Chapter 75
“His Highness the Second Prince cherishes you greatly, and since I’m always with you in unpleasant situations… If misunderstandings were added to that, it would truly be troublesome.”
“Ah…”
Lione knew nothing about the bet between Riina and Einar or anything like the stakes of that bet.
To such a third party’s eyes, Einar appeared to cherish her deeply.
She should say he acted well for his intended purpose, but all his actions, all his words…
Knowing that they weren’t merely acting.
This time, Riina consciously rubbed her chest.
Her heart went thump from top to bottom, then thump again from bottom to top.
The tremors she had believed would flow away had now become pounding, striking her heart.
Eventually, Lione shook his head lightly and added.
“I’ll tell my fiancée about this plan myself. I have other things to discuss with her separately.”
“As you wish.”
“I’ll excuse myself first. It’s pathetic to say, but I think I need to rest a bit.”
When Riina nodded, Lione slowly left, dragging his heavy legs.
And in the place he left, Einar appeared without a sound.
Standing behind her, Einar gathered the hair scattered over her shoulders and swept it aside as he spoke.
“It went as you said it would.”
“Yes. Now we’ve done everything we can.”
As Riina sank back deeply into the sofa, her hair slipped smoothly from Einar’s grasp.
Looking down at his empty palm, Einar clenched his fist briefly before moving his body.
“Einar.”
Riina, who had unconsciously found herself in Einar’s embrace—sitting on his lap rather than on the sofa—called to him with a sigh.
Before she could ask why he insisted on sitting like this, Einar answered.
“What could be wrong with it?”
“Nothing’s wrong with it, but there’s no need either.”
“Hmm, well then, shall I say this position is more convenient for whispering?”
“How insincere.”
At Riina’s remark, Einar frowned as he replied.
“No, wait, I’m thinking about it right now.”
Even as he said this, he didn’t release the arm wrapped around Riina’s waist.
But he didn’t voice the real reason.
That he had wanted to grab her immediately at her passing words earlier, which was why he was holding her in his arms now and wouldn’t let go.
Before Einar could give any answer, Riina shook her head.
“More importantly, things will be settled soon.”
“Ah, that’s right.”
“Even if we fail this time.”
Before Riina could finish her words, Einar picked them up.
“He won’t give up.”
She leaned the back of her head against Einar’s chest with a thump and sighed.
Supporting Riina properly, Einar whispered.
“It will succeed. I told you, I have a good feeling about it.”
Riina, tracing Lione’s path that was no longer visible, hoped.
Please let Einar’s good fortune win over her own misfortune.
Time was like a shot arrow, and before they knew it, the day of Riina and Einar’s engagement ceremony had dawned.
In the inner sanctum of the temple, Riina was staring out the window with vacant eyes.
The head of the engagement ceremony’s main participant was completely filled not with her own engagement ceremony but with entirely different matters.
“Not much time left…”
Just a few hours until Lione and his friend would settle things.
She had done everything she could.
So now she could only wait.
She had always done her best to do what she could, but failed.
But this time would be different.
Like the day she had freed Becky from the chains of debt.
Lione too, from his miserable future…
-Knock knock.
At the brief knocking sound, Riina’s focus returned properly as she spoke.
“Come in.”
Behind her slightly subdued voice, the door opened silently, and vivid red hair rippled.
“Father…”
Father and daughter faced each other with the enormous sunlit window before them.
Both wore identical expressions, both keeping their mouths shut in the same way.
How much time passed?
Her father’s heavy mouth, which had been gazing steadily at Riina, opened.
“You’re beautiful.”
At those words, Riina bit her lips tightly and bowed her head.
At her first engagement ceremony with Smith, her father had said the same thing.
Wasn’t he the taciturn man who was extremely poor at showing emotions, who had nearly died because of it?
Knowing how much sincerity was contained in that single statement of his, Riina barely suppressed the tears that welled up.
And her father said nothing more, just looked at Riina for a long time before turning away.
-Click.
Duke Bolshevik, who had opened the door and stepped out, stopped there like a statue.
With his eyes deeply closed, his wife’s image rose clearly on his eyelids like a brand.
