Chapter 4

An hour later, hurried footsteps came from outside, along with a tearful female voice:

"Fernando, it's my fault. Let me in. I'll explain to her."

"No!" Fernando deliberately lowered his voice,

but you could still hear the dominance and protectiveness in his words.

The Fernando outside the door seemed like a different person from the one I knew.

When he was with me, he was gentle and easygoing.

But the current him was decisive, firm yet tender.

I couldn't control myself—I got up and walked toward the door.

I really wanted to see the Fernando outside that door, and that chestnut-haired girl.

I gripped the door handle. The people outside were still arguing.

I yanked hard! The door opened.

That chestnut-haired girl was curled up in Fernando's arms, crying.

Fernando's hand kept stroking her long hair, his eyes full of heartache.

Watching Fernando's hand linger on that chestnut-colored hair,

in an instant, the hairs from under the pillow and from the bathroom seemed to extend out and wrap tightly around me.

The people outside clearly saw me too.

Fernando abruptly released his hold on the girl.

The girl wiped her tears and stepped forward.

"I'm sorry, Juliet. This is all my fault."

"Slap!"

I couldn't hold back. I raised my arm and slapped the girl across the face.

As my hand swung toward Fernando,

he suddenly rushed forward from behind and shoved me away hard, fiercely protecting that rabbit-like girl behind him.

"Juliet, what are you doing?!"

Resentment and fury surged in Fernando's eyes.

But my gaze fell on the girl's ring finger.

On her ring finger was a large engagement diamond ring.

It was the exact model Fernando bought when he proposed to me three months ago.

My nails dug hard into my palm.

I turned abruptly and rushed toward the bedroom, yanking open the left drawer of the vanity.

I opened the ring box. The ring was gone.

I ran out like a madwoman and grabbed the girl's wrist.

I forcibly removed the ring from her finger.

Under the dim hallway light, I looked at it. The engraving on the ring's band wasn't "Juliet."

That ring was this year's limited edition.

When Fernando and I went to buy it, it was the last one.

I shoved the ring in Fernando's face.

"Is this ring mine? Or did you buy two from the start?!"

"I begged Fernando to buy it!"

The girl stepped in front of Fernando first.

"Juliet, I'm sorry. It's all my fault. I know I'm not worthy of Fernando. I just wanted to secretly walk part of the road with him."

I looked past the girl's head, staring hard at Fernando.

"So you bought two from the beginning?!"

No wonder the sales associate who sold the ring wouldn't let us sign that one-of-a-kind true love agreement.

No wonder on the day we bought the ring, he said he forgot his ID card and used his father's to purchase it.

No wonder that day the sales associate saw him and said, "You're here again."

So Fernando took her to buy it first.

So that true love agreement—he signed it with her first.

These past days, that girl came to the house, saw the identical ring in the drawer, and must have gotten angry.

So Fernando threw mine away.

Perhaps he also promised her daily that he'd marry her soon.

Perhaps this very morning, he spoke to her mother the same way he spoke to mine.

My heart felt like it was stuffed with a soaked towel—dull, painfully suffocating.

"Juliet, let me explain."

"Juliet!"

Before Fernando could finish speaking, the girl suddenly dropped to her knees at my feet with a thud.

"I'm sorry. I promise I'll break things off with Fernando immediately!"

"But I'm begging you, can you please give me back the ring?"

I shifted my gaze back to the ring in my hand, glanced at the girl, pulled a cold smile, and extended my hand out the window.

"Don't."

The girl suddenly sprang up and lunged at me.

I was originally standing near the staircase. She charged at me,

and her whole body slammed into mine. We rolled down the stairs together.

The violent collision tore open the girl's dress.

I looked at the special petal-shaped scar on the girl's shoulder and froze.

The first year Fernando and I were together,

he told me his father had an affair when he was younger and brought a woman home.

That woman had a little girl with her. The little girl had a petal-shaped scar on her shoulder.

Because of that woman, his mother committed suicide.

After his mother died, his father kicked that woman and child out of the house. I heard that woman had a miserable life afterward.

I suddenly looked at Fernando. "Fernando, so it's her."