"Miss Quinn, I'm already married. Is it so strange that I'd have children?"
Seraphina Quinn laughed through her tears.
She cupped her face, tears spilling through her fingers.
After composing herself, she wiped at her reddened eyes and looked up at Damian Fairchild. "Open the door. I want to get out."
A short, cold scoff escaped the man's thin lips.
"Hah!"
The car doors were already locked.
Unable to push the door open, Seraphina Quinn could only stare, her eyes rimmed with red, at the man's handsome face as he lounged lazily in his seat.
"Damian Fairchild, open this door. I want to get out."
The only response she received was the man's callous mockery, followed by an even more vicious act.
The moment the words left her mouth, he yanked her onto his lap.
With one hand, he restrained her struggling hands; with the other, he held the back of her head still.
At the same time, he crushed his lips against hers.
He kissed her urgently and fiercely, as if he was about to take her right there in the car.
Consequently, Seth Thorne, who was in the driver's seat, decisively opened his door, got out, and walked a good distance away.
Inside the car.
Seraphina Quinn gasped for breath, her red eyes enduring the man's increasingly wanton assault.
In the rapidly heating confines of the car, her voice sounded utterly broken.
"Damian Fairchild, you're a monster, an animal! Your wife and daughter are at home waiting for you to have dinner, yet you're here messing around with me! You're just scum..."
Damian Fairchild had long grown tired of hearing her ramble the same few insults.
Just then, his long, slender fingers pressed against her most sensitive point, instantly making her arch her back and let out a soft, drawn-out moan.
He gripped her chin, forcing her to part her lips and accept his savage, domineering kiss.
Even in the midst of such intensity, he still found time to humiliate her with his words.
"Seraphina."
"Five years ago, when you, the high-and-mighty Miss Quinn, were relentlessly pursuing me, a poor boy, I told you I wasn't a good person."
"I also told you that if you were going to have me, you had to take full responsibility. What was it you said back then?"
"Oh, let me try to remember..."
Perhaps the limited space in the car was restricting him, preventing the man on top of her from moving as he pleased. He adjusted his position, making it easier to continue his vile assault.
He knew her body's sensitivities all too well, and he took his time with her as he watched Seraphina Quinn fall apart.
His eyes, red with lust, held a hidden, biting chill. After a few seconds of thoughtful silence, he continued in an unhurried tone.
"Back then, you said you'd be with me to the highest heavens and the deepest hell."
"You also said that even in death, you wanted your ashes mixed with mine."
At this, another low, cold laugh escaped Damian Fairchild's thin lips.
'Back then, she had said so many things to make him happy. But when she kicked him to the curb, she was ruthlessness personified.'
'Damian Fairchild, if I were you, I'd try to save us both some face. Let's have a clean break. Stop acting like a clingy, mangy dog. It's disgusting.'
'Besides, I already got rid of the baby. And I've moved on—I'm in love with someone else now.'
'...'
'Some memories were best left buried.'
All passion seemed to drain from Damian Fairchild in an instant.
Only after he had cleaned himself up did he glance back at the woman curled into a ball beside him, hugging her knees.
She was barely clothed, the flush of their encounter still clinging to her skin. But her face, always on the verge of tears—he was sick of seeing it.
Damian Fairchild said, "Stop crying. The one who should be crying is my wife."
Seraphina Quinn trembled with rage, having bitten her lip until it bled.
Her eyes, burning with suppressed fury, bored into Damian Fairchild.
She listened as he continued his heartless taunts.
"You seduced her husband and had a quickie in the car with her child's father, while she and her daughter are at home, eagerly waiting for me to come back for dinner. She's the pathetic one. She's the one who should be crying. So, what do you have to cry about?"
Finally, Seraphina Quinn couldn't take it anymore. She slapped him hard across the face. "You bastard!"
'Only a shameless brute like him could twist the truth so completely, calling white black and the dead alive.'
That one slap caused the charged atmosphere inside the car to plummet to a freezing point.
In the dim interior of the car, the man's expression was dangerously dark, his eyes frosty.
He just stared at her without a word, and his silent gaze made panic bloom in Seraphina Quinn's chest.
'The man in front of her was no longer the poor boy who'd once obeyed her every command. He was the all-powerful, influential Crown Prince.'
'She'd hit him. If he decided to be ruthless, she wouldn't be able to handle the consequences of that slap.'
"Back then, even if I was the one who wronged you, at this point, you have everything. You have a wife, a daughter, power, and influence, while I have nothing."
"What will it take for you to stop? Do I really have to atone with my life?"
Her tears fell fiercely, streaming down her face, making her look especially pitiful in the dim light.
Damian Fairchild irritably tugged at his tie. After unbuttoning the top two buttons of his shirt and letting out a long breath, he unlocked the car doors.
He lit a cigarette. Through the curling smoke, he kicked open the door on Seraphina Quinn's side. "Why don't you go die right now and show me? Maybe, if my heart softens, I'll let you off the hook."
Ten meters away was a road bustling with traffic.
All sorts of private cars, oil tankers, and trucks passed by in an endless stream.
This intersection had no traffic lights. If someone was truly determined to end their life, it would be a good choice.
Seraphina Quinn's vision blurred with tears. Staring at the river of traffic, she truly felt the urge for death to end it all.
'But she couldn't die.'
'If she died, what would happen to her grandfather, her uncle, and her son?'
"Looks like Miss Quinn is all talk. When it actually comes time to die, she chickens out."
'Not like him. He, on the other hand, had practically died for her because of a single flippant comment. Those were the most wretched days of his life.'
"You can go."
"Quinn Manor is yours."
The smoke made Damian Fairchild's voice a bit hoarse, yet exceptionally cold.
He stubbed out the glowing red cigarette butt, then lifted his eyes to the stunned Seraphina Quinn.
"You were, after all, the woman I was once willing to die to love. I won't make things difficult for you. But from now on, you remember this: if you see me, you walk the other way. Don't you ever appear in my line of sight again, or I really won't be able to control the urge to destroy you..."
He paused, continuing as if talking to himself.
"Then again, it's not like you'll need to. After all, we don't move in the same circles. And besides, I'll be moving abroad soon anyway."
Seraphina Quinn was completely and utterly shaken.
"Willing to die? What happened back then?" she pressed, her voice trembling. "You... you're moving abroad?"