Rosette bit her cherry-like lips until they turned pale white.
‘Those people are not family.’
Once, she considered them family. No, to be precise, she tried to fit into their category of ‘family’.
As if the Duke of Dallas knew her thoughts, he would whisper sweet words when she seemed tired.
– Yes, that’s my daughter.
Whenever Rosette heard those words, she thought she had now become part of their family.
But she realized she had been completely deceived.
‘That’s not family.’
If the Duke of Dallas had truly loved her like a daughter, like Elisha whom he loved dearly, he wouldn’t have made her do such things.
But the Adrians were different. They never forced Rosette to do anything. Rather, they even sacrificed for her.
How could Adrian and Dallas be compared on the same level?
“I was never a Dallas. The Duke of Dallas is not my father.”
“But I remember the Duke of Dallas doting on you.”
“That was just because he was worried I might run away. That person just used me. That can’t be family, can it?”
Rosette shuddered. Joshua watched her seriously as he thought.
‘She has certainly changed.’
Rosette had changed so much that she seemed like a completely different person from the one he had seen in the past.
Seeing her react like this, it seemed unlikely she would ever join hands with the Duke of Dallas again, even if they were to meet in the future.
‘Still, it feels uneasy to keep her in Adrian.’
Joshua made a proposal to Rosette, who was trembling slightly.
“Then how about leaving for a place where you won’t have to meet the Duke of Dallas?”
“What?”
“Didn’t you say last time that you didn’t want to be involved with the Duke of Dallas at first?”
He continued without giving Rosette a chance to refute.
“I intend to pay you sufficiently for helping me. I’ll make sure you can live comfortably for the rest of your life even if you leave the Adrian family.”
“……”
“I’ll buy you a mansion wherever you want, and let you receive any education you desire. I’ll assign trustworthy staff. When you reach marriageable age, I’ll find you a suitable groom. Besides that, I’ll give you a separate generous reward.”
It was an exceptional offer. As he said, with that, she could live as luxuriously as she did in Adrian.
No, objectively, she could live even more comfortably. Because there would be no need to get involved in troublesome matters.
But…
“I didn’t choose to stay in Adrian just to live comfortably. I told you. I want to protect my family safely as an Adrian.”
“Of course, I plan to keep the Adrian family safe too. Isn’t that enough?”
“But…!”
All her rebuttals were blocked.
Rosette gripped her skirt tightly with both hands, trying to think of another reason, but couldn’t come up with anything plausible.
Even if she did, it was clear that Joshua’s logic would block them all.
Still, she didn’t want to leave.
“I…”
Rosette revealed her last sincere feeling.
“I love Adrian.”
“…?”
“So I want to keep staying here. There’s no other reason. It’s just how I feel.”
Joshua quietly listened to her words. Encouraged by this, she spoke haphazardly.
“Of course, as Your Highness said, I could live a life others would envy. But my family wouldn’t be there, would they?”
Rosette placed her right hand over her left chest. She could feel her heart beating pleasantly under her palm.
“So I want to keep living here with my family.”
Joshua stared blankly at Rosette.
She wore an expression he had never seen before. It was resolute, yet at the same time, she seemed happy just thinking about her family.
‘Originally, I was going to try to drive her out somehow…’
Even when he gave her a grace period, he had intended to definitely remove Rosette from Adrian.
If she succeeded in saving Ophelia, he would give her an appropriate reward, and if not, she would leave empty-handed.
He thought it was fine since he never promised to let Rosette stay in Adrian permanently anyway.
But his heart softened a little when he saw Rosette’s behavior at the Empress’s Palace. Because she acted with genuine sincerity.
And now his heart wavered again.
‘Moreover, my master seems to care for that child more than I thought. If she disappears, he’d search for her no matter what it takes.’
Joshua unknowingly began to rationalize his own actions.
“Alright.”
“If you give me just one more chance… What?”
“I said alright.”
Rosette blinked, not understanding his words.
“Then…?”
“I’ll extend the grace period a bit more.”
“Then how long?”
“For now, it’s undecided.”
Joshua smirked.
“I’ll be watching, and if you do anything foolish, I’ll drive you out mercilessly by any means necessary.”
It’s a difficult thing. The longer Rosette stays in Adrian, the harder it will be to send her away.
Yet Joshua decided to let her stay. It was an emotional decision that even he couldn’t understand the reason for.
“Eek!”
Rosette, who had been extremely tense, raised both hands high in the air.
“Pipi, did you hear? His Highness said I can stay in the Adrian family!”
[Beep! Beep!]Pipi, sharing Rosette’s joy, hopped up and down on the wolf’s head.
“Are you that happy?”
“Yes, of course!”
Rosette clenched her fists.
“I’ll really do well. I won’t do anything foolish, and I’ll keep the Duke of Dallas away from now on. I’ll protect Her Majesty the Empress too, and I’ll protect my family!”
She exclaimed excitedly.
“And Your Highness too…!”
