“I suppose Your Highness is experienced with women?”

After saying it, she felt it was a stupid question. Even the Aidan she knew used to change his secret meeting partners frequently. He just kept his distance from her but didn’t stop women who approached him. Could the guy inside that body now be similar? She started to feel annoyed, thinking it shouldn’t matter since they would become strangers after half a year anyway.

“Given my age, I can’t say I have none, but not enough to call it abundant.”

It was really strange to use the expression ‘given my age’ with a face of just twenty-two. Although she knew a different soul was inside, the gap between the content of his words and his appearance was enormous.

“It doesn’t seem to be a matter of age.”

‘Aidan’ was only twenty-two, yet he had been fooling around with other women even before the wedding, and continued to change women frequently after marriage. So it definitely wasn’t an age issue.

“Well, maybe so.”

Aidan replied lightly and turned his head, then paused. He seemed to be looking somewhere, and Karina’s gaze naturally followed to where his eyes were fixed.

“Ah…”

Kate Spencer was standing there. Among the crowd, she was looking only at one place, only at Aidan, with a sorrowful gaze. Aidan let out a small sigh and turned his head. He seemed to recognize who she was at once.

“It wasn’t a casual relationship, was it.”

She heard his murmur but pretended not to.

Karina knew better than anyone whether the relationship with Kate Spencer was casual or not. However, at this point, so soon after marrying Aidan, she had nothing to say.

“Are you attracted to her?”

Kate Spencer was the only woman who had ever carried Aidan’s child. Even if the soul was different, since the body was the same person, wouldn’t he be subconsciously attracted?

“Just endure for half a year.”

This time, since he would divorce her after half a year, it wasn’t her business whether he remarried Kate Spencer afterward or not.

Maybe that would be better for ‘Aidan’. In her previous life, Karina sometimes thought she was playing the villain who intervened between them. Although she was officially married to Aidan, his relationship with Kate had continued from before his marriage to her. Since her marriage was purely political, there were times when she felt like she had intervened in a passionate relationship. She didn’t want to repeat that uneasy feeling this time.

“What do you mean?”

Aidan frowned and asked back.

“Are you telling me to remarry to that woman after half a year?”

He accurately read Karina’s inner thoughts even though she hadn’t answered.

“Isn’t that quite rude? I clearly rejected that woman in front of you.”

She couldn’t refute him because it wasn’t wrong. He wasn’t ‘Aidan’. It was her problem that the previous memories were deeply engraved in her heart, causing her to keep overlapping them.

“Since it’s the same body, your tastes might be the same.”

She replied casually and turned her head first. Even while acknowledging that he was a different person, she couldn’t help feeling irritated every time she saw that face.

Even though she had turned her head, she could feel Aidan staring at her intently. As she stubbornly kept looking straight ahead, she heard him taking a deep breath.

“If we’re talking about preferences…”

Along with his muttering, she felt warmth covering the back of her hand. When she looked down, she saw him gently holding her hand. Wondering what he was trying to do, she turned her head and their eyes met. As if he had been waiting for this, he smiled gently with his eyes.

“It’s more towards you.”

He didn’t add a long explanation, but his meaning was sufficiently conveyed through the look in his eyes and his expression as he gazed at her. Seeing his face smiling as if determined to enchant her, her heart fluttered unnecessarily. Soon after, she was inwardly surprised at the fact that she had felt her heart race for none other than Aidan.

Feeling embarrassed, she turned her head and saw Kate Spencer turning away. She seemed to have given up after seeing Aidan holding Karina’s hand.

It was a strange feeling. Originally, Aidan was her husband. Nevertheless, she had always lost him to Kate Spencer. Thinking that Kate Spencer might be feeling what she had felt back then, at least for now, made her feel odd.

It wasn’t particularly a sense of superiority or pleasure. It just… felt real that things were different from before.

She glanced at Aidan’s profile. Could a different soul make someone’s appearance look different? Why did he seem even more handsome than before?

What am I thinking right now?

Karina shook her head, cutting off her train of thought as it was following her consciousness. Right now, it was important to finish the banquet safely.

