“I thought I wouldn’t have to go out today because it looked like it would rain.”

In that brief moment, rain was pouring from the sky. The sound of raindrops lashing against the windows like whips filled the room. Emilia turned her head to the side after looking at the water-covered window. Her gaze met Enrico’s purple eyes, which had been watching her.

Beautiful and handsome in appearance, but the eyes of this man whose inner thoughts were unknowable were strangely chilling.

“A few days ago you acted like you knew your place clearly, but why did you do that today?”

Emilia’s eyes trembled briefly. She had felt it before, but he seemed to know her every move too well. She thought he might just be getting reports from Zabeta, but he seemed to know everything beyond that, making her wonder if he had someone following her.

“Is this because I met with His Highness the Crown Prince?”

Enrico’s eyes narrowed. Whether it was because he didn’t expect her to admit it so readily, or because he didn’t like that she met Alessandro, she wasn’t sure, but since he seemed to already know everything, she just blurted it out without holding back.

“His Highness summoned me, so I had no choice. Am I in a position to refuse a royal summons?”

Her startled heart calmed, and her eyes looking up at him soon grew quiet as well.

Her curiosity about what Alessandro would say wasn’t that important. After all, he had first asked to meet at the party, and then even sent a letter this morning, so of course she had to go meet him – there was no other option.

Now as she wondered what Enrico would say next, if he would ask what they talked about since his people couldn’t have followed into the restaurant, she suddenly realized something she hadn’t thought of earlier.

‘Come to think of it, how did His Highness know our home address to send the letter?’

Emilia’s eyes narrowed slightly. When they met, he had said he hadn’t looked into her separately or anything, but was that just empty words and this level of background investigation was standard for royalty?

For all his pretenses of kindness, he didn’t seem much different from Enrico.

No, but what was it about Enrico that she should be wary of? The only thing she could deceive him about was her parents’ death. But if he hadn’t investigated separately, he shouldn’t know the details about this, so it probably wasn’t that.

Could it be that he was worried she might develop feelings for him?

‘Me, for this man…?’

Emilia stared at Enrico in disbelief. Enrico’s eyes, which had been quietly gazing down at her, curved languidly. It seemed somewhat different from the smiles she had seen before, giving off a slightly erotic vibe.

“Don’t get distracted. I wonder how long this will remain just a warning.”

Impossible. It can’t be. Emilia’s brow furrowed gently at his words, which carried a sense of possessiveness.

“…I’ve never been distracted, so there’s no need for warnings.”

“Is that so? Then give me a reason I can accept. A reason why you not only received a whispered invitation from the Crown Prince but actually met with him.”

It seems he had clearly heard Alessandro’s whispered words as he passed by at the masquerade ball, though she thought he hadn’t heard. Emilia blinked in surprise, then finally let out a sigh.

“He told me about Count Valmont. He said I seemed interested in the Count, so he wanted to tell me about him.”

“What exactly?”

“The fact that Uncle Giorgio had met with Count Valmont. Did you know about this, Your Grace?”

“Not everything, just suspicions?”

Enrico turned his body slightly towards her and crossed his legs. Her eyes briefly darted to his knee that lightly touched hers, then looked back up at him.

“What kind of suspicions?”

“I heard that Giorgio’s subordinate and Valmont’s were acquaintances who met at gambling dens, so there was some connection.”

Suddenly, what gambling den? This was the first she’d heard of Giorgio frequenting gambling dens, so Emilia’s eyes widened greatly as if to ask what he meant.

“That subordinate often contacts Giorgio at the gambling den, but we’ll have to investigate further to know what kind of conversations they have. I could easily give you information like ‘they just know each other’ too. But you want something more definitive, don’t you?”

How could someone like that give her just a little information about Count Valmont last time and then suddenly want to go to the ball? It was exasperating. As if he was trying to separate himself from Alessandro.

“I told you before that Valmont was aiming for investment rights. Don’t we need to find out if he approached Giorgio for that, or if it was from before?”

“…Then when will the results of that investigation be available?”

“Well. We’ll have to wait and see for a while. Ah, but I’ve told you too much. It looks like I’m going to suffer a great loss because of some jackal.”

Enrico rested his chin on one hand, draping his arm over the back of the sofa. His relaxed attitude somehow made her blood boil. It felt like he was mocking her while holding her weaknesses, and it made her angry.

