“Speak quickly, Clea. Don’t test my patience any further.”

Putting down her teacup, Clea looked at Lloyd.

When their cold eyes met, Lloyd flinched but quickly regained his composure and didn’t avert his gaze from Clea.

Clea felt the chronic migraine that had developed since her possession flaring up again.

“Even if I speak, will you listen? You’ve already convinced yourself of something. No matter what I say, that thought won’t change.”

She had no intention of denying the night spent with another man.

There wasn’t enough feeling left between them to even bother with an emotional argument.

So instead of explaining, she quietly looked at him and reflected on her position.

As usual, people would blame her rather than Lloyd.

They would say how could she have a tryst with another man while having a fiancé.

‘Even though Lloyd had been fooling around with other women for years while having a fiancée.’

For Clea, being criticized by people was nothing new.

She thought little of it as she watched Lloyd’s expression contort even more upon hearing her response.

Seeing his distorted expression, Clea felt oddly pleased and felt like she might laugh.

“Since I don’t give you affection, are you now craving it from some random person?”

“You’re wrong. I haven’t craved your terrible affection at all for years now.”

“Who was it that clung to me so persistently? And who kept demanding an engagement with our family?”

“I’ve been telling you since then. I’m sick of you. You must be sick of me too, so I said let’s break off the engagement.”

It was something she had been saying consistently for years. Ever since her possession.

At first, he thought she was just trying to get attention, but as she kept insisting on breaking off the engagement, his attitude changed.

Now he was trying to cling to this pointless relationship, just like this.

Faced with a situation that wouldn’t change at all no matter how she tried to overturn people’s perceptions, Clea let everything go.

She became certain that no matter what she did, they would never change in the end.

After that realization, she tried to cut off relationships one by one.

Family, the tiresome connection with Aria.

And among them, the relationship she most wanted to sever was with the man in front of her.

“Go to Aria Hersher, whom you’re dying for.”

It was a quiet warning not to drag her into that sickening melodrama.

But this tactless man seemed to think Clea’s warning was nonsense, and instead grinned even more.

“Are you doing this now to get my attention?”

Clea was dumbfounded by the arrogant smile and response. She really didn’t know where to begin correcting him.

While Clea was unable to respond to such nonsense, Lloyd seemed to take that as confirmation.

Not wanting to cause any unnecessary misunderstandings, Clea looked at the tea in her cup for a moment.

Regretting that the tea had already cooled while they were talking, she poured it directly on Lloyd.

Faced with the sudden situation, Lloyd’s eyes showed clear signs of bewilderment.

But Clea spoke to Lloyd with a calmer gaze than ever before.

“Is this also to get your attention?”

“Clea Odoi!”

Drenched in tea, he shouted her name loudly.

Seeing the uneasy eyes watching from afar waver, Clea inwardly clicked her tongue.

She felt like sighing at the thought that her family would soon hear about this, but now she had to face the reality before her eyes.

Clea smiled as she saw Lloyd approaching while huffing and puffing.

“Let’s break up, Lloyd. I have no memory of ever liking someone like you.”

With those final one-sided words, she turned and disappeared.

Lloyd wanted to run after her and grab her wrist right away.

However, being the aristocrat he was, he wanted to deal with his ridiculous appearance first.

The tea from the small cup had completely soaked his top.

“I’ll make you regret this absolutely.”

If Clea had heard, she would have thought this:

Why are there so many people going on about regret?

As Lloyd whispered in the place Clea had left, he had to be thankful she didn’t hear.

If she had heard those words, Clea would have slapped his face too.

But Clea, who had already left, couldn’t have heard those words.

Lloyd bit his lip hard and quickly left the duke’s residence.

* * *

‘What’s the reason for not agreeing to break off the engagement?’

When she had been refused the breakup a few times, Clea thought it was because his pride was hurt at being dumped by her.

So she had tried advising him once.

To go ahead and announce the breakup himself so that she could be thoroughly humiliated.

It might be considered a very dishonorable thing for nobles, but to Clea who was waiting for death, their talk of honor was useless.

She wanted to be comfortable. From all of this.

‘It’s already a three-way situation, I don’t want to get involved too.’

In the end, the original work heads towards a love triangle.

The male lead who becomes emperor, Lloyd who becomes a grand duke, and Aria who is a duke’s daughter like Clea.

Originally it would be a four-way relationship, but Clea, who didn’t like Lloyd, didn’t want to get involved in the three people’s passionate drama.

