Inside Astaire’s study.

“So what is it, Astaire?”

Reina called to Astaire with expectant eyes.

The man narrowed his brow and looked out the window.

“I told you not to call me by that name.”

“It’s just the two of us right now.”

“Still—”

Just as Astaire was about to continue speaking to Reina, he paused for a moment.

“Forms of address become habits.”

He’d almost said the same thing he’d once told Daphne.

Back then, he couldn’t stand watching Daphne constantly call him “Your Grace” instead of his name.

“What’s wrong?”

Even at Reina’s question, Astaire kept his mouth firmly shut.

For some reason, he didn’t want to say those same words to Reina that he’d said to Daphne.

“I have something to say.”

The man opened his mouth in an utterly cold voice.

His gaze on the woman radiating sunny charm was piercingly sharp.

Sharp enough that even Reina flinched—she could feel something close to killing intent.

“What’s wrong?”

Reina quietly moistened her lips with her tongue.

Could he have noticed?

She quietly gripped her dress hem. That couldn’t be. She’d definitely checked carefully whether anyone was following her coming and going.

Lately, Reina had been caught up in complicated matters to the point of suffering headaches.

Her father had sided with the Second Prince to make her the Second Prince’s consort.

But she still stood on the First Prince’s side.

If Astaire misunderstood somehow…

“You seem to be getting along well with the First Prince lately?”

The question that came after a long silence wasn’t particularly different.

But Astaire had definitely seen it.

Reina’s trembling eyes the moment he mentioned the First Prince.

He suspected.

Perhaps the one driving a wedge between himself and the First Prince was this woman, Reina Melanian.

He didn’t know the reason.

But the motive behind actions didn’t matter.

What he needed to focus on was only her behavior.

What she had done.

And Astaire had no intention whatsoever of forgiving Reina.

Childhood friends.

Reina might think of them that way, but Astaire wasn’t someone who placed much meaning in such labels to begin with.

He would never forgive her.

If Reina was the one who’d put Daphne in danger.

“More than getting along well, well, it’s what we always do.”

“Did you betray us?”

Astaire went straight for a frontal *ssault.

“What?”

Reina spoke in disbelief.

Thump, thump, thump.

Someone’s heartbeat grew maddeningly loud.

“I’ve been thinking lately that maybe your family is trying to betray me and the First Prince.”

“Why would you think that? There’s no way I’d betray you.”

Reina’s voice grew increasingly shaky.

She wanted to shout.

Even if my father thinks differently, I’m on your side.

Because.

“I like you.”

“What?”

At first, she’d blurted it out impulsively.

But once the words burst out, they flowed endlessly after.

“How could I abandon you, Astaire?”

“What are you talking about right now?”

“Exactly what I said.”

Reina approached Astaire as she spoke.

Ah, he’s so handsome.

“I like you, Astaire.”

Without realizing it, she reached out and grabbed Astaire’s cheek.

Before the flustered Astaire could pull away, Reina thr*st her face forward and kissed him on one cheek.

Astaire froze solid in that instant. Rather, he was so frozen from the rare shock that he couldn’t shake her off.

“…”

Right at that moment. They saw the door that had opened soundlessly.

Including Daphne’s face clearly witnessing them through the gap in the open door.

The door closed.

Daphne stared blankly at the door. She didn’t know if her hand had closed the door, or if the wind blowing in from the window had closed it on its own.

She felt like all her senses had been emptied out.

The single thread of affection remaining inside her seemed to snap.

Like all her emotions had broken down.

Daphne quietly raised her hand and touched around her eyes.

She thought at least one tear would fall. But her eyes were unexpectedly utterly dry, like a desert.

“Right…”

She had no tears left to shed for Astaire now.

The embers remaining in her heart—Astaire had blown on them and fanned the embers into flames.

Stillness, then anger.

Crimson anger blazed quietly deep in her heart.

Daphne squeezed her eyes shut, then opened them.

From now on, she decided to think differently.

About how she could deeply wound Astaire.

“…I’ll do anything.”

Then, among the countless memories flashing by, she remembered something.

Right before the door closed.

The emotion beyond confusion she’d read in his greatly dilated pupils.

The man’s gaze, like he’d fallen into a deep quagmire.

You’re the one who likes another woman. I don’t understand why you’re making that expression.

She wanted to scream that inside. Though it was a cry that would never reach him.

But she decided to bet on that look in his eyes.

More than anything, what the head butler had said.

“That His Grace loves you more than anyone else.”

“Not a chance.”

Daphne whispered with a cold sneer.

But what if the head butler’s words were true?

