“It doesn’t matter. My authority ended the moment I delivered the gifts. What you do with them is up to you.”

“Ah…… yes.”

“It’s you, not me, who will suffer a loss.”

He said he would respect her wishes—words too generous to say to a slave. Why did they sound so cold? Was it because of the expression ‘suffer a loss’? But it wasn’t hers to begin with. So she couldn’t say she’d suffer a loss just because she didn’t wear them.

Ribeta turned her head away from the Count.

As the conversation ended, an awkward silence settled. The wind swirled around the two of them. Soft flower petals tickled Ribeta’s ankles, and an intense floral fragrance wafted up.

Ribeta, who had been absorbed in the sky studded with countless stars, suddenly felt a gaze. When she lowered her head, her eyes met Count Ruperto’s head-on. His handsome features, carved with delicate skill, felt unreal.

“……Did you have something to say to me?”

“Your reply was impressive. Especially your answer to the last question.”

The Count, who had propped his chin on the armrest and sat with his legs crossed, tilted his head slightly. His impeccable yet endlessly arrogant posture suited him extremely well. A dangerous and insolent atmosphere wafted from him as he sat there like a monarch.

Thump. Ribeta was instantly overwhelmed by that atmosphere. It was hard even to blink. All the scenery in the world grew dim.

She felt as if only he and she were left in this blurred world.

Diego’s lips parted as he stared intently at her, who had frozen.

“So much so that I’m thinking it might be alright to marry you.”

The atmosphere Diego exuded grew even thicker, shackling her completely. She had the feeling that something very dangerous would happen if she took her eyes off him.

Diego slowly rose. He reached out his arm toward Ribeta. But he didn’t actually touch her. Instead, a delicate touch followed the lines she possessed, moving at a precarious distance, as if tracing over her.

“Let’s get married.”

Ribeta almost nodded as if possessed by Diego’s languid voice and gestures.

However, the moment she met his empty, ashen eyes, she snapped to her senses. He was acting like the sweetest person in the world, but in truth, he was observing her with colder eyes than anyone. The moment she realized that, goosebumps rose on her arms. The air, which had felt so warm, turned cold in an instant. As if she had escaped from a fantasy and returned to reality.

Marriage with Count Ruperto? It was absurd.

‘Could it be that the letter wasn’t a joke but serious?’

Last night, she had received a letter from Count Ruperto. She had nervously unfolded it, wondering what it would say, but its contents were something she couldn’t even begin to imagine.

Count Ruperto’s elegant handwriting had abruptly presented Ribeta with ten questions without even a greeting. The range of topics the questions covered—history, common sense, literature, etc.—was quite broad. Simply put, it was all over the place.

Ribeta had been dumbfounded, but she had done her best to answer the questions. Diligence was her pride and specialty.

The questions grew more difficult as they went on. She had been confident about her answers to the first three questions or so, but she had no confidence after that. Still, she had written something. It seemed better than turning in a blank page because she didn’t know.

But then. After reading the last question, her thoughts changed. She wanted to leave the last question blank.

[If there is one thing you need most to become Diego Ruperto’s wife, what is it? Please write the reason as well.]

It was an absurd question no matter how she thought about it. It was so absurd that she even wondered if the Count had fallen for her, or if she was misunderstanding that she had fallen for the Count.

Ribeta had briefly pondered what the Count’s intention was. She had also stared intently into the Count’s eyes. But that had only been a short time of about three seconds. The Count’s gaze was so intense that she couldn’t endure any longer than that.

Her pondering didn’t last long. No matter how eccentric the Count was, he wouldn’t really be proposing marriage because he liked her answer to that question. But for whatever reason, Ribeta couldn’t marry the Count.

“I can’t do that. As you know…… I am a slave.”

“I paid 80 million sola for you. I did. Have you forgotten that?”

Even though Diego’s tone was still high-handed, it didn’t feel like he was speaking down to her. It was a strange feeling. And Ribeta focused on the content contained in Diego’s tone more than the tone itself. Diego said that he was the one who had paid 80 million sola.

So it was this person after all. The man who had appeared wearing a mask at the auction house. Count Ruperto had saved her.

But marriage was a different matter. Her slave status was a problem, but Count Ruperto already had someone he was going to marry, didn’t he?

Could it be…… that the Count had bought her for a huge sum of 80 million in order to make her his mistress?

“I heard that you are in talks for marriage with Lady Barea. So why me……”

Ribeta conveyed her question to him and found the answer herself. The reason Diego was proposing marriage was definitely not because of love.

The Count twisted up the corner of his mouth and smiled. His eyes weren’t smiling at all. Nor did they hold l*st. As if mocking her thoughts.

Diego’s eyes were the eyes of a trader, not the eyes of someone in love.

“I, too, want to be in an equal relationship with you. However, a relationship formed through trade, not love.”

“……”

“You can think of the 80 million sola as a kind of investment. So you don’t need to feel burdened or grateful.”

An investment? Thinking of it that way made her feel even more burdened. Diego, who was smiling brightly while saying such things, looked vicious. But Ribeta tried hard not to be daunted.

In any case, he needed her. Enough to ‘invest’ a huge sum of 80 million. If so, that meant she also had the ‘right’ to hear more details. She couldn’t decide on the important matter of marriage in such an ambiguous state. Ribeta carefully chose her words so she could extract more information without displeasing Diego.

“Still, I still don’t understand why I’m a necessary person to you, Count.”

“Lady Barea has disappeared.”

Diego, who had replied in a nonchalant tone, twirled a strand of Ribeta’s neatly flowing hair around his fingertip. The curled hair looked just like a ring.

“The Duke will never be able to find the lady. He can’t call off the marriage talks now either. He owes me quite a bit.”

Don’t you too? Diego’s eyes seemed to say that. Ribeta didn’t avoid his gaze. She owed him a lot, but it wasn’t what she had wanted.

Whether he liked that gaze or not, Diego chuckled softly.

“It’s a good opportunity. I have no intention of missing this opportunity. All I need is one thing: a woman to marry me in place of the lady. A woman who is tight-lipped, smart, and above all, won’t betray me.”

“……For example, a woman who owes you 80 million sola.”

“I see it was worth it to choose you after all.”

Diego replied as if extremely pleased. He seemed ready to stroke Ribeta’s head. Ribeta bit her lip.

The situation was worse than she had thought. She had to become Lady Barea’s stand-in and marry that inscrutable man. Of course, she hadn’t dreamed of such a romantic, love-filled marriage that the world talked about. Such a marriage was out of the question for a slave.

Occasionally, there were cases where people in similar situations under good masters fell in love and married, but there weren’t many. Especially slaves who stood out like Ribeta, who were often subjected to lewd behavior, regardless of whether they were male or female.

Ribeta suddenly had this thought. Perhaps…… accepting the Count’s proposal might be better than such a miserable future. At least the Count didn’t seem like the kind of person who would toy with her and then abandon or kill her.

But the problem was that this wasn’t a simple marriage. Ribeta quietly lowered her head.

“To be honest, I’m not confident I can live as a stand-in my whole life.”

“My whole life?”

Diego asked back in surprise at Ribeta’s words. Soon he chuckled softly. Unexpectedly, his laughter sounded as clear as a boy’s. The heavy atmosphere turned refreshing, if only for a moment.

“Two years.”

With a face that still held boyish freshness, Diego held up his index and middle fingers before her eyes. The fingers that had been twirling Ribeta’s hair until just now.