‘My love.’
His wife, who had stroked his cheek while calling him that, would remain forever in that moment, in that place.
But time flowed for those who remained, and the young daughter who had smiled brightly in her mother’s arms had reached the same age as his wife when he first met her.
Duke Bolshevik slowly opened his eyes and swallowed a deep sigh.
‘You look just like your mother.’
If he said that, his daughter would smile.
Reluctantly, unable to cry, like that.
That’s why he kept those words solely in his heart.
Last time and now as well.
After gazing at the closed door for a while, Duke Bolshevik soon headed toward Einar.
-Knock knock.
The door opened before permission was given.
It was the height of rudeness, but those who saw who appeared behind the door simply bowed their heads without saying anything.
Einar, who had removed the cumbersome cufflinks from his sleeves, gestured with his eyes.
“Everyone leave.”
In the place left with just the two of them after the servants disappeared.
“Duke Bolshevik.”
“Your Highness the Second Prince.”
The Duke asked before Einar could even open his mouth to speak.
“Do you covet the throne?”
“Not at all.”
The answer that returned without a moment’s pause was resolute, with no room for even a needle to enter.
At the crystal-clear response, Duke Bolshevik asked nothing more.
He simply looked at Einar.
Though piercing blue eyes that seemed to dissect his bones were looking at him, Einar actually smiled.
“You certainly seem different from His Highness the Third Prince.”
“Oh my, comparing me to Smith—isn’t that rather harsh treatment?”
“Aren’t you standing beside my daughter?”
In the eyes of a father who wouldn’t be hurt even if his daughter were placed in his eyes, all those guys were the same.
At this, Einar smiled and spoke.
“I have no intention of using her. I will protect her.”
Though there was a one-year limit because this engagement came about as the price of a bet, his intention to protect was sincere.
And uncharacteristically for Einar, he had a vague, very vague premonition.
That he would probably protect her not just for one year but afterward too, for a very long time.
Until the day his breath ran out.
Duke Bolshevik’s heavy mouth opened as he looked directly into Einar’s gray eyes.
“You’d better.”
Leaving only those words, Duke Bolshevik, who had been about to exit, hesitated.
Without even looking back while gripping the door handle, he spoke.
“Your Highness, remember this. Riina is a Bolshevik and my daughter.”
At the time when the engagement ceremony was just around the corner.
The baron’s daughter, dressed to match Lione, pressed down on her pounding chest and took a deep breath.
-Click.
As the carriage door opened and she stepped outside, she squinted at the pouring sunlight before widening her eyes.
The man she found instantly among countless people.
Lione Bartorio was approaching her.
Gazing at him endlessly, the time leading up to this moment flashed through her mind.
The bolt from the blue during the double date that followed their chance and happy meeting.
The young lord who claimed to have fallen for her at first sight, and Lione who clearly cherished such a young lord deeply.
After the awkward ending of what couldn’t even be called a double date.
‘There’s something I’d like to ask of you.’
Somehow feeling that what had to come had come, she froze.
Though blinded by love, she wasn’t a fool.
That’s why she realized on the way back after the laughably failed “double” date.
The fact that Lione cherished the one he called his ‘only’ friend so much that he would try to fulfill whatever that person wanted, combined with the Bartorio family’s relatively liberal family traditions, would mean…
Whether she, the one who received the confession, rejected his friend or not, Lione’s side would break the engagement.
Opening her parched lips with difficulty, she answered.
‘…Yes.’
How endlessly long the moment felt as his lips opened.
But his following words were completely different from her expectations.
“Miss, you’ve arrived. This way.”
Lione gently took his fiancée’s hand and led her.
She blushed shyly, positioned herself beside him, and subtly pressed close as she whispered.
“Um, you said you had something to tell me after today’s event…”
“Yes.”
Seeing him give a brief answer while slightly bowing his head, she firmly pressed down her ridiculously swelling expectations.
If it were just words of gratitude for what he had asked of her today, he wouldn’t have said separately that he ‘had something to say.’
Then perhaps, just maybe…
Before her thoughts could finish, the first bell announcing the start of the engagement ceremony rang.
