“Make sure not to get involved with the Gilroys from now on.”

“Yes, Your Highness.”

Adela Gilroy and the Marchioness of Gilroy were on the same side after all.

It seemed they had already determined that I would not meet with them from the moment they heard my father suggest pretending the Empress incident never happened.

So they came to the company, caused a scene, and called me out saying they had something to discuss.

After sending Adela Gilroy away and hearing the situation reported by Hayley, I made a decision on the spot.

The more I associate with such people, the more immense damage they will cause to me and the company members.

So it’s better not to associate with them as much as possible.

I rubbed my forehead and let out a long sigh.

“I almost made a big mistake.”

“Fortunately, you were able to correct it before it was too late.”

When I shook my head, Hayley answered with a faint smile.

Was it ‘not too late’?

I heard there were people injured due to the Marchioness of Gilroy’s rampage.

If I had expelled the two of them a little earlier, such a thing would not have happened.

I let out a small sigh.

“Make sure those who were injured receive proper treatment and ensure they get vacation and compensation.”

“The treatment should be wrapping up by now. I will make sure they get vacation and compensation.”

Hayley nodded her head.

After that, I gave a few more instructions before standing up from my seat.

“Father might come. I told him to come here.”

“If the Marquis comes, I will report today’s events to him.”

Seeing Hayley’s gentle smile as if to reassure me, I felt relieved.

I lightly patted her shoulder and left the office as is.

“I’ll return quietly, so don’t tell the company members.”

“Yes, Your Highness.”

“Okay. I’ll contact you again.”

Telling Hayley not to come out, I took only Betty and went outside the company through the secret passage again.

Since I said I was taking a short break, I had to hurry back.

Betty and I hastened our movements.

“The carriage is waiting out front, right Betty?”

“Yes. I told them to wait somewhere else for about 30 minutes. They should be on standby now.”

Betty answered quietly, following behind me.

As we emerged from the secret passage, the carriage waiting in front of it came into view.

After boarding the carriage with Betty, we set off towards the imperial palace.

“Your Highness, are you alright?”

As the carriage started moving, Betty asked cautiously while observing my expression.

“Why wouldn’t I be alright?”

“Still. You had some expectations.”

When I laughed lightly and spoke casually, Betty made a worried face.

Perhaps I had thought Adela Gilroy and I could see eye to eye when it came to business or the company.

Betty must have read my expression where I harbored a momentary hope, so she spoke while carefully gauging my reaction.

But well, it’s not easy to find a conversation partner who is compatible.

Moreover, it’s rare to find someone who, like me, can learn whatever they want without restrictions as a woman of the empire.

I shook my head and smiled faintly.

“It’s fine. It can’t be helped. I heard she frequently visited the company district, so I hoped it wasn’t just for shopping. That’s all.”

“Gosh, what a terrible person. Then frequenting the company district was also to deceive Your Highness from the start?”

When I shrugged as if it couldn’t be helped, Betty badmouthed Adela with a face more upset than mine.

Saying things like she didn’t seem so cunning, or she should have at least gone shopping if she was going to do that.

Seeing Betty like that, I had one point of doubt.

Did Adela Gilroy really intend to deceive me from the beginning?

“Wasn’t her retreat too bland for that?”

“This is why they say first impressions are important… What?”

“No, I mean Lady Gilroy. If she really intended to deceive me, would she have backed down so anticlimactically?”

No matter what, she seems smart enough.

When I muttered seriously, Betty also tilted her head.

“But isn’t it a bit much for her to act smart now that things have turned out this way?”

“Well. When her stepmother is ruining the plan? But she got out of it well last time. By pushing all the blame onto that stepmother.”

Even when I first asked to meet her, the Marchioness was consistently rude.

But Adela politely deflected and made this situation seem like her mother’s fault, implying she had no choice.

The same woman who did that suddenly acts dull?

I was pondering what her intentions could be when,

“Whoa, whoa!”

The carriage suddenly came to a halt.

The carriage clearly stopped abruptly, causing our bodies to sway greatly.

“What happened?”

“Di- did we get into an accident?”

Betty spoke while holding onto the carriage wall.

I also held onto the carriage wall and was about to call the coachman.

“Wa- wait! If you barge in like that…!”

The coachman’s startled voice and the sound of hurried footsteps, and then.

“Hello, Amelia.”