*

“The imperial palace is indeed different. To make my social debut at such a large-scale banquet… I never imagined it.”

Iris, who was to become Marquis Belmont’s adopted daughter, stood in front of Lloyd with a flushed face. A moment ago, an attendant had come to inform him that she was waiting. Lloyd couldn’t refuse her because Marquis Belmont had made a request earlier, but his attention was entirely focused on Aidan and Karina.

Even after they returned from dancing, the two kept looking at each other and conversing, and Aidan seemed so pleased, smiling constantly. That alone was enough to make Lloyd’s insides twist, but then Aidan even gently placed his hand on top of Karina’s.

Until just before the wedding, Aidan couldn’t even make proper eye contact with Karina. He even met with Kate Spencer, like he was running away, perhaps feeling burdened by the political marriage that seemed beyond his reach. Lloyd couldn’t understand what had happened in just a few days to make him so intimate with Karina.

Did they become close because Karina visited him every day after the attack? That’s what others were saying. But Lloyd thought it was nonsense. He got hurt while coming back from meeting another woman, and Karina understood and accepted all that? What kind of woman would understand her husband going out to meet other women? Especially someone as proud and haughty as Karina Hewitt.

He firmly believed that the two were putting on a show. They were pretending to be closer on purpose to show the other nobles and the Emperor that there were no problems between them.

His insides were boiling. The failure of the ambush was the root cause of this mess. How on earth was he stabbed that he could walk normally and even dance at a banquet after just a few days? When the Empress ordered to eliminate everyone involved in that incident, he felt a bit of guilt towards his subordinates in one corner of his heart. But not anymore. If that bastard had done his job properly, he wouldn’t have had to see Aidan being affectionate towards Karina.

“Um… Your Highness?”

Iris called out carefully when Lloyd showed no reaction to her words.

“Ah, I’m sorry. I was just thinking about something else…”

As Lloyd was making excuses, he caught sight of a lady leaving the banquet hall.

That woman… When he recognized her as Kate Spencer, his eyes narrowed.

“Excuse me for a moment.”

Lloyd excused himself to Iris and immediately followed Kate.

Kate, who had come out to the garden connected to the banquet hall, headed towards a secluded area. She sat on a white bench placed among the garden trees, then covered her face with both hands and sobbed. Because of this, she didn’t notice Lloyd approaching.

“Miss Kate Spencer.”

At Lloyd’s call, she raised her head in surprise. Her eyes, which had widened in shock, soon recognized who it was and trembled slightly.

“Your Highness…”

She mumbled, then hurriedly stood up from her seat and bowed her head. It seemed she had realized a beat late that she should show proper etiquette, having been preoccupied with crying.

“It’s alright, please sit down.”

Lloyd sat on the bench first and offered her the seat beside him. Kate hesitated but couldn’t refuse when a prince asked her to sit, so she took a seat.

“I was just passing by and couldn’t ignore seeing someone crying alone.”

He made up a plausible reason for his presence. Kate just listened quietly with her head bowed low.

“Did something happen… with Aidan?”

When he asked carefully, Kate’s eyes immediately filled with tears.

“Oh my… Please calm down.”

Lloyd took out a handkerchief and handed it to Kate. She dabbed at her tears with the handkerchief and sobbed for a while. Although he felt like he was dying of impatience, he waited patiently without showing it outwardly until she stopped crying. For now, this woman was the only one who could hold Aidan back.

“I know about you from what Aidan told me.”

To be precise, it wasn’t something he heard from Aidan, but rather what he learned while investigating him, but whatever.

Perhaps because of his words about knowing about her, the wariness in Kate’s eyes seemed to disappear.

“You must have been very heartbroken when Aidan suddenly married the daughter of Duke Hewitt.”

When he sympathized with her emotions, Kate slowly shook her head.

“That was fine. I never dreamed that someone like me could become His Highness’s partner anyway.”

Lloyd swallowed a scoff. He couldn’t empathize at all because she was talking as if Aidan was some great person. In Lloyd’s view, someone like Kate Spencer was just right for Aidan.

“His Highness… Aidan… His Highness promised that even if he got married, our relationship wouldn’t change… He promised that… Sob…”