There Is No Paradise Where You Escaped - Chapter 93

Following the doctor’s recommendation, Vivianne slowly began eating again and taking short walks around her room. It had only been a little over a week, but the aftermath of doing nothing but lying in bed was significant. All her joints had stiffened, and when she took her first step, it felt as if her legs were breaking from the pain.

Furthermore, because of her head injury, the doctor insisted on absolute rest, and Edwin didn’t allow her to set even one foot outside the room, not that she was in any condition to walk out on her own anyway.

When she met Sophie, who had a splint on her arm, Vivianne was utterly shocked. Sophie had been the first to find her after she fell off the cliff. Hearing how Sophie had done everything she could to keep Vivianne’s body from growing cold filled her with gratitude too deep for words. How could she not love Sophie, who showed up sobbing uncontrollably upon hearing that Vivianne had woken up, despite being injured herself?

Sophie wanted to stay by her side, insisting her arm would heal quickly. But even this was thwarted by the doctor’s intervention. Sophie had to take leave until her bones had fully healed.

With the help of a maid, Vivianne walked slowly around the room, feeling cheerful about how her strength was returning. Just then, Edwin came in. Vivianne greeted him with open delight, only to realize she might have been too genuine and quickly reined in her emotions.

Once the maid who had handed her off to Edwin left the room, only the two of them remained.

“… The Baroness wouldn’t be too happy about this—us being alone like this,” Vivianne said, taking Edwin’s hand and starting to walk slowly.

He responded with a quiet smile, clearly with no intention of leaving. Still holding his hand tightly, Vivianne walked with him once around the room.

When they reached the bed, Edwin helped her sit down, propping a cushion behind her back and pulling the blanket over her thighs. 

Outside the window, the cold winter sunlight shimmered. Occasionally, when the room was aired out, the chilly breeze from outside was the only link to the outside world.

“Edwin. I want to go for a walk outside.”

“No,” he said flatly.

“But I’m feeling much better. I’ve only lost a bit of muscle, that’s all. Everything else is fine.”

“It’s still cold.”

“It’s winter. Of course it’s cold.”

“Exactly. That’s why you can’t.”

“I heard I had a high fever while I was unconscious. But now I’m perfectly fine—I won’t be causing anyone any more trouble.”

“Sure you won’t.”

Seeing that persuasion wasn’t working, Vivianne pouted and sharply turned her head toward the window. Then she looked back at Edwin, trying her best to appear pitiful and pleading.

“If I dress warmly, it’ll be fine.”

Vivianne knew Edwin’s weak spots all too well. She had been using them to her advantage for quite some time, and now she was using them even more boldly than before.

Creeping toward Edwin’s hand, which was resting on the bed, she playfully tapped his fingernail. His ice-blue eyes looked down at her flirtatious fingers as they played with the edge of his nail.

“Did someone else crawl into your body after that head injury?” He said with a faint, incredulous smile, then gently took her hand in his.

He enveloped her hand completely. Inside his grasp, her small hand wiggled, and she hooked her pinky finger around his.

“We made a promise. Not today—tomorrow.”

She’s such a sly little fox.

Edwin swallowed his harsh judgment and reluctantly agreed. Of course, the promise would only be honored if the weather was nice and only during the warmest part of the afternoon.

“But only for 20 minutes.”

“30 minutes.”

“25.”

“25… Fine. Okay.”

Once the deal was made, Vivianne’s face lit up with a radiant smile.

Edwin cupped her cheek with his other hand. Recalling the day she’d lain so deeply unconscious, seeing her smile now felt almost like a figment of his imagination.

At times, he couldn’t tell reality from illusion—maybe this, too, was just part of a dream. Maybe when he woke again, he’d find Vivianne back asleep, as if none of this had happened.

Vivianne blinked innocently. The way she leaned on him so naturally made him think that maybe this really was a dream. The real Vivianne wouldn’t lean on him so trustingly, with such a clear and innocent face.

“Do you… have something to say to me?”

“No.”

“Then why do you come see me every day?”

“To check if you’re still alive.”

Vivianne giggled.

“If I die, I’ll ring a bell.”

“Vivianne. You hit your head, so maybe you haven’t realized you can’t ring a bell after you’re dead.”

This time, her small body shook with laughter.

Joking and laughing at the jokes—none of it felt real to him.

Was it ever really possible to be like this with Vivianne?

Ever since hearing she had regained consciousness, it always felt like this. Like a simulation. Like his brain had fabricated a scene to deceive him.

The two of them sat facing each other beneath a flood of warm sunlight.

