While Bridget was being criticized behind her back and was thriving in front of others, Isaac was having a hard time either behind or in front of others.
'Chloe, you useless bitch.'
Even though she decorated it so well that it would look good anywhere, she wasn't popular with the men.
Chloe was the insurance that kept Bridget from flying away in her wingsuit. She was in debt to Isaac every single day.
Josh didn't know why Isaac was being so kind to Chloe, but he believed that Isaac was his true friend and family. That's why he borrowed gambling debts from Isaac and was spending them recklessly. Josh had the vain belief that he could pay back the money he borrowed from Isaac through gambling.
In any case, the debt they owed was too small to shake Bridget.
A debt that could be repaid by selling the gold jewelry that Bridget had received as a gift from the King.
Isaac knew that he wouldn't be able to move Bridget like this.
It would have been better for Chloe to get married so he wouldn't owe Chloe and Josh more.
The better the family a man comes from, the more likely he is to find a bride of suitable status, and so the larger the dowry he will demand from Chloe.
But Chloe had no talent for romance.
'She's not ugly, she looks like Bridget, but her personality is just so fucking annoying.'
Chloe was so different from Bridget.
Now that she thinks about It, Bridget was quite a dignified woman.
Isaac thought of Bridget standing proudly in the grand ballroom, commanding the attention of everyone else.
'Bridget is a beauty.'
He never thought about it before because he was blinded by his inferiority complex.
But when Bridget reached a position where she didn't even feel inferior, Isaac reevaluated her from a new perspective.
'The woman that the famously picky and capricious King fell in love with is my wife.'
Isaac felt a little proud.
In his eyes, Julian was the perfect man: handsome, tall, and strong.
The woman that man desires is my wife!
Since Isaac did not love Bridget, he was not jealous of having his wife taken away but rather was proud.
'What was so charming about Bridget? If I think about it carefully, she had a cute side... maybe?'
At that moment, the baby in his arms cried, wailing, wailing.
"Oh, Eli. Your crying is so loud!"
Isaac grinned and hugged the baby.
The only comfort he had these days was his son Eli.
Children are truly amazing beings.
He gave it a name and watched it grow bigger day by day and he grew more attached to it each day.
Isaac didn't like children originally, but he felt special when he had a baby of his own.
So, he made sure to stop by the baby's room once a day and hold Eli in his arms.
When Isaac looked at Eli, he even thought that he shouldn't be so cruel to Penelope who gave birth to him. But when Isaac actually looked at Penelope, things didn't go as he had hoped.
Then suddenly the baby's double eyelids came into his sight. Isaac had single eyelids.
"You have pretty double eyelids just like your mother. But your nose is..."
He glanced at the mirror next to him. Then he looked at the baby's nose again.
"Lips are mine..."
Isaac glanced at the mirror again, then looked at the baby's lips.
The baby didn't look like Isaac at all.
It became more and more like that as the days went by.
Until then, he had thought that all babies looked the same and had never taken a closer look, but from the day Bridget brought the doctor to see him, the baby's appearance caught his eye.
He recalled Eleanor's cries of suspicion that Penelope was not his biological mother.
He also remembered what the doctor had said about Eli being different from Isaac.
'Oh, no. There's no way this kid isn't mine. I'm so attached to him. Doesn't that mean we're connected by blood?'
He tried to change his anxious expression into a smile and smiled faintly. But his eyes couldn't smile.
He glanced at his nanny, who was awkwardly hovering beside him.
"Nanny, all babies look the same, don't they?"
"That... is that so?"
"You probably don't resemble your parents the moment you're born, right?"
"Well, of course! You don't know when you're just born."
"Right? I guess we become more alike as he grows up."
"Oh, of course. My first child didn't look like me or my husband until he was five, so the neighbors teased him, saying he must have been picked up somewhere. But when he was about eight, he looked exactly like his father."
The nanny gulped and laughed.
Isaac tilted his head.
"But I think our Eli resembles his nanny a bit."
"Yes, yes? That's ridiculous! W... What are you talking about? Eli is so pretty. Don't say things like he resembles a pale person like me!"
The nanny strongly denied it and made a fuss.
"Is that so? I thought maybe he resembled his nanny because he saw you so often. I think I heard somewhere that a child takes after the person who raised him."
It was shallow knowledge of unknown origin. Isaac was a complete novice when it came to babies.
"Is that a saying? I think I've heard it somewhere. Then please come and hug Eli more often. Then he'll be more like you, Viscount."
"I guess so."
At that moment, Eli stopped crying and started smiling brightly.
Isaac melted at the baby's laughter.
"How beautiful my son is! I have never seen such a beautiful baby."
It was really strange. When Eli was in Penelope's womb, he knew in his head that he had a child, but his heart was still indifferent. But seeing Eli in his arms and smiling like this, he realized belatedly that he had really become a father.
Now he couldn't imagine life without Eli.
It was heartbreaking and upsetting to even think that Eli might not be his child.
Who would have thought he would be such a fool for his son? It was surprising, even to him.
"My child, my child. No matter what anyone says, you are my child, Eli."
He kept saying that out loud as if he was brainwashing himself. As if that was the only way to get rid of his anxiety.
The nanny sent Isaac out of the nursery, saying it was now time to feed him.
Isaac's face, which had been warm as he left the nursery, became hard again as if nothing had happened.
It felt like he was crossing the line between fantasy and reality, just across the nursery door.
The outside world was a harsh reality.
Isaac looked at the several letters the butler handed him in the hallway with a stern face.
In between were several threatening letters threatening to raise interest rates if the debt was not repaid on time.
"Oh, really. It's annoying. Why are you urging me for something so small? When you run a business, you sometimes get into debt and sometimes do business on credit. Who knows who's taking the brunt of it? What kind of business would you run with a mindset like this? Tsk tsk."
He handed over the reminder note and looked through the remaining envelopes as if searching for something.
"Was there no letter from the top of the Hawk?"
"That's all."
"Oh, the contact is a bit late this time. I wonder if the merchant ship landed on the Eastern Continent or not. It didn't take more than a few months last time."
Isaac was just waiting for the results of his second investment in the Kingdom of Cartania's trade business.
He had invested a huge amount of money, so if he got his money back tenfold like last time, these business debts and the money he had left for his younger brother would be nothing more than pocket change.
He had been scraping together every penny he had to invest in the trading business, so he had no cash flow.
Because of that, debts kept piling up here and there.
This was the reason Isaac was so nervous and couldn't sleep at night these days.
Maybe because reality is like this, Eli feels even more precious. When he looks at Eli, he can breathe for a moment and forget his worries.
"Ah, my stomach. Oh, my stomach..."
Isaac was so nervous that his stomach and esophagus hurt so much that he couldn't eat or lie down.
He was getting more and more annoyed. That annoyance was often directed at the easygoing Penelope.
"By the way, where has Penelope been wandering around, leaving the chiId behind?"
"I heard she was going to the costume shop earlier."
"What? I'm working so hard to earn money that I'm going crazy, but she's spending money so she can't even stay home!"
Butler Cedric was about to say that Isaac had cut off Penelope's allowance a few months ago, so she probably wasn't spending his money today but stopped himself.
It was at that point that Cedric had a question.
'Why did she go to a costume shop when she didn't have any money?'
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