could anyone defy the laws of nature?

Despite all the servants’ efforts and devotion, the leaves that greeted winter began falling one by one as they waited for next spring, and each time they did, the servants’ arms and legs were cut off as well.

In the end, only after countless innocent servants had been sacrificed did the duke hire a wizard.

And so, what was finally developed was a nutrient solution with a very finicky condition: it only worked if a set amount was sprayed with exact precision once every two hours.

Of course, thanks to that damn nutrient solution, that oak tree became a tree with such bizarre, enduring vitality that it never lost its green through all four seasons.

“Those fucking leaves. Should I just cut them all off?” Courtney grumbled, holding the bottle.

Just how many people had died because of Lionel’s last leaf nonsense?

To think lives hung in the balance because of one person’s ridiculous delusion. Then as now, the life of a commoner really was unfair as hell.

“Ugh, whatever. Forget it.”

Barely holding down the rage boiling up inside her, she hurriedly opened the nutrient bottle and sloppily poured it around the base of the tree.

“…I’m sleepy.”

A yawn came out on its own. With the night air so chilly, she was desperate to hurry back to the quarters and rest.

But then.

“…Huh?”

In that moment, something unbelievable happened. One perfectly fine leaf rustled, making a sound as it fell weakly to the ground.

“…Huh, huh?”

And then two, three, four, whoosh-

As if they were betting on who would fall first, the leaves began raining down in succession, and in front of Courtney’s feet, a crackling pile of leaves built up like a mountain.

At the unbelievable sight unfolding before her eyes, she took a step back and whispered in a daze.

“…I’m fucked.”