In the heavy silence, broken only by the sound of their breathing, Edwin’s eyes naturally drifted down to her red lips, and he closed the distance between them.

The cheek he was holding grew warm. A rosy flush spread across her pale skin, giving it life. When he gently touched the curve of her hot ear, a soft, ticklish laugh echoed in the air.

His hand slid from hers to encircle her slender wrist. A fast, vibrant pulse thudded beneath his palm.

Before he knew it, their lips were nearly touching.

But Edwin, after a long pause, didn’t rush to kiss her. He simply stared intently into Vivianne’s eyes; their lips never met.

He knew if this was a dream and he woke to face reality, he’d be haunted by the memory of this kiss.

Vivianne had always been that kind of woman.

A kiss stolen in a dream with a woman who always made him lose control; he knew exactly what that would lead to.

So then, why bother?

There was no point in indulging in a fleeting feeling that would only leave him empty.

If he could resist, then that was enough.

No need to invest effort in something that would only disappear anyway.

“You can… kiss me.”

But the woman before him—this dreamlike Vivianne—had the power to so easily unravel Edwin’s resolve. As if daring him to resist, she placed him on trial.

Vivianne’s lips came down on his. The heat, almost burning, clung thickly to his sensitive skin.

When she parted her lips slightly and let part of herself slip inside, the man who had tried to keep his composure could no longer hold back.

The sensation on his tongue awakened every dormant nerve in his body.

A short, breathy moan escaped her lips—and it became the spark that drew him onto her bed.

Edwin, wrapping an arm around Vivianne’s waist, lay her delicate body down. Her slender, powerless arms encircled his neck.

The growing heat between them pooled endlessly in the space they shared.

Their lips, locked together without the slightest gap, seemed ready for whatever would come next.

His hand slid beneath her nightgown, trailing upward…

But just as it reached her thigh, it stopped.

He didn’t allow himself to go any further.

Slowly, Edwin pulled away from the kiss.

Their rapid, mingled breaths tangled in the silence.

Edwin released Vivianne’s thigh. Then, pulling down the collar of her nightgown to her shoulders, he kissed the line of her neck and the curve of her bare shoulder.

Vivianne exhaled a damp, trembling breath and closed her eyes.

When his lips left her skin, she opened her eyes again, full of longing.

“You’re strange,” Edwin whispered, his voice now calm.

“You’re strange too,” Vivianne replied, a trace of dissatisfaction in her voice and expression—enough to make him question whether she meant what she said.

“You’ve been acting strange lately. You’ve been avoiding me, keeping your distance. You used to say you’d always have me, but at some point… You stopped even holding my hand.”

“So now you want me to have you?”

Vivianne’s chest swelled with a sharp inhale.

Her startled eyes trembled slightly.

Her long fingers fidgeted on Edwin’s shoulders.

“… T-that’s not what I meant. I just meant… you’ve changed.”

“You’ve changed, too.”

“I…”

The dream she’d had while unconscious—that was the turning point. Even knowing the risk, the walls around her heart had come crumbling down. From the moment she learned the man’s name in the dream.

Vivianne had known that the man in the dream was just an illusion conjured up by her mind. That he was no one real.

But she’d wanted to believe it. In the voice she’d heard in that dream. In the name. Even if it was a foolish, absurd hope—if that belief could offer her a path forward, she was willing to be foolish.

“… It’s just that you like this kind of thing. So I thought…”

“And since when do you go out of your way to put up with things I like?”

Edwin smiled coldly as he rose from the bed.

The hand she had placed on his shoulder fell limply onto the bed.

As he disappeared from her side, a sudden chill swept over her.

Edwin tucked her gently under the warm blankets.

“Then what about you?” Vivianne asked. “Why have you changed? Is it because you know what I hate—that’s why you won’t hold my hand or kiss me anymore? Is that it?”

Until the accident, he hadn’t said a single word to her.

Ever since the day she gave him that performance in Rodinia.

Because she hadn’t been able to reject him, he lost interest. She became uninteresting, and he chose to keep his distance.

So he had no right to say she was strange now, or that she’d changed, not when it was just a dream that had caused her walls to crumble.

“You didn’t know that?”

Vivianne’s eyes widened.

It was an unexpected answer.

So it wasn’t that he stopped approaching her because he had lost interest—but because he knew she hated it?

“That’s why I don’t,” he said. “Because you said you hate it.”

She stared into his blue eyes, trying to figure out if he meant it.

Those empty, unreadable eyes slowly filled with another color, a faint green hue quietly drifting beneath the pale blue.