Even without being involved there, life was miserable and painful.

Her mind and body were already exhausted.

‘At least yesterday was a bit enjoyable.’

Clea recalled what she had tasted yesterday.

Taking a man she thought she would never share a bed with just hours before.

He always looked at others indifferently with a coldly set face.

The sound of his breathing when she left her mark on his neck, the expression he showed as he clung to her desperately, were hard to imagine from his usual self.

For the first time since falling into this world, Clea felt the pleasure, and for the first time regretted her impending death.

“If I die, will I be able to return to the original world?”

Clea couldn’t find meaning in this world she was suddenly possessed into while falling asleep.

It wasn’t a work she had read with any particular affection anyway.

Just as she was smiling at the thought of leaving a good final memory, someone roughly opened her room door.

“You, what on earth did you do to Lloyd!”

“I thought I said it’s not proper to open a lady’s room without permission.”

“Lady? To hell with lady!”

Clea furrowed her brow as she saw who had entered.

“Because of you, the Percy family is reconsidering their investment! What are you going to do about this!”

‘To act like this as soon as he returns.’

Lloyd was always like this.

On the day Clea declared breaking off the engagement, he put pressure on the Odoi family that Clea belonged to in this way.

Although the Odoi family was also a high-ranking ducal family.

Duke Odoi had been constantly carrying out money-eating projects at Lloyd’s instigation, and now it was impossible to maintain the business without the support of the Percy family.

Every time this happened, Clea went through the same thing.

“Come down to the dining room quickly. Right now!”

Steve Odoi, her older brother and the rightful heir to the Odoi family, shouted at Clea and went out.

Clea, who was looking on with salty eyes, pondered.

If she threw this body out of the terrace right now, how would their future change?

But she quickly dismissed the thought.

Not only did she think it was too wasteful to throw away her life because of them, but her room was on the second floor.

She finished thinking that throwing herself from just the second floor would obviously end with just broken bones.

She got up from her seat.

The idea of locking the door and holding out was also very clumsy, as they would just open it with a key and come in.

In other words, there was nothing she could do in this house.

‘If I don’t go out, someone will drag me out.’

Once, she had chosen to starve.

She thought it would be worth it if she didn’t have to face them in exchange for starving.

But Duke Odoi dragged her to the dining room and sat her down even when she chose to starve.

As Clea thought, they didn’t choose to come to her room to talk.

They didn’t find a reason to take the time to come to her room.

Because Clea felt uncomfortable with someone touching her body, she decided to move herself, pretending to give in.

When she arrived at the dining room, a middle-aged man with silver hair the same color as Clea’s was sitting at the head of the table, with Steve sitting next to him.

They didn’t give Clea any attention even when she arrived.

Clea felt most suffocated during this time.

She remembered a passage she had read in the novel.

[They only treated Clea as a member of the Odoi family when she talked about Lloyd.]

This one sentence gave a rough idea of how she had spent her life.

Being ignored, used as a tool for the family. That’s what she actually experienced after the possession.

But the feeling ended there.

Since it wasn’t her own life anyway, there was no need to care that much.

In a novel that was simply read hoping the female lead would be happy, the role of the villainess was to show how miserably she falls.

The life of a villainess abandoned by her family, betrayed by her fiancé, and finally losing everything.

Having experienced a bit of that, Clea felt like she might retch at the bitter memory.

“Where were you last night?”

The conversation started as soon as she sat down.

The voice was very cold.

So cold it was hard to believe these were the first words to his daughter.

Clea shifted her gaze to where the voice was coming from.

Meeting the blue eyes with silver hair, Clea smiled and said.

“I was with His Highness the Crown Prince.”

“Pfft, you?”

“…This doesn’t seem to be the time for jokes.”

She inwardly sneered.

At them thinking she was lying even when she told the truth honestly.

Surely they too must have heard the rumors that were slowly spreading.

But their eyes still showed that they didn’t believe it in the end.

Clea also didn’t think they would believe her.

Other than attending the academy together, there was no connection between her and Admund.

Thinking Clea was telling an ridiculous lie, Duke Grit Odoi asked Clea again in a stern voice.

“Who were you with last night?”

It was filled with a feeling of final warning, but.

“I told you. I was staying at the imperial palace.”

Clea’s answer didn’t change.

Only then did Grit take his eyes off the food and look at Clea.