Chapter 18

“I don’t want to.”

“Hel.”

“I understand…… your position. I understand that you need me now. But……”

She did not want to look foolish. She did not want to stammer, and she did not want to ramble nonsense. Hazel expressed her thoughts, piecing together her words very slowly.

“Marriage…… is not something…… that can be decided…… in an instant like this. And…… I…… with you……”

“With me?”

D*mn it, he ought to understand well enough without making her say it.

Failing to come up with an excuse to phrase it indirectly, Hazel finally spoke plainly.

“I don’t want to marry you.”

Saying it made her feel relieved. Hazel looked straight at him without shrinking.

Even at her refusal, Kyle showed no sign of surprise or hurt. Still kneeling, silently looking up at her, Kyle tilted his head slightly.

“May I ask why?”

“No. Don’t ask.”

Hazel cut him off sharply. At her firmness, Kyle’s mouth flattened stiffly, but Hazel, having turned her gaze behind the chair, did not see it.

His voice came from behind her.

“I don’t quite understand.”

“……”

“What reason do you have to reject me so strongly?”

Ah, his voice had come closer. Hazel squeezed her eyes shut with her back turned. She tried to ignore the heavy voice settling over her shoulders, but it was beyond her.

“Hazel, you always wanted to become rich.”

There had once been a time like that. A time when poor Hazel Bennett had dreamed of becoming rich.

His voice continued right by her ear. The warm breath made the fine hairs by her ear rise. It was a good thing there was no mirror in front of her. Then she would not have to see her own face, bright red and unable to do anything.

“Of course, now you have more than enough money. But it isn’t your money. It’s a position that could vanish into thin air with a single word from the Marquis.”

“……”

“If you became my wife, at the very least you would never have to worry about money. In this country, divorce requires the consent of both parties. Even if I make a fuss demanding a divorce, as long as you refuse, half my property is yours.”

What nonsense, and only up to a point! Hazel’s head whipped around. Before her lips could accidentally brush his cheek, Kyle pulled his head back. Deep sea-green eyes looked at her.

Words almost like a scream burst from Hazel.

“So that alone is why I should marry you, Kyle?”

It was truly absurd. She could not read this man’s mind at all. Was this man, looking at her as if asking what the problem was, really the same boy who once read the same books with her and laughed aloud?

Just who in the world was this man?

Hazel snapped at him, breathing hard.

“Then I’ll answer too. That way of thinking of yours is exactly why I can’t marry you. Does that answer your question?”

The one he wanted to marry was Marquis Fitzroy’s adopted daughter. Not the eldest daughter of the Bennett family. What he needed was a great noble named Charles Fitzroy, not a wheat-haired girl named Hazel.

And share a bed with a man like that? Never!

Forcing down her anger, Hazel turned her waist away again. The shoes were still on the floor.

“It’s an honor…… that the first proposal I’ve ever received was from a Strauss……”

The words caught in her throat. The old thought she had summoned took her, of all times, back to Christmas Eve when she was fifteen.

“It is the glory of the family enough that your first date was with a Strauss, Little Sister.”

After her first date partner, now the first person to propose to her had also been a Strauss. If her brother knew this, how would he have reacted? Would he have laughed uproariously with tears in his eyes, or would he have worried, saying he was a tree too high for her to reach?

But Colin was gone, and Hazel could not tell him.

A tear rolled down her cheek. Coming to her senses at once, Hazel pretended to stretch out her arm as though she absolutely had to pick up her shoes.

“……It’s an honor.”

She barely managed to finish speaking, but the shoes were still too far away. She had never really meant to pick them up in the first place. She had only needed a distance to avoid Kyle’s gaze.

Staring at the shoes, Hazel steadied her angry breathing. She had thought that now his business was done, he would leave, but Kyle was still in the same room with her.

If he would not leave, then she would have to. Hazel made up her mind and leaned her whole upper body forward, reaching out her arm.

At that instant, one pale blue shoe lifted into the air and disappeared.

No, she corrected herself. It had not disappeared. It drifted lazily through the air as though telling Hazel to look, to follow.

Turning her body forward, Hazel clutched the fluffy blanket. Unlike her feelings boiling over, his face remained calm, and her blood surged backward again.

He certainly was a remarkable man. To think that in such a short time he had made her anger flare up several times, when she had been living quietly saying yes to everything at the Marquis’s mansion.

Not hiding her anger, Hazel asked,

“Are you planning to keep my shoe so I can’t run away?”

Kyle was turning the right shoe over and over in his hand. The shoe whose price Hazel did not even know spun once naturally atop the man’s palm.

“If I were going to hold onto you until you said you’d marry me, I would have sneaked you out the back door and put you in a car long ago. It’s not an age that questions a lady’s chastity as much as before, but to strict elders, there is still nothing more important than that.”

“……!”

“How about it, do you like doing it in a car? I only imagined it, but it doesn’t sound bad. There would be some discomfort to put up with, of course.”

“You’re insane……!”

Heat shot up her spine and her face flamed red. Looking at the bronze cat-shaped statue, said to have been worshipped like a god in ancient times, which she was now fully prepared to throw at him at any moment, Kyle went on as calmly as ever.

“Of course, nothing might happen. If the woman has enough sense to refuse alcohol, and the man has enough self-control.”

“……”

“In that case, not only in a car but even in a bedroom, nothing would happen. I can guarantee it. We’ve experienced it ourselves, haven’t we?”

Kyle set the shoe down in front of her. He pretended not to notice her face, red enough to burst.

“For now, I don’t particularly intend to undress you, and this is not a situation where I would force myself to keep hold of a woman who says no. But it will soon be time for the guests to leave. It would be troublesome for you to appear without shoes, Miss Fitzroy. Put them on, even if by force.”

At that point Kyle straightened his waist. Outside, the sound of people saying their farewells one by one could be heard.

Kyle spoke his final words as well.

“I don’t know what sort of illusions you have about marriage, but Hazel, in this society love is not an essential prerequisite for marriage. If anything, it’s closer to the opposite.”

Among those who cling to love, it was rare to find anyone who had succeeded. Kyle had always thought there were few people more pathetic than romantics who abandoned honors already waiting for them and chose love instead.

“I’ll go now. But you too will soon understand what I mean. See you again, Hel.”

That was the end. Having finished speaking, the man shut the door and left as though without regret. At last, silence returned to the sitting room where only Hazel remained.

The cat-shaped statue rolled noisily across the floor. Hazel put the statue back in its place and forcibly shoved the blue shoes onto her feet. Her hands were shaking so badly that they would not go on properly.

She was angry at Kyle Strauss’s shamelessness. He had had many chances to apologize. Clearly, Kyle must have learned of Colin’s death within a few days of that day, and that meant he had had more than enough time to send Hazel his condolences.

But Kyle had spent that whole time perfectly ignoring her, thereby cementing his behavior in front of the theater. Faced with his clear intention not to be involved with her any longer, Hazel too let go of the waiting hope she had still secretly kept.

Everything had become certain. The pure boy she had liked no longer existed. Nor did the poor girl toward whom Kyle had once shown favor.

What remained was a cold-hearted businessman ready to use other people’s feelings without hesitation for the sake of his goals, and a young lady he thought he could use.

Had Kyle thought Hazel would accept his proposal? Had he shamelessly thought that she would still waver because of him?

Hazel covered her face.

“Ugh……”

What hurt—was it her swollen feet?

Or was it her heart?