Daphne decided to bet on that.

Her first—no, her second great gamble in life.

She’d never learned gambling from her father, yet she couldn’t understand why she kept gambling whenever she got involved with Astaire.

Blood really couldn’t be deceived after all.

* * *

Astaire clenched his fist tight enough to burst, then released it.

He couldn’t even see Reina beside him.

Even Reina sensed something ominous from Astaire and flinched back.

She regretted it immediately after.

Kissing Astaire’s cheek had been entirely her fault.

There was clearly a line between Astaire and herself.

And Reina instinctively felt it.

That she’d just crossed that line.

Astaire Seyfried was mercilessly ruthless to those who crossed the line.

Why did I do that?

If she’d just watched from afar, if she’d only gazed at him from nearby until she died, wouldn’t she have had fewer regrets?

She’d hoped that at least once in her life, Astaire would look at her.

Her mother had said repeatedly that men can’t look at just one woman.

She’d believed her chance would come someday too.

Even if it was some emotion other than love.

Reina finally realized she’d been too greedy. Being blinded by his dazzlingly handsome appearance and kissing him had been a huge mistake.

In the suffocatingly silent stillness, just as Reina barely opened her dry lips.

“I’m sor—”

She was about to say sorry. But Astaire didn’t wait for Reina to finish her sentence.

“From now on.”

Astaire spoke through gritted teeth.

Looking again, the man’s hands were trembling.

This was a first.

The emotion she felt from him was closer to murderous intent than anger.

Reina unconsciously stepped back in surprise.

“Let’s not meet again.”

Astaire declared the end of their relationship.

That’s all the relationship amounted to.

A relationship where if Astaire said not to meet, they wouldn’t meet.

A relationship where they could only meet when Astaire wanted to meet.

Reina was miserable.

Despite all those years, she’d never had even a shred of control to begin with.

It had been a relationship where the weight leaned entirely toward Astaire.

Even so, Reina couldn’t let him go.

Truthfully, she felt like she was going crazy lately.

Her father was trying to match her with the Second Prince, and Astaire suspected her.

Reina knew why Astaire had called her today.

She’d noticed long ago that things between the First Prince and Astaire weren’t normal lately.

She was the one who’d fanned the flames of the First Prince’s suspicions about Astaire.

Telling him to use Astaire’s wife.

So the First Prince must have made moves during that time. Though something seemed to have gone wrong in the middle. Reina recalled the First Prince’s nearly crazed appearance when she’d met him a few days ago.

The trigger for the First Prince’s suspicion of Astaire had started from something very minor. Like how a storm’s beginning is a small butterfly’s wingbeat.

Several years ago, when the Second Prince was on the battlefield.

The Second Prince had sent someone to make contact with Astaire.

‘No one knows yet what was discussed between them then. Not even the First Prince.’

But that’s when it started. The First Prince began suspecting that Astaire would abandon him and support Second Prince Phaios instead.

That suspicion was initially just a small, minor ripple. But the ripple became fierce waves, and in the First Prince’s mind, Astaire was already as good as a traitor.

‘Astaire, abandon that woman and choose me.’

Our family can help you.

Those were words that would never reach him.

And truthfully, Reina knew too.

That Astaire would flatly reject her proposal. And that he would never abandon his small wife. Not even if the world split in two.

It was a painful truth, but that was the reality Reina had felt watching the relationship between Astaire and Daphne.

‘His gaze was burning.’

A gaze that seemed ready to scorch at any moment.

Reina was shocked. She realized for the first time that Astaire could look at a woman like that.

It was the first sense of defeat she’d felt in her life.

Before that inadequate girl, Daphne.

That’s probably why she didn’t want to give up on Astaire even more. That stubbornness might have consumed her.

‘But…’

It’s all over now.

Reina sensed it.

That things between Astaire and herself had ended irreversibly.

* * *

Even after Reina left the study, Astaire remained there for a long time.

No, more precisely, from the moment Daphne saw that scene until now, he hadn’t changed his posture at all.

Her face repeated in the man’s mind dozens, thousands of times.

When Reina kissed his cheek, the creepy sensation was like a bug touching him.

And letting Daphne clearly see that scene with her own two eyes.

He remembered everything, and it tormented him.

“This is how you’ve lived every day.”

In the room growing dark, Astaire murmured quietly.

Daphne, with her memory more exceptional than a genius, miraculous.

But whether that ability was truly a blessing for her—he was skeptical.

Just as she could remember happy things forever, she’d have to carry sad and painful memories until death.

She’d have to suffer her whole life in the shackles of memories she couldn’t break free from even if she wanted to.