“I think it would be meaningless if it’s not you, my lady…”

Johannes’ voice was soft, but audible in the quiet surroundings. However, Riena pretended not to hear it.

Fortunately, Johannes changed the subject.

“Speaking of which, I was quite surprised when I first saw you at the party, my lady.”

“Me? Why?”

“You look very much like someone I know.”

He touched around his neck, then pulled out a locket necklace hidden inside his clothes. He opened the locket and showed it to Riena.

Inside was a portrait of a woman.

She was a blonde woman with blue eyes, and apart from the different eye color, she had a strikingly similar appearance to Riena. At first glance, one could believe it was Riena’s portrait.

Even considering that the small size of the picture could make it different from reality, the resemblance was astonishing.

Noticing Riena’s shock, Johannes asked subtly.

“She looks similar, doesn’t she?”

“Well… Yes. Surprisingly so.”

“It’s my late mother.”

“The Viscountess Belliard…?”

“Yes.”

Johannes looked down at the portrait with a strange expression.

“It’s a known story among those who know, but she wasn’t my birth mother. I’m from a collateral branch of the Belliard family. I was adopted by the Viscount when I was young.”

This was the first time Riena had heard this story. No one had ever told her, and since her only peer friend in such matters was Raoul, who was clueless about these things, she had no way of knowing.

However, Johannes’ story was more burdensome than interesting.

Riena was not naturally inclined to be interested in other people’s gossip, and right now, she had enough on her mind with her own affairs and Cassel’s.

With so many issues to resolve right in front of her, she didn’t want to shoulder other people’s worries and concerns.

To be more honest, she didn’t want to become close enough to Johannes to exchange such personal stories.

But she couldn’t bring herself to tell him to his face that she didn’t want to hear his story.

As Riena reluctantly maintained her silence, Johannes’ explanation continued.

“Although she wasn’t my birth mother, I cared for her deeply. After all, I don’t even know my birth mother’s face, so she was as good as my only mother.”

“…”

“Then, when I was 15, she suddenly passed away. Honestly, it was very difficult. I tried to endure, tried to smile as if nothing was wrong in front of others, but it wasn’t as easy as I thought.”

Johannes’ story strangely overlapped with Cassel’s.

Cassel, who lost his beloved brother overnight, and Johannes, who similarly suddenly lost his cherished adoptive mother.

Clearly, both were unfortunate circumstances. Yet, strangely, Riena felt an odd sense of dissonance throughout listening to Johannes’ story.

‘Is he really grieving?’

When talking about Asher, Cassel tried to act calm. However, his eyes held a sadness that couldn’t be completely hidden.

But Johannes was somehow different from Cassel.

He said he was sad, but he somehow seemed happy, or maybe angry…

‘Don’t think unnecessary thoughts.’

No matter how eerie Johannes appeared in her dreams, it wasn’t right to condemn his feelings right in front of her.

Riena, who had been pressing her lips together, muttered out of a suddenly guilty conscience.

“It must have been very hard for you. I recently lost my father suddenly too, so I understand how you must have felt. It’s sad and terrible.”

It wasn’t intended to form a bond with him, just an apology for her impure thoughts that Johannes didn’t know about.

Johannes looked down at Riena, who had lowered her head, and smiled. However, his eyes were not smiling.

“Yes. It was terribly awful.”

When Riena raised her head again, Johannes’ expression had already returned to normal.

He continued to explain.

“Then I saw you at a party, my lady.”

“…”

“At first, I was really surprised, thinking my mother had come back to life. That’s how much you resemble my late mother. Of course, I soon realized it wasn’t her because you’re younger and your eye color is different, but I still felt a strange attraction.”

“So that’s why you approached me for a conversation.”

Riena recalled the situation at the time.

It was her first party in the capital. Having only lived in the south, Riena knew almost no one in the capital.

At first, people approached her out of curiosity about her appearance. Some seemed to have fantasies about the southern region. There were also men who openly flirted with her.

When Riena spoke a bit directly to such a man, fewer people approached her after that. Some whispered that she couldn’t speak like a noble because she was from the south.

Still, after talking with a group of like-minded people, she got tired and went out to the terrace alone, and that’s when Johannes approached her first.

He had been the center of attention since he appeared in the hall, and people focused on his actions.

But there was nothing special. People seemed to expect something more grand, but what Riena shared with him was just ordinary conversation.

About what kind of place Dyke in the south was, how she felt about coming to the capital, and such.

‘Back then, I thought he was just being considerate, deliberately speaking to someone who didn’t fit in well.’

Since Johannes was kind to everyone, she thought he couldn’t bear to watch someone he just met struggling to fit in.

Johannes readily agreed.

“Yes. I was curious about what kind of person you were, resembling my mother.”

“So, how was it?”

“To be honest, although you resemble my mother greatly, your personality isn’t very similar. Ah, of course, I don’t mean that in a bad way.”

“Then?”

“At first, I approached you because you resembled my mother, but gradually, I became curious about you. After that, well, you know what happened.”

Johannes shrugged his shoulders. Then he smiled a somewhat bitter smile.

“I want to wish for your happiness.”

“…Thank you.”

“But if something were to happen, if your heart were to change, please think of me then. I will always be here waiting for you.”

Johannes once again kissed the back of Riena’s hand.

Riena, no longer confident in staying with him, excused herself saying she had to go. Only later did she realize she had fled in the opposite direction because Johannes was blocking the way to the hall.

Johannes Belliard watched Riena going deeper into the garden. As much as he wanted to chase after her and satisfy his desires, he barely suppressed his instincts.

It wasn’t time yet. He couldn’t reveal his true self until he had completely obtained Riena. If he wasn’t careful, she might sense danger and run far away.

Johannes smiled coldly as he recalled Riena fleeing earlier, avoiding his approach. He had thought she was naive, but she was unexpectedly cautious.

Paradoxically, that made his body react even more.

The sight of a woman who had shown her claws crumbling and begging beneath him would be more thrilling than taming an obedient woman.

Sadism, that was the true heart that Johannes hid behind his mask.

It wasn’t so much an innate personality as a taste that developed during his upbringing.

Unknown to anyone, Johannes was the illegitimate child of Viscount Belliard. Born to a maid, he was originally destined to wallow at the bottom of society.

In fact, he did wallow in the gutter until he was 7 years old. His birth mother died shortly after giving birth to him, and her husband despised Johannes. The reason was that no matter how he looked at it, the child didn’t seem to be his seed.

At the time, Johannes, unaware of the truth of his birth, couldn’t understand such a father, but in reality, he was the Viscount’s son, so his father’s instinct was frighteningly accurate.

Anyway, Johannes lived as the son of a blacksmith.

Then one day, a noble gentleman came. To be precise, he was one of the officials working for the Viscount’s house, so he wasn’t actually a noble, but to Johannes’ eyes, the man in clean and luxurious clothes looked like a nobleman.

The man asked Johannes various questions about his birth mother, then suddenly had him kidnapped by a knight. Johannes was helplessly stuffed into a carriage.

Even though a child was being openly kidnapped in broad daylight, no one helped.

They didn’t want to get into trouble with the nobility, and they were too tired to directly intervene to help someone.

Also, such scenes were common in the back alleys.

Johannes didn’t know why, but he thought he was being taken to an unknown place to die. So he pounded on the carriage window until his fists bled, screaming for help.

However, where he actually ended up was a mansion so large it made his eyes widen.

The man grabbed Johannes by the scruff of his neck and entered the mansion. The place Johannes was dragged to was a room so splendid it made his eyes spin.

Everything was gilded, and vivid paintings adorned the ceiling.

And waiting for him in that room was a woman.