The chilly autumn weather, coupled with rain, exuded a bleak atmosphere.

Casius’s resolute gaze looked as if it would strip off her clothes at any moment.

Adeline also knew she needed to take off her damp, wet clothes.

Having removed everything except for her slip, Adeline hurriedly wrapped a blanket around herself, busy hiding her body.

Though it wasn’t the first time her body was seen, the unfamiliar environment and atmosphere made Adeline extremely embarrassed.

Casius strode towards Adeline’s side.

Adeline curled up tightly in embarrassment and stepped back.

Thud-

Tripping over the sofa, Adeline fell onto it.

As Casius approached even closer to her fallen on the sofa, Adeline tightly shut her eyes.

Flinch.

His ice-cold fingertips brushed Adeline’s nape.

Adeline shrank back greatly, but Casius merely turned away after covering her up to her neck with the blanket.

He was preoccupied with lighting the fireplace placed in one corner of the living room.

As if proving it hadn’t been lit all summer long, the fire wouldn’t catch easily.

Due to the high humidity from the continuous downpour, it took a long time for the fire to spread to the firewood.

During the time of struggle, Casius’s body grew colder and colder, but neither Casius nor Adeline realized this.

Embers began to rise in the fireplace.

Casius, seeming relieved, leaned his body against the sofa where Adeline was sitting.

As the cold subsided, Adeline became lost in thought.

“I said I didn’t need anything. I just said I needed you by my side.”

She was curious.

Did he know that she wasn’t pregnant?

Despite that, did he come to rescue her?

Continually glancing sideways at Casius, Adeline spoke up with difficulty.

“…Do you know?”

“Know what.”

As the firewood began to burn properly, the firelight flickered on Casius’s face.

He was leaning against the sofa with his eyes closed.

“Did you save me knowing? Do you know that I… didn’t?”

However, Adeline’s crawling voice didn’t reach Casius.

His consciousness had already dimmed to a mere thread.

After learning that Adeline had disappeared, Casius had searched the forest, heedless of the downpour.

When he discovered the blocked mine entrance connected to the forest path, he thought he’d go mad, fearing Adeline might have met with an accident in the landslide. He rather hoped she had entered this mine to shelter from the rain.

Then, the screams heard beyond the blocked entrance. To find her, if she was there, he had entered the mine through another entrance, circling around the forest path. All this time, he had been pushing his body to the limit, continuously exposed to the rain.

Casius’s consciousness, barely holding on, was gradually slipping away.

Adeline had no way of knowing Casius’s physical condition.

Adeline felt fear at his unresponsive state.

‘Did he rescue me without knowing?’

Adeline looked at Casius again.

He was still closing his eyes with a frown.

His consciousness, on the brink of fading, drifted further away, and Adeline, unaware of the situation, feared his lack of response.

The fear grew steadily. Tears began to form in Adeline’s eyes.

‘Because he doesn’t know I’m not pregnant. He saved me like this without knowing…’

She was not pregnant. She couldn’t even say it. Adeline didn’t have the courage to see him turn cold again, just as he had finally warmed up.

If he found out she wasn’t pregnant, it felt like they would return to those times when they despised each other.

Adeline’s face gradually turned as pale as a corpse.

Amidst Adeline’s confusion, his body suddenly swayed greatly and collapsed.

He fell on top of Adeline.

Adeline snapped to attention in surprise. The duke was letting out hot groans.

“Casius. Wake up!”

Suddenly, he collapsed onto Adeline’s thighs, who was sitting on the sofa, and couldn’t get up.

He kept letting out hot groans as if he was feeling very unwell.

“Are you alright? Mel. Try to wake up!”

Confused by the sudden situation, Adeline mixed up his names and blurted them out.

Adeline’s fingertips brushed against his forehead.

His body, which had been so cold in the mine, was now like a ball of fire.

“Don’t shake me. My head’s ringing.”

The duke, who briefly regained consciousness, grasped Adeline’s hand that was shaking him and turned his collapsed body to lean against the sofa.

“I’ll be fine after a short rest.”

Adeline took off the blanket she was covering herself with and covered him with it.

Struggling to hold onto consciousness, he tried to stop Adeline.

“You cover yourself. I’ll be fine soon.”

“…Stay still.”

To worry about her even in such a physical state.

Adeline ignored his words and lowered the blanket.

The duke, with his consciousness fading, finally couldn’t reject the blanket.

Because he fell asleep after those words.

Adeline carefully wrapped the blanket around the duke up to his neck.

She felt relieved as the duke’s furrowed brow gradually smoothed out, seeming to stabilize.

Was it the courage given by the night? Adeline spoke to him, who was unconscious.

“Do you know I’m not pregnant?”

“…”

“The whole situation was a misunderstanding. I didn’t know at first, then I found out, but I couldn’t bring myself to say it. So I ran away.”

She was pouring out her inner thoughts to him, who couldn’t hear.

Before she knew it, time had passed, and looking out the window, dawn was slowly breaking. Adeline gazed blankly at the duke.

If she was going to run away, now was the time.

