For Better or For Worse

Chapter 10

How could he smile in a situation like this? Dillon glared fiercely at Cedric. Whose fault did he think it was that she landed in this troublesome situation because of a joke? Whether or not he knew how unjust she felt this whole thing was, Cedric just extended his long legs and walked through the entryway. The closer he came, the louder the whispers got.

Why? Because even the way he walked was attractive. Green eyes framed by hair as black as the night sky, a well-formed nose, and a sharp jawline. Tall stature, broad shoulders, and everything else you could want in a man. He could be perfectly described in flowery language and no one could find a single flaw by looking at him. He was truly the whole package—a gift from god.

However, Dillon Langton’s heart didn’t flutter even a little at the sight of Cedric Hayworth. Why? Because he belonged to another woman. No matter how good-looking someone was, if there was a ring on their finger, they were off-limits. Out of the question. The man in front of her was no different. Technically, he was not a married man, not yet, but there was someone with whom he was fated to fall in love.

Therefore, he belonged to another woman, and Dillon wasn’t interested in other people’s belongings. To put it simply, there was a book, and it told a love story, in which a typical protagonist went through a typical series of events that eventually led to a typical romance between two people of two different social standings.

And Cedric Hayworth was the male lead of that romance novel.

* * *

It wasn’t surprising. He was that handsome because he was the male lead, and he was the male lead because he was that handsome. The story’s premise was that the male lead was a duke named Cedric, and the female lead was a middle-class woman named Adeline. She wasn’t from a laborer’s family, but she also wasn’t the daughter of a judge or a pastor, so she was part of the lower middle class.

It was a romance made just for the two of them. Every aspect of the narrative, including Dillon and Emily, existed to tell of Adeline’s rise in status for the sake of her romance with Cedric. To summarize the story, Cedric and Adeline, who would normally never even have run into each other, first met when Adeline filled in for her sick friend’s job at a casino, and Cedric mistook her for a courtesan.

In turn, Adeline mistook Cedric for a nouveau riche playboy gambler and hated him instantly. Completely typical. Despite being at odds, they couldn’t fight their attraction. And of course, as part and parcel of the novel’s hackneyed storytelling, both characters had tragic backgrounds that would eventually bring them together.

Adeline’s father was a gambling addict who had put their entire family into debt. Unsurprisingly, when Adeline had found out Cedric was the Duke of Southerwick, she had thought, “There’s no way a duke would ever involve himself with a lower-class woman like me,” and those feelings had conflicted with her attraction toward Cedric, resulting in a push-and-pull relationship.

Anyway, the next thing that happened was, of course, Adeline’s father once more accumulating a massive amount of debt through gambling, leading to Adeline nearly getting sold off to pay for it. And of course, who could swoop in and save the day but our male lead, Cedric? He paid off the large sum of debt that Adeline’s father had incurred, but Adeline, pride wounded, misinterpreted Cedric’s goodwill as him treating her like a prostitute.

She then confronted him by asking, “Isn’t this what you wanted?” before doing something to him that Dillon would rather omit! Enraged that he was getting treated like a scumbag who would buy prostitutes, Cedric played along with her provocation, and they ended up committing another omittable act!

Afterward, Cedric said, “Surely the amount I’ve paid covers more than just this once, right?” and demanded that Adeline would become his mistress. Of course, this stemmed from his possessive desire not to share her with any other man, but Adeline took his words at face value and felt humiliated. She consented to his demand on the condition that it would continue “only until the debt was repaid.”

And that was how they became “the duke and his mistress.” Dillon knew the entire story, so it was no wonder she saw Cedric in such a bad light. He was portrayed as a complete Casanova in the novel, and after Adeline slept with him once, he had the audacity to demand that she become his mistress.

Of course, Cedric also had a backstory that justified his actions. He hadn’t been in a normal state the night he first met Adeline. He was acting self-destructive, getting drunk and throwing away money by gambling. The reason for his behavior was that his wife and son had died.

