Chapter 105.2

Chapter 105.2

Miran was charming and beautiful, but… she was a commoner, a foreigner who didn’t even speak English well. It was clear she would never be accepted in New York’s conservative and closed high society.

Still, whenever André looked at her, his face softened. He couldn’t take his eyes off the woman who smiled with such innocent warmth, like a child. He even laughed aloud in front of others, not caring who was watching.

Every time the staff saw this unfamiliar side of him, they were startled. It seemed Miran was the only person in the world who could melt that hard, rigid man.

‘And that’s not all.’

Enzo had even seen André forget he wasn’t alone in the car, gazing at Miran with pure hunger and kissing her like he’d lost control.

A man who usually guarded every second of his time would drive her to her language school every morning, then pick her up himself no matter how late it got.

‘If that’s not love, then what is?’

Lady Lorraine Cabot, on the other hand, looked like Grace Lowell—or maybe like André himself.

Cold. Aristocratic. Proud.

Enzo sighed and shook his head.

If those two were to marry, it would be a union between the very top tier of New York’s high society. A marriage of the century, everyone said. But it was obvious there would never be love in it.

Even if he went through with such a political marriage, André would never let Miran go.

‘He’d try to keep her as his mistress, one way or another.’

For people of that class, it was nothing new, just history repeating itself. But Enzo, with age and experience, could see it clearly.

Miran wasn’t that kind of woman.

She was the kind who would love André even if he had no title and no fortune. But if she ever became another man’s mistress, no matter how much she loved him, the guilt and emptiness would destroy her from the inside out.

‘When will a man who’s never known love in his life finally realize what it is…’

Enzo let out another long sigh, glanced up at the rearview mirror—and slammed on the brakes in shock. The yellow cab behind them blared its horn, the driver rolling down his window to flip him off, but Enzo didn’t even notice. Something was wrong with André.

[Master André!]

André’s lips had turned deathly pale, sweat beading on his forehead. He was gasping like someone being strangled, clawing at his tie until it hung loose around his neck. His eyes rolled up, half-lidded, then dropped again as his chest heaved, struggling for air like he’d just finished a marathon.

[What in the world…]

Slamming the horn, Enzo floored the accelerator and sped toward the emergency room at Weill Cornell Medical Center.

—

A tall, broad-shouldered man with a deathly pale face staggered into the room, gasping for air in short, ragged bursts. The doctor, suspecting hyperventilation syndrome, drew arterial blood to check his oxygen saturation and carbon dioxide levels.

He then placed the opening of a brown paper bag over André’s mouth and nose, telling him to breathe slowly. Gradually, his breathing began to steady.

[Is this your first time experiencing these symptoms? Have you been under a lot of stress recently?]

When André didn’t respond, the doctor explained that severe anxiety brought on by stress was one of the main causes of hyperventilation.

[What were you doing, or thinking, right before the attack started?]

André was replaying his conversation with Hyunjung in his head.

Miran had left for Korea the day before, without even saying a single word to him.

‘Miran left.’

That one sentence echoed over and over.

‘That can’t be real.’

His mind felt foggy, as if swallowed by thick mist.

‘She acted in a film directed by Nam Seunghyuk? Why didn’t she tell me?’

‘But she called him to say she was going to Korea.’

‘Why? You love me, not him.’

‘Or… do you not love me anymore?’

He remembered the look in her eyes the last time he saw her.

‘Was that really the last time?’

A prickling sensation spread from his fingertips and toes, crawling up his limbs until his chest tightened again. A crushing pain gripped his heart, and his breath caught once more.

The doctor said something urgently beside him, but André couldn’t hear a thing. Eventually, they administered a sedative, the kind used for patients suffering from panic attacks.