“…Me? What are you going to do with me?”
Rosette, realizing what she had said, unclenched her fists.
“Ahem, hem. Just saying.”
She absolutely couldn’t say that she was going to protect Joshua.
Joshua’s eyes narrowed. Rosette slowly backed away towards the wolf.
“You’re happy too, aren’t you, wolf?”
The wolf answered by nuzzling its muzzle against Rosette’s cheek. Afraid that Joshua might persistently question her, Rosette changed the subject completely.
“By the way, Your Highness, why are you keeping it a secret that you summoned a familiar?”
He looked at Rosette somewhat disdainfully.
“How do you think people would react if someone who showed no signs of summoning a familiar until yesterday suddenly summons one?”
“Oh, they’d be very surprised.”
“And?”
“They might wonder if you did something bad to summon a familiar.”
“Yes, that’s right. So I’m waiting for the right time.”
“Ah, I see.”
Rosette nodded.
“Then at what age did you originally summon your familiar?”
“Fourteen.”
“That’s quite early.”
“I don’t think you’re in a position to say that. At what age did you summon your familiar?”
“Eleven. I created my mana core when I was nine.”
Joshua didn’t offer words of praise. However, his slightly widened eyes revealed that he was surprised.
Rosette was modest.
“It’s not that impressive.”
Joshua let out a laugh.
“I didn’t say it was impressive.”
Then he asked in return.
“But why did you summon your familiar right away? Didn’t you think everyone would be suspicious?”
“I did.”
“Then why did you summon it? Did you want to be called a genius?”
“No!”
Rosette quickly denied.
“I just! I wanted to protect big brother Daniel!”
Surprised by the unexpected answer, Joshua closed his mouth tightly. Rosette, who had plopped down on a tree stump, swung her legs back and forth as she continued to explain.
“As Your Highness knows, originally big brother Daniel had a carriage accident and injured his leg. I wanted to prevent that. But since it was before I was adopted into the Dallas family, I didn’t know exactly when and how it would happen. I roughly found the spy from the Dallas family that I had seen in the past, but that wasn’t enough.”
“So?”
“So I summoned Pipi. I needed Pipi to follow the spy. Besides, you can use higher-level magic once you summon a familiar, right? In the worst case, I wanted to heal big brother if his leg became lame.”
“……”
“In reality, thanks to Pipi, I was able to resolve the accident. It was a bit unexpected that it was aimed at Father, not big brother Daniel, but anyway, I’m glad I was able to resolve it well. So I think it was fortunate that I summoned Pipi as early as possible.”
Rosette hastily added.
“Ah, of course, I saved Her Majesty the Empress too.”
[Beep!]Pipi once again proudly boasted of its achievement.
“And I missed Pipi. It’s my only friend.”
[Beep.]Pipi affectionately rubbed its face against Rosette’s cheek.
Bursting into laughter, Rosette asked Joshua again.
“Isn’t that why Your Highness summoned your familiar too? Because you missed your friend?”
Instead of answering, Joshua just shrugged. Rosette, who had expected him to deny it with a sneer, was a bit taken aback by this unexpected response.
“Did Your Highness really miss the wolf too?”
“……”
Realizing that he would never answer, Rosette changed the subject.
“Come to think of it, Your Highness. What’s the name of your familiar?”
“Name?”
“Yes, name. You can’t keep calling it ‘wolf’ forever, can you? Actually, I asked the wolf its name, but I couldn’t understand what it said.”
Joshua made a face as if he had heard something strange.
“There’s no such thing as a name.”
“Why not?”
This time, Rosette’s eyes widened as if she had heard something absurd.
For a moment, the two looked at each other silently with faces that needed understanding.
Joshua was the first to break the silence.
“Does a familiar need a name?”
“Of course! A familiar is a friend! You should definitely give a friend a name!”
Rosette tickled Pipi’s chin.
“As you already know, my familiar’s name is Pipi. I named it Pipi because it chirps ‘beep beep’. Big brother Lucas, not knowing this, calls Pipi ‘Piyaki’ while I’m asleep. Big brother Lucas is stupid.”
[Beep!]That’s right, he’s stupid. Pipi agreed.
“So? Are you really going to just call the wolf ‘wolf’?”
Rosette looked up at Joshua with sparkling eyes. It meant he should quickly name the wolf.
Joshua found her ridiculous.
‘She’s fearless.’
The child who used to tremble when they first met was now gone.
Rosette now treated Joshua very comfortably. Until now, only Daniel had treated him like this.
‘But it’s not bad.’
He let out a chuckle.
__________
Ex-husband Wants Reconciliation (Female-dominant)
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.
Synopsis:
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.
He even had his eyes on another woman.
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.
Su Mu expressed her disdain.
This life’s kindness was enough. If there was a next life, she would definitely kick Yan Jiyue away.
She also wanted to embrace Xie Yi, who had silently stayed by her side in her previous life and committed suicide by taking poison after her death.
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.”
[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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