His wife had had a difficult pregnancy and given birth to a stillborn son before dying, and any person would fall into despair when met with such a loss. Unable to get over the shock of losing two of his loved ones, Cedric wandered around aimlessly before encountering Adeline. Strangely enough, Adeline was the light that illuminated Cedric’s world of darkness. He couldn’t take his eyes off her and was well on his way to falling in love.

The two would constantly have misunderstandings and fight with each other due to their past scars, Cedric believing that Adeline was only with him for his money, and Adeline believing Cedric was only with her for her body. And there was one more factor that muddled Adeline’s understanding of the situation: She closely resembled Cedric’s late wife!

She, too, had shining blond hair and sparkling green eyes, and when she came across a portrait of Cedric’s former wife, Adeline’s heart sank. She assumed that he only saw his dead wife in her, and even when Cedric had expressed his feelings toward Adeline, she couldn’t abandon the thought. Of course, it was all just another misunderstanding, but Adeline didn’t see it that way.

As Cedric slowly grew to love Adeline, treating her more gently and with increasing fondness, the seed of doubt grew in Adeline’s mind.

I’m nothing but a replacement for her, Adeline thought.

* * *

It was an emotional story, and Dillon really liked it. It may have had a common plot with a typical progression of events, but even well-written clichés can be very entertaining. There was good chemistry between the male and female leads, and their conversations were sublime. It was to the point that even when Dillon realized that she was living inside the world of the novel, she still rooted for their relationship.

That was why Dillon had meant it when she said she wished for Cedric’s happiness. She had no intentions of getting in Cedric’s way—if anything, she wanted to help him along. If only his former wife didn’t have blonde hair and green eyes.

Yes, blonde hair, and green eyes. The wife who had given birth to Cedric’s stillborn son before passing away was none other than Emily Langton.

To be honest, Dillon hadn’t known. Dillon only started remembering her memories—as in, the memories of the book—a couple of years ago. And even after remembering the events of the book, Dillon hadn’t been aware that the world she was living in was the world of the book. In the first place, the entire book was a story based entirely on the two main characters, neither of whom had anything to do with Dillon.

She only discovered the connection with the book when she saw a newspaper article referring to Cedric Rodden Hayworth as the Marquess of Notherland, a member of the Duke of Southerwick’s family. She may not have remembered every single character detail, but she immediately recognized the name of the male lead.

Even then, though, she hadn’t realized that Cedric’s former wife was her little sister, Emily. She really hadn’t known. Even as she was reading about Cedric in the tabloid newspaper, she had only thought, Oh man, he’ll get his karma when he makes the female lead cry later, and left it at that.

How could she have remembered the name of the duke’s late wife when it was only mentioned once in passing? She had immediately forgotten it. For the most part, the book only mentioned her as “Cedric’s late wife,” “the late Duchess of Southerwick,” or “her.” They never called her “Emily,” not even once.

Dillon had only realized that Emily was Cedric’s dead wife when Cedric had called out, “Hey, I’m talking to you, in the rolled-up trousers with the brown hat!”

And by then, it was much too late. Now the face of the man she had only seen in the papers was right in front of her, asking her where the Langton estate was, and all the pieces of information were coming together in Dillon’s mind: In the novel, he was thirty years old. Currently, he is twenty-eight. In the novel, Cedric would lose his wife a year from now, about a year after he got married, when his wife gave birth to his stillborn son and died.

That meant Cedric would get married right around now, and his wife would have blonde hair and green eyes. Dillon fell into despair. Anyone could put two and two together and see that Emily was the wife who would die in childbirth!

The conversation Dillon had overheard in the drawing room when Cedric first arrived at the estate had only confirmed it: He was here to propose to Emily, he even said so himself. Dillon’s only thought was of stopping him.

Regardless of whether she remembered her previous life or the contents of the book she was now inhabiting, she was still Dillon Langton. She had lived as Dillon for over twenty years. No matter what became of this world, the fact remained that she had lived her entire life here.

Needless to say, her family was precious to her. Their mother had died giving birth to Emily, who had been born premature and so small that she had looked as if she would follow their mother into death. Dillon, only six years old at the time, had vowed then and there always to protect her baby sister.