A deep conflict arose in her heart. It was right to escape from this relationship that was wrong from the start.

Adeline turned her gaze to look at the duke. He still didn’t look in good condition.

‘Can I really abandon you?’

“Don’t run away from me.”

It was as if she could hear the words he had uttered in the cave, as if anticipating that she would leave again.

A heavy ache settled in a corner of her heart, like a stone had been placed there.

He was the person who had saved her from the mine and was now sick because of her. Although he had confined her like a cage, he was always someone who thought of Adeline’s well-being first.

Whether he was Mel or Casius.

“I didn’t intend to deceive you. That’s why I can’t stay by your side anymore.”

But when he knew everything, Adeline couldn’t be sure if Casius would still look at her.

Adeline had no certainty, no confidence.

Adeline didn’t want to be hurt again.

She chose to abandon before being abandoned.

The last chance given. If she was to run away, only this moment when the duke was sick would do.

“I’m really sorry.”

Casius curled his body deeply against the chills penetrating his entire body, then slowly lifted his eyelids.

As he shifted his body, the blanket that had been covering him slipped to the floor.

The blanket that had been put over him when he was sick.

In his sight were only the half-burnt pile of firewood and the fireplace, she was not there.

As Casius straightened his body, a throbbing headache rushed in, making him press his forehead.

“Ha…”

Last night came to mind.

The woman who had deceived him at the villa in the past.

Even though she had saved him when he was nearly killed by masked men in the hunting ground. Wasn’t she the woman who had deceived him when he had lost his memory?

The moment he saw that woman again in the duke’s residence, he was overwhelmed by tens of thousands of emotions.

Anger at being used for his true feelings, disgust.

And the possessiveness that boiled when he saw the woman he met again.

The more he tried to cage Adeline, the more she struggled. She was a woman with not a bit of docility like other noble daughters.

From the beginning, Casius hadn’t intended to act so overbearing.

He just couldn’t bear it when he saw Adeline, who had deceived him.

Just when he thought they had finally shaken off the resentment of the past days and started to look at each other properly.

To run away.

Who could understand Casius’s feelings when he entered the empty bedroom and swept his hand over the cold bed?

He felt like his vision was flickering with a sense of betrayal.

That’s how he began to search for Adeline, sending out people.

He searched like that, wandering the mountainside in the pouring rain, when he heard a scream.

It was a woman’s scream, but he instinctively knew it was Adeline.

He had found her like that.

Casius raised his head.

His gaze at the empty space beside him was extremely cold.

“Have you… run away again, Adeline.”

It wasn’t a state of panic like when he first learned that Adeline had run away from him.

Casius tightly gripped the blanket.

Gradually, anger lurked in his eyes as he looked down at the blanket.

To run away again, leaving him who had gone to save her through that rain.

He vaguely remembered Adeline speaking to him when he was burning with fever.

“The whole situation was a misunderstanding. I didn’t know at first, then I found out, but I couldn’t bring myself to say it. So I ran away.”

He thought that maybe Adeline might have feelings for him too.

That she might care for him as he had worried about her in the landslide.

“I. I didn’t intend to deceive you. That’s why I can’t stay by your side anymore.”

In fact, he had decided to be with her knowing everything.

He had even told her it was okay in response to her sad words, but she didn’t have the same feelings as him.

She was just a cunning and meticulous woman who was looking for a chance to run away while he was sick.

Casius didn’t know that his answer hadn’t reached Adeline.

Because it was words he had uttered in his mind due to his confused state.

Thus, his anger from misunderstanding grew even larger.

“Ha!”

A laugh burst through his lips.

What on earth had he expected from the daughter of the Credion viscounty?

Wasn’t Credion the most wicked family in the Soltarius Empire, skilled at using people?

From the start, her hiding in Horn’s villa must have been because she knew he was Duke Torpeo.

Even her time spent with him when he had lost his memory must have had some other ulterior motive.

As his thoughts settled like this, the smile disappeared from Casius’s face.

His heart froze cold with an endlessly rising sense of betrayal.

He stood up abruptly.

“I won’t forgive it twice.”

Adeline.

It doesn’t matter if the place you run away to is another empire, or even hell. Wherever it may be, I will chase you.

Casius moved towards the door of the villa, staggering and leaning against the wall.

He was still burning with fever as if his whole body was spewing fire.

Although every muscle in his body seemed to be screaming, Casius paid no heed.

He would return to the duke’s castle immediately and put out a wanted notice for Adeline.

“I’ll bring you before my eyes right away.”

I’ll make that brazen face kneel before me and stay only with me.

If she refuses, I’ll confine her in the bedroom, no, somewhere in the mansion.

If not that, I’ll make her stay by my side even if I have to make a child again. The corners of his mouth twisted.

It was when Casius placed his hand on the doorknob.

Creeak. Before he could open the door, the villa’s door began to open.

Casius frowned at the dazzling sunlight seeping through the slowly widening gap in the door.

Even in the glare invading his vision, a clearly approaching familiar figure, the woman he had been desperately searching for.

It was Adeline.