Roina snatched the medicine bottle from her husband’s hand.

Then she opened the bottle’s stopper and brought it to her lips without hesitation.

At her impulsive action, Conrad’s expression hardened coldly.

“What are you doing right now!”

Unable to hide his flustered state, he quickly knocked the medicine bottle down.

The aphrodisiac that flowed from the glass bottle slowly soaked into the carpet. Like her already stained heart.

Roina closed her eyes tightly and opened them in wretchedness.

“Because only by doing this will you believe me.”

“……”

An indescribable emotion appeared in the cold eyes of the man quietly gazing at her.

Roina, wearing a wistful smile, continued the words she hadn’t been able to convey.

“I have…… never wished for your death. Not even once.”

‘Though I don’t know about you.’

No answer came from Conrad.

Perhaps because of that, Roina couldn’t bring herself to look at his face.

Dropping her gaze to the floor, she clenched both hands tightly and asked in a trembling voice.

“Is there anything else I need to prove?”

She tried moving her lips in unwarranted frustration, but no particular words came to mind.

Roina’s violet eyes no longer held any expectation.

The silence flowing between the two was broken only after a long while.

“I’ll take this with me.”

Conrad, his expression subtly hardened, spoke in an indifferent voice.

Roina nodded slightly.

He wouldn’t believe her words anyway.

“……Do that.”

Roina’s vision began to blur as she gazed blankly at the man’s retreating figure.

Tears that welled up instantly flowed down both her cheeks.

Worried that sobbing might leak out, Roina covered her mouth with her hand.

‘There’s no way I could kill you.’

As past time proved, that was something she could never do, she swore.

※※※

On a night when pitch-black darkness had fallen heavily.

A gentle light leaked from within the spacious study.

In the place where only the sound of turning pages could be heard, a man’s hand soon stopped moving.

As if lost in thought, he slightly furrowed his brow, then soon lifted his fountain pen.

As the nib touched the paper, ink began to spread. But the hand holding the pen still didn’t move and remained as it was.

Perhaps because there had been irritating incidents lately, Conrad eventually crumpled up the paper.

“Nothing’s going right these days.”

He knew that the source of this displeasure was Roina Würetti.

The woman who had been powerlessly secluded only in the estate kept catching his eye after losing her memory.

Like an unwilted flower from before their marriage.

But perhaps it was nearly impossible for Roina to wilt in the first place.

She was a greenhouse flower who had grown up never knowing what suffering was.

As old memories suddenly surfaced, mockery flowed from Conrad’s twisted lips.

“Ha—”

When he had felt attraction toward Roina, he had his attendants investigate her.

But there was great difficulty in finding a woman with the common platinum hair and purple eyes.

There had even been confusion with other young ladies in between.

Therefore, he never dared imagine that Roina might be Würetti’s daughter.

She didn’t resemble the marquis and his wife at all.

Thus he gradually nurtured his feelings toward her without any suspicion.

Never dreaming it would be marked by deep betrayal and humiliation.

“Roina, have you approached Duke Asheter well?”

“Yes, Father. You don’t need to worry.”

“Good, I’m counting on you alone.”

The day he accidentally overheard the conversation between the Würetti father and daughter, Conrad felt as if his blood was flowing backward.

He even found himself, who had once envisioned a future with her, quite ridiculous.

‘Should I commend your effort to deceive me all this time?’

A thin sneer was flowing from his lips.

Knock knock—

“Your Grace, it’s Harrison.”

The aide who came at just the right time handed over documents he received from the research institute.

Those documents contained the results of analyzing the components of the potion Conrad had requested several days ago.

The man reading through the documents indifferently raised an eyebrow obliquely.

“Are these results certain?”

“Yes, they said it’s the result of analyzing it several times already.”

The document stated that ‘no poisonous components were detected.’

Conrad, who had somewhat expected this, wasn’t particularly surprised.

If that medicine had contained poison, Roina wouldn’t have recklessly tried to drink it.

His instruction to his subordinate was also just to find out what kind of medicine it was.

He was lost in thought, tapping the hand resting on the chair’s armrest.

“However……”

Harrison hesitated to speak, gauging his mood.

Conrad, who had put the documents down on the table, quietly looked at his aide.

His eyes said to continue speaking.

Nodding slightly at this, Harrison continued his report.

“The researcher said that medicine is an aphrodisiac.”

“……?”

For a moment, wondering if he had heard wrong, Conrad doubted his own ears, and Harrison quickly added.

“He said the medicine’s components are also written on the last page.”

As the aide said, the documents contained detailed explanations about the aphrodisiac.

Conrad wore a laugh as if finding it absurd.

“What exactly is she trying to do?”

Having finished his report, Harrison gauged his mood.

“If you wish, I’ll investigate further.”

To this, Conrad spoke in an extremely dry voice.

“That’s enough, you may leave now.”

After the aide bowed politely and left the study, Conrad let out a deep sigh in the quiet silence.

“I suppose I should prove it as you said.”

“What are you doing right now!”

“I have…… never wished for your death. Not even once.”

Looking back, Roina seemed to already know what that medicine was.

Moreover, an aphrodisiac was definitely not something that would come from her mind.

Then why did the marquis give her an aphrodisiac, and why did Roina accept it?

Conrad’s expression subtly crumpled as if he had encountered a puzzle that wouldn’t easily be solved.

“Just what are you hiding?”

※※※

Roina, who had lost sleep the night before, raised her considerably gaunt body with a gloomy face.

Seeing the dim dawn light coming through the window, it seemed day would break soon.

After the medicine bottle incident, she had attempted to converse with Conrad several times, but it wasn’t easy to meet him when he was busy.

Well, there was nothing strange about it. The union of two enemy houses.

If this situation wasn’t a farce, what else could it be called?

Even though she had become Conrad’s wife, she only faced a miserable reality.

‘If we hadn’t been enemy houses….’

Wouldn’t there have been different choices then?

Roina was still holding onto lingering attachment she couldn’t shake off.

Four years ago, which to her was no different from recently.

At that time, after learning that the man she had unrequited love for was Duke Asheter, Roina had tried to push him away.

But whether there was someone’s tip-off, she was soon caught by Marquis Würetti for having contact with him.

“Roina, I hear you’ve been meeting with Duke Asheter lately.”

“……Yes. I wanted to be of even a little help to you, Father.”

“I’m proud of you. This is what it means to be a Würetti.”

Worried that her father might try to use Conrad, Roina deliberately disparaged his existence.

Conrad Asheter meant nothing to her and was merely a tool to be used for her father’s sake.

Even though she had never thought that way, lies for his sake flowed out as if they were truth.

‘Until then, I thought that was the best course.’

Not long after, Conrad learned Roina’s identity. That she was the daughter of Marquis Würetti, whom he so hated.

Perhaps because old emotions surfaced, a forlorn light circled Roina’s face.

After that day, she cursed the blood of her family, and her resentment toward the marquis only deepened.

“So if only you would allow it……”

She wanted to remain by Conrad’s side and help him. So he wouldn’t be manipulated by her father’s hands anymore.