But—why? She couldn’t understand him, who was so obsessed with finding her. Didn’t he just need someone to marry him?

“Why…did you even try hard to find me? Are you angry at me for running away out of the blue?”

“No. There’s something that I’d really like to say when I see you.”

While saying so, he then grabbed Vivian’s hands slightly. Knox slowly went on one of his knees when her hand hadn’t shrugged him off—unlike what he expected.

Even before she could be surprised, he had already bent both of his knees in front of her. As if he was confessing his sin to a priest, he pressed his forehead lightly against the back of her hand before he breathed out a bit.

“I’m sorry.”

“……Knox.”

“I’m sorry, Vivian.”

A slight tremble of warmth was slowly transferred to Vivian’s hand.

She felt like she was out of breath for that single moment.

It was hard for Vivian to organize her feelings now with all those confusing words. The moment when Knox, who had always looked down at her, fell to his knees, Vivian suddenly felt a surge of indescribable feeling.

Seriously, why? What for? I’m not even Alexia, so why?

“P-please stop it. I’m not Young Lady Alexia, sir. I’m saying that I’m not the one you should be calling out sweetly.”

“Vivian.”

Knox’s brows immediately frowned upon hearing her words. To be exact, Knox was displeased with Alexia’s name that came out from her mouth and began to speak.

“What I want to apologize is for……”

“Let’s just stop here.”

Right at that moment, Ez began standing in front to block Knox’s action for the first time while hiding Vivian behind himself with his slightly trembling hands.

“Thank you for helping out today. However, I hope that you can refrain yourself from doing something that will make my boss uncomfortable, sir.”

“Ez.”

Despite Vivian’s voice, Ez still didn’t step back at all. Instead, Knox was the one who took a step back when he met with a resolute gaze.

“…Okay. I’ll get going now.”

He stood up and dusted his knees as if he didn’t care that he had been kneeling down all this while.

“Thanks for dinner. I hope that you’ll also enjoy your dinner since you used to skip meals easily before.”

Just like usual, he took out the price of the meal from his pocket and paid her before leaving. Contrary to Ez’s bewildered gaze, Vivian still couldn’t regain her mind that easily.

Why would he apologize to me now? What for?

After all, Knox wasn’t someone who would bow his head to others. No matter how hard she had dwelled over it, not a single answer had come to light. It felt like her head was already clouded with mist.

“My… what should we do with this money?”

“What’s wrong, Ez?”

“That guest didn’t have his dinner for today. He said that he wouldn’t want to burden you since you looked extremely busy, ma’am.”

Vivian then looked at the few pennies in Ez’s hand. Perhaps it was some sort of a petty pity from him for having to abandon her, Vivian herself.

Vivian eventually decided not to think too much about him anymore.

“…Hand it to me. I’ll give it back to him once he comes again.”

The time she took to finish up the inn with Ez was quite later than usual. She could only end them behind time since she catered even to the trivial favors from the guests.

After she gave a pat on the back of Ez, who looked exhausted than usual, and sent him home, she stepped up to the second floor.

“Ashley, how are you?”

A smile bloomed on Vivian’s lips when she saw that her child was putting a toy in her mouth, which had been placed deliberately next to her before. Perhaps due to Ez’s help from earlier, Ashley looked fine even though she had returned extremely late.

However, the problem slowly began from there onwards. Due to the fact that Vivian had intentionally made her nap a lot since she was rather busy with work, it gradually resulted in an accident where Ashley could no longer sleep during that night.

“Aaaah, waaaah!”

Surprised by the crying sound, Vivian immediately raised her head while she was just about to doze off. When she realized that she still had her needles in both hands and her sewing on her knee, she then rubbed her eyes with her arms.

“Hmm, Ashley. Are you sad because my hand has stopped?”

She stood up and hugged her child, but Ashley’s bedtime tantrums still persisted. Perhaps her overly vigorous eyes were more of a problem than her sleep tantrums, but she just couldn’t afford to play with Ashley at that moment.

When her arms ceased to move while she was still hugging her child, another loud cry instantly woke her up. And so, Vivian wasn’t able to have any wandering thoughts since she was busy putting her child to sleep all the while herself dozing off for hours.