Enrico didn’t seem to mind Emilia’s cold expression at all.

“Surely you won’t forget your place again and go running to that jackal.

He sneered again in a slow tone, as if he was that displeased that she had met Alessandro. If he had acted like some back alley thug, she could have at least laughed it off and ignored it, but he had a talent for making even sneers look arrogant.

Emilia gritted her teeth at his languid yet oppressive gaze. Her hands on her thighs clenched.

“…I actually had something I wanted to tell you.”

“Speak.”

“I think I’ll only be able to visit the mansion until next week. The performance is coming up soon, so I need to focus on practicing to fulfill my duties for a while.”

Enrico’s mouth closed. His gaze, which had been staring intently at her eyes, slowly moved downward. His eyes stopped on her hands, which were clenched so tightly that blood couldn’t flow.

“I do hope the investigation will have made a lot of progress by the time the performance is over.”

His delicate eyelashes half-lowered, and his purple eyes sank deeply. What would he do, what would he say – her fists clenched even tighter in anxiety.

But at that moment, she felt a touch enveloping the back of her hand. His right hand turned her fist over, then began to uncurl her fingers one by one, inserting his own between them until her palm was visible.

A weak electric current ran through her hand. The sound of heavy rain could still be heard from outside. Emilia raised her lowered eyes to look at him again.

Their gazes met as he was already staring at her face. His mouth, devoid of any trace of a smile, opened.

“Let’s do that then.”

His unexpectedly agreeable answer blended with the sound of the rain.

Enrico’s investigation progressed faster than expected. After spending the remaining week performing at the Duke’s mansion, what she received was information about Giorgio.

Giorgio’s subordinate and Count Valmont had been in contact at gambling dens, and that relationship had started a very long time ago. Apparently, the reason Giorgio was able to quickly reach the position of viscount right after his parents’ deaths was because of Count Valmont’s assurance.

It seems they’ve had to maintain contact until now because the previously mentioned automobile investment rights were changed to be anonymous, making it impossible to confirm whose they were.

The lawyer holding the power of attorney needs to come forward to resolve this, but they can’t find the lawyer who was in charge at the time, so that investigation will take a while longer, she was told.

‘Why hasn’t he shown up until now?’

It seems that Giorgio and Count Valmont have been looking for that lawyer for a long time too, but given that they haven’t found him yet, it must be a truly difficult situation.

The clearer thing as she got closer to investigating her parents’ accident was that Count Valmont definitely had a motive. If we were to be more suspicious, the same could be said for Giorgio as well.

If those people were the culprits, what should she do? Even if she reported them, it seemed like they would easily get away with it, so she wasn’t sure if they could be punished. Days repeated with anger and sorrow building up more and more.

But because she couldn’t just do nothing and helplessly grieve, Emilia vowed to suppress her anger until everything was clearly revealed, and simply immersed herself in ballet over and over again.

The one fortunate thing was that with the performance approaching, no one could say anything to Emilia, who had once again become a practice bug.

And so, as days of practice to forget her anger passed by, suddenly the curtain rose on the ballet performance of [The Stubborn Daughter].

The morning of the performance day dawned. The rehearsal room, which had finished its final full rehearsal in the morning, was very busy. Although the performance started late in the afternoon, there was so much to prepare that everyone was moving busily, waiting for the stage.

Emilia, like the others, changed into her performance costume and waited to be called to the makeup room. Juliana, who was in the earlier order, had already gone to receive her makeup, and those after her were waiting in the rehearsal room like her.

While major roles were given individual makeup rooms, the corps de ballet shared a large makeup room, so a lot of time was allocated for makeup.

Emilia, noticing it would soon be her turn, slowly went out into the hallway. But she saw a staff member coming from the opposite end of the hallway carrying a large flower basket.

The staff member entered the group makeup room, struggling with the flower basket. The dancers followed him in, chattering excitedly.

“Wow, what flowers are these?”

“Who are they for? Is there no name?”

Emilia looked at the flowers with somewhat anxious eyes. The lavish flower basket of yellow freesias and white baby’s breath was large enough to cover the staff member’s upper body.

“Hmm… ‘To the ballerina who hasn’t forgotten her place’? What does this mean?”