The large horn-rimmed glasses pressing down on the bridge of her nose were hooked by a pair of elegant fingers and whisked away in an instant.
“Found you.”
At the same moment, the man’s savage voice dropped over her head like the blade of a guillotine.
Meeting the dangerously gleaming eyes of the man, Richard Cronel, Mona Bellose swallowed dryly.
‘I’m fucked.’
The man’s eyes, usually praised for looking as though they held the blue summer sea within them, were stained red with madness.
At the same time, warning lights blazed red in Mona’s mind.
“You’re the one, aren’t you? The woman who slept with me and ran off that night.”
“I-I have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about…….”
Playing dumb, she instinctively faltered and stepped back, only for him to crush her glasses beneath his combat boot and close the distance in a few long strides.
CRUNCH. Cold sweat broke out as she stared at the glasses shattered to pieces. They looked disturbingly like a vision of her own future.
“Hah. No wonder I didn’t recognize you even when you were right under my nose, wearing such hideous glasses.”
“……I truly have no idea what Your Excellency is talking about.”
“You’re a damn terrible actress, yet you keep playing dumb. Are you still going to deny it after this?”
The moment he jerked his chin, her loose robe slipped down, exposing the top of her right shoulder.
Fixing his gaze on the distinctive cross-shaped scar there, he bared a sharp canine and let out a short laugh.
“You think I wouldn’t remember this scar? It was you. That snow-white woman from that night.”
She had been sure he had lost his reason, yet he remembered this scar.
‘I’m dead.’
“Mona Bellose, you’re the type whose face gives everything away. You remember what happened that night, don’t you?”
“…….”
At his repeated mention of “that night,” Mona unconsciously recalled it and squeezed her eyes shut.
Scenes that clung indecently to her memory threw her thoughts into disarray.
It was shocking enough that someone who had never even dated had ended up having a one-night stand, but there was a far bigger problem.
That night, while they were in bed together, Mona had seen something she absolutely should never have seen.
War hero Richard Cronel’s intimate secret…….
Hard as steel, yet cold…….
“Your Excellency……! I’m truly sorry. I will never reveal what happened that night to anyone. I swear it on the Bellose Family.”
Invoking a family she was prepared to abandon at any moment as though it were an empty promise, she begged desperately enough to wear her palms raw. The corner of his mouth twisted slightly.
“Reveal it, you say. Were you planning to go around bragging about sleeping with me?”
“……What?”
“Of course, I can fully understand the urge to show off the man you had in your arms. I am rather exceptional, after all.”
What?
“Still, you ought to keep quiet about what happened between us until the bed broke. It’s far too private.”
He pressed Mona’s lips firmly between his thumb and forefinger, pinching them together from above and below.
“Don’t you agree?”
Of course I’ll keep quiet!
When Mona nodded furiously in agreement, he slowly withdrew his hand from her lips.
Swallowing her trembling breath, Mona looked up at him with a faint glimmer of hope.
“Lord Richard, th-then, will you just let what happened that night go……?”
He raised one eyebrow as though the very idea were absurd.
“Let what go? You have to take responsibility.”
“……For what?”
I can barely take care of myself. What damn responsibility?
“If you took my first night, then of course you have to take responsibility for it.”
“……?”
“What, were you planning to take the most precious thing I’d carefully saved away and then wipe your mouth clean as though nothing happened?”
Watching the man shamelessly corner her as though she were the scoundrel, Mona felt dizzy.
‘This man has no intention of letting this go quietly.’
He plans to keep me by his side because I know his secret and torment me until I waste away……!
‘……Damn it.’
Strictly speaking, this whole mess was her own fault, so she couldn’t even blame anyone else. Mona felt like crying.
How in the world had things ended up like this…….