The one who burst in as the door flung open was someone I couldn’t even imagine.

“I never imagined you would be this rude.”

Inside the carriage that started moving again.

I spoke coldly while glaring at the person sitting across from me.

Then the intruder, Lloyd, who had been observing me the whole time, made a pitiful face.

“I’m sorry for startling you. But since I couldn’t meet you no matter what…”

“What reason do I have to meet separately with the Viscount?”

The more I think about it, the more he seems like a person with no consideration for me.

I sharply retorted while looking at him, who only thinks about himself in an irritating way.

“I thought you said you would respect my wishes before, but it turns out it was all a lie.”

Not long ago when we met, he acted cautiously as if he had committed a crime.

Saying there was no need to forgive him, that he was sorry to me.

He was someone who kept gauging my reaction.

Someone who always prioritized what he wanted and considered himself the most important suddenly changed, so I had my doubts.

Lamenting my own self for hesitating slightly at that change, I glared at him.

“Get out right now. I won’t tolerate any further rudeness.”

“I didn’t want to go this far either, Mel. But since you wouldn’t talk to me no matter what…”

“I’m not interested in what the Viscount has to say. And do I have to care about that?”

I firmly cut off his words.

Not only Lloyd but even Betty, who was standing by in case of emergency, could be felt looking at me with surprised faces.

If it were the old me, it would have been unimaginable.

Instead of being startled by that gaze and lowering myself like before, I dismissed Lloyd even more decisively.

“If you want to talk to me, go through the proper procedures, Viscount. There won’t be a second forgiveness.”

When I spoke coldly, Lloyd seemed genuinely taken aback.

If it were like usual, I would have been the first to try to appease him when he looked like that, but I wasn’t the me he remembered.

Lloyd, who had been carefully gauging my reaction and trying to continue the conversation somehow, moved his lips a few times before closing his mouth.

He seemed to realize I was utterly serious.

His expression gradually hardened, and although he tried to recover, I turned my gaze away and ignored him.

“Now that you understand, please leave, Viscount.”

“Do you really, really not want to talk to me, Mel? I’m sincerely, so curious about how you’re doing…”

Lloyd spoke in a pitiful tone.

Just like that night when I left for my honeymoon.

A face that the past me would have definitely listened to if I had seen it.

But I had nothing I was curious about from him.

Ah, there is one thing.

“Then can you answer one thing for me?”

“Yes, of course. Mel. Ask me anything.”

At my words that I had something to ask, his expression loosened.

The smile he made by raising the corners of his mouth seemed to have a faint glimmer of hope.

However, I had no intention of fulfilling his hope.

Not even a little bit.

“Don’t tell me, you also planted someone in my palace?”

If not, how did you know I would pass by here at this time?

So I asked a question he might not have really wanted to hear.

“…”

The hope that had flickered in his eyes vanished in an instant.

I met his darkened eyes without avoiding them.

I only told a very small number of people that I was going to the company.

Only Betty, the head maid of the detached palace, and the maid in charge of my room.

But how did he know and get on the carriage I was riding as if he had been waiting?

There are two possibilities.

Either he has a spy in the imperial palace, or.

“If not, could it be that the Viscount sent Lady Gilroy to the company?”

Either he led me to come out from the beginning.

If you think that way, it makes sense that Adela Gilroy, who seemed smart, suddenly acts foolishly.

If the purpose from the beginning was not to meet me.

If the purpose was simply to get me out of the palace and arrange a meeting that no one else would know about.

When I pointed that out, even Betty sitting next to me seemed surprised.

As if agreeing with my hypothesis, surprise filled Lloyd’s face.

As if he never thought I would catch on to that extent.

And that expression of his further dampened my mood.

He probably never considered.

What kind of person the woman who tried to cater to his whims every day really was.

What kind of education she received, what kind of person she was trying to become, and what kind of thinking she had.

To him, I was probably just a tool to achieve his goals and a mere chess piece.

The moment I confirmed that fact once again, ridiculously, my mood swirled even more unpleasantly than before.

“If you don’t get out right now, I will tell His Majesty that the Viscount harmed our company for this inspection.”

“Mel, that’s not what I…”

“Get out. Right now.”

This time, absolutely, no matter what happens.

I will not show him even the smallest piece of warmth.

It was regrettable that this was the only resolution I could make, but for now, I had to be satisfied.

For the sake of the greater revenge that will come in the future.