"Are you people trying to drive Celine to her death?"
"Exactly! Burning down her restaurant is like cutting off every last way out for her."
Guy tried to say something, but nothing came out.
I fled in a mess. The moment I got out the door, my manager called.
"Boss, the restaurant's burned down. What do we do now?"
"A few of the staff want their wages and want to leave..."
Whatever came after that was probably cruel, and the manager stopped there, sparing me the rest.
Something bleak spread through my chest, and even my voice came out rough.
"You— tell them."
I fought to keep the sob down, refusing to let myself cry out loud.
"I'll get their wages into their hands soon. Tell them not to worry."
"Okay! And don't overthink this."
"Try to take it easy. You've got a long road ahead. You can build it all back up again."
I hung up and went to the burned-out restaurant.
A tear slid from my eye and struck the cold floor.
For that thriving place, I'd gone countless nights without sleep, reworking the design, studying the menu, refining the service.
Because I'm not rich. That one restaurant was all I had to make something of myself.
I never imagined a single fire set by my own father would burn away every hope I had.
That was when the phone rang.
"Celine, I heard you opened a seafood restaurant?"
"I'll come by and try it sometime..."
Hearing my childhood friend's voice, I couldn't hold the sob back.
"Celine, what's wrong? Is someone giving you trouble?"
Amos Sanchez tensed up at once.
"My restaurant— it's gone."
"There was a fire last night. It burned everything to the ground."
The man who was always calm and clear-headed came undone in a moment and wept along with me.
Just then my father walked over, and the instant I saw him, my heart went cold.
I slowly hung up and turned a chill stare straight at him.
Guilty conscience, maybe, because he couldn't meet my eyes. He only spoke in that concerned tone.
"Ah. The restaurant's gone now, so try to let it go."
"Listen to me. Don't run a restaurant anymore. Just go find a job somewhere."
I looked coldly at my father's kind, gentle face. The words sounded like concern, but really they were for Cecily's sake.
Afraid that if I opened another restaurant it would make Cecily jealous, so he wanted me working a regular job.
Did he not know how hard it is for someone without a good degree to find work?
I'd swallowed so much hardship, worked myself half to death to save money, taken the risk of a loan to open that restaurant.
And I never thought he would, for the sake of an outsider, set fire to his own daughter's restaurant.
Leaving me trapped with no way forward, and no way to go to the police over it either.
I wanted so badly to ask him to his face why he'd done this to me. Then I remembered what Guy had said in that private room, and it stopped being strange at all.
So Cecily was his first love's daughter, and he loved her enough to give up on his own flesh and blood.
No wonder he'd treated the two of us so differently since we were children, and used the same cold cruelty on my mother too.
My mother left this world carrying that regret to the end, because he'd said he had no time to see her one last time. He had to go bring Cecily home.
I should have hated him back then.
"Why won't you look at me?"
Now that I knew what he really was, I had no patience left to spare him.
Faced with my sudden coldness, my father lost his composure.
His eyes darted and hid, that same old panic of his.
"Celine, why are you asking me that? It wasn't— it wasn't me who set the fire at your restaurant."
