Despite the clear royal command, the flustered Countess and Duke Shale spoke out as if in difficulty.
“Do you think my words are mere requests?”
His much lower voice seemed to reflect his mood. The air inside the reception room froze instantly. Not only the Duke and the Countess, but even Roselin shivered in surprise under the cold stare of His Grace.
“Alright, everyone, please make some room for a moment.”
Gregory, the adjutant who had been quietly observing the situation, stepped forward to change the atmosphere. The three followed him out of the reception room.
The door of the reception room closed, and silence descended.
Caeron began to slowly stride with his long legs. As he approached, Idel tightly gripped her hands due to the tension rising from her toes.
“Are you going to keep standing like that? Sit.”
After breezing past her, Caeron sat down in front of the table. They were facing each other. After a moment of hesitation, she cautiously took her seat.
Although a table stood between them, his overwhelming presence filled the room. Her long eyelashes fluttered under his intense gaze.
Striving for calm, Idel started pouring tea into the empty cup in front of His Grace. Watching her precise movements, Caeron spoke.
“We meet again.”
At his words, her hand holding the teapot slightly shook. The Duke indeed remembered her.
“I was……rude last time.”
In fairness, His Grace was the first to be rude, but her action of firmly shaking off his hand and rushing off was indeed against etiquette.
“Your first impression that day was quite memorable. Your audacious behavior, that is.”
“……Forgive my rudeness.”
“I’m not interested in an apology, especially for a mere fight. But… you seem different today.”
“……!”
“You didn’t seem like a docile woman who would accept an unwanted marriage so readily.”
Idel’s eyes started to flutter like leaves shaking in the wind.
“Do you want to get out? From the marriage with Duke Shale?”
At his direct question, Idel was momentarily speechless. Of course, she wanted to get out. Recalling Duke Shale’s vulgar and lustful gaze directed at her earlier made her shudder.
She had to endure and bear these moments of insult for now, but once she gets accepted to the university, she would be able to find a way out. There was no need to explain that to him.
“……It’s my problem to solve.”
“A solution…… You seem to have a plan.”
Caeron’s long, firm fingers gently stroked the smooth handle of the teacup. As he casually lifted the teacup, he spoke.
“Perhaps, like getting admission to the Imperial University. Is that the plan you’ve thought of?”
“……!”
Idel’s eyes widened in surprise. Her eyes questioned how he knew that. Seeing her reaction, a faint smile appeared on Caeron’s lips.
“Well. Even if you do get admission to the university, wouldn’t you need help to become independent from your family?”
“……Even so, it’s my problem to solve.”
His faint smile vanished. He didn’t like the obstinate woman, who seemed like a lost child, insisting on drawing the line that it was her problem to solve to the very end.
The feeling of suffocation hit him suddenly, causing him to take a deep breath. The scent of the tea he’d deliberately inhaled had faded, and her fragrance had become more potent. It was the same aroma that had been stimulating him ever since he arrived at this mansion.
‘Really, it’s so annoying….’
At first, he had hoped not to meet the woman who incited unnecessary emotions. He’d made an effort to let her go during their first meeting, that’s why….
Chasing the traces she had left led him eventually to the countess’s estate.
Facing her presence once again tested his patience. Not only her mysteriously alluring fragrance, but also the undisclosed deal involving her in the count’s house.
The moment he heard that the Duke of Shalle was marrying her, Caeron could barely suppress the urge to throttle the snakelike duke.
Was it the sixth time…? The Duke of Shalle was taking girls as young as his daughter as brides. Any aristocrat of the count’s level would know well the duke’s secret rumors. Still, the countess intended to pass off her daughter as a matter of honor.
Through dialogues and atmosphere alone, he quickly grasped the situation. He also understood why she had to take the Imperial College exam. He could deliver the coveted Imperial College certificate of top graduation, but that alone wasn’t enough.
‘I need to…keep her close.’
Initially, like Gregory’s wish, he thought of appointing her as an assistant to the duke…. But he wanted to bring her more securely into his domain, to help her escape this place that drove her to the edge.
Having her by his side was also a choice for him. If there was something disturbing his life, which was dull to the point of languor, he had one of two options.
‘To completely eliminate it, or to completely possess it.’
This time, he chose the latter. If he couldn’t erase her presence completely, he decided to keep her close and control her. Surely, the scent that attracted him to her would eventually get tiresome with constant exposure.
“I have a proposition for you.”
To do so, it was necessary to open the heart of the woman who seemed like a hidden bud. The shrewd negotiator who always got what he wanted stared straight at his target sitting in front of him.
Ex-husband Wants Reconciliation
One-line summary: Chasing the wife to the crematorium (making an effort to attract someone who has become indifferent), the female lead doesn’t look back, the second male lead takes the position.
Intro:
To repay the kindness of the older generation, Su Mu crossed into a female-dominated world and became a live-in daughter-in-law of the Yan family, single-handedly saving the Yan family from fire and water.
But her husband, Yan Jiyue, the eldest son of the Yan family, treated her with sarcasm and never showed her a good face.
It wasn’t until after Su Mu’s death that this pampered and arrogant young master shed a few fake tears and pretended to want to die for love.
This life’s kindness was enough. If there was a next life, she would definitely kick Yan Jiyue away.
Who knew that the heavens would be so kind as to allow her to be reborn, returning to the time when she had just married into the Yan family.
Su Mu glanced at the Yan eldest son, who still spoke coldly to her, and threw a divorce letter in front of him.
“Let’s divorce!”
***
Yan Jiyue never imagined that he would be reborn. He happily went to find Su Mu, wanting to make up for the mistakes he had made in his ignorant youth.
Wasn’t the reason the heavens allowed him to be reborn to let him reconcile with Su Mu?
But when he pushed open the door to Su Mu’s room, the person lying on the bed was another man.
Su Mu’s personal attendant, Xie Yi.
Yan Jiyue hated him so much that his teeth itched. In front of Su Mu, Xie Yi was a gentle and considerate whisperer of sweet nothings, but in reality, he was vicious-hearted and deliberately sabotaged their husband and wife relationship.
In the previous life, it was he who secretly hid in Su Mu’s coffin and committed suicide, stealing a step ahead of him to be buried with Su Mu.
Yan Jiyue’s eyes were filled with hatred as he cursed, “What kind of thing are you? Your background is lowly, what right do you have to occupy Su Mu?”
Xie Yi looked at the sleeping Su Mu and no longer pretended to be a whisperer of sweet nothings.
He proudly stuck out his belly, “I have the right because my belly is capable of giving the Wife-master a daughter.”
***
Yan Jiyue was consumed with jealousy. He spread rumors that Xie Yi had once been branded with the mark of a “harlot” on his chest.
But on the night Xie Yi cut off the flesh bearing that mark, Su Mu suddenly realized something was amiss.
“How did you know the exact moment I was poisoned? And why did you show up a month early?”
Xie Yi remained silent, blood from his wound soaking through his robes. His sapphire eyes brimmed with anguish – or was it just a flawless act?
Between a once-arrogant husband now seeking redemption, and a gentle soul willing to die for her – who truly held the darkest secrets? And could it be that Su Mu and Yan Jiyue weren’t the only ones given a second chance at life…?
[Reading Guide]
1. True divorce, chasing the wife to the crematorium, the female lead doesn’t look back, the male lead is Xie Yi.
2. The ex-husband did not cheat, he just realized too late and didn’t realize that he liked the female lead.
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