Chapter 3

「Once the company goes public and everything's stable, I'll bring you out into the open.」

「Don't push yourself.」

Sid's voice was frantic.

「Don't do anything stupid.」

「I'm coming.」

「I'm coming right now.」

I watched him on the screen. That panic on his face was something he'd never once shown me. And I remembered the few, scattered times Sid had ever mentioned Mavis.

Materialistic.

Practical.

Loyal to money, not to feeling.

He'd said Mavis dumped him for being poor and went off with someone richer.

He'd said she'd be thrown away herself, sooner or later.

I opened my messages, found the assistant Grandma had assigned me, sent over the study and balcony camera feeds, and told her.

【Dig up everything between Sid and Mavis for me.】

【The money side especially.】

【And,】 my fingertip tapped against the desk, : 【what Mavis has been doing overseas these past few years.】

The assistant was fast. The files came back almost at once.

I opened them and read the whole thing: how Mavis and Sid had sat in front of and behind each other since high school; how, at graduation, Sid had taken half a year's saved-up wages to buy her ninety-nine roses and set off fireworks, confessing to her in front of the entire school.

In the middle of that grand, blazing confession, Mavis said yes.

Four years of college, Sid studied hard, saved money, planned surprises for her, carved out time every single day to be with her, took her to get her nails done, her hair done, her face done, took her to high-end restaurants, on trips, bought her makeup and skincare, right up until the day his parents died in the car crash.

That was when Mavis suddenly broke up with him.

It was all in the file.

The hospital footage from that day had been captured clearly.

Sid on his knees on the floor, crying, begging her not to go, and Mavis not even turning her head, tossing back one line.

「Sid.」

「The way you are now, you're not good enough for me.」

Mavis vanished.

Sid drank himself blind all day, every day, until the night I saw him being mugged in an alley, pulled him out of it, and got to know him. All the way to today.

Sid told me he'd stopped loving Mavis a long time ago.

「Miss Dudley.」

The assistant sent a video.

「The reason Gilbert Corp collapsed back then, that betting agreement Sid told you about, it wasn't because of you.」

She produced a document.

「It was because of Mavis.」

「Mavis got into an underground gambling den, ran up debts, and came to Sid. He took them on for her, put the company up as the stake, and that's what set off everything that came after.」

The blood drained from my face. My nails dug hard into my flesh, breaking the skin, and I didn't even feel the blood well up. I thought back to what Sid had told me then.

「They humiliated you!」

「Said you were an orphan with no father, no mother, that you only got this far by using your body!」

「I couldn't stand it!」

「They can call me a sewer rat, a frog at the bottom of a well, but they will never talk about the person I love most!」

「I couldn't stand it!」

Sid had been shaking all over, as if I really mattered, mattered so much no one could be allowed to defile me, mattered so much that just looking at me made his whole life feel worth it. So I'd held him tight.

「I'll gamble with you!」

We lost until we had nothing, until we were drinking tap water to fill our stomachs, until we were nothing but rats scurrying across the street.

And none of it had ever been for me.

「Miss Dudley.」

The assistant sent another video.

「Sid is at a private hospital the Dudleys invested in. He's with Mavis.」

In the video.

Mavis leaned against his chest, crying like some pitiful little rabbit.

「I just don't want to keep hiding anymore. I know it's ugly of me to want us back together, I know I'm in the wrong, but I can't help it, I just love you——」

Sid pulled her in and held her tight.

「Just wait a little longer.」

「Wait for Cassandra's birthday.」

「Wait for the company to go public.」

「Then it'll all be settled.」

「Once the company goes public,」 I said to the screen, in the exact same tone he'd used, : 「it'll all be settled.」

「Tell Grandma.」

「There's no rush.」

「Since Sid enjoys his star-crossed romance with Mavis so much.」

I smiled.

「Then I'll play along until the show is over.」