Of course she and Damon Preston were not lovers. They were not even close to being lovers. If anything, Nate was the one woman Damon Preston, who never turned anyone away and never held anyone back, had actually rejected.

And starting today, there would be one more title to add before Nate’s name. The only woman who declared to Damon’s face that she was giving up on him.

Damon’s expression stiffened for a moment as he stared at Nate. She lifted the corners of her mouth in a gentle smile and spoke to him.

“I’m sorry for troubling you all this time, Young Lord. Today I just… wanted to tell you that.”

That seemed to be all she had to say. With those words, Nate turned and walked away.

The nobles who witnessed it all stirred with unease. Some turned to others to confirm whether they had heard correctly. That was how unexpected it was for Nate to give up on Damon. And for Damon Preston himself, it was even more so……

Damon, who silently watched Nate’s retreating figure, took out a cigar and placed it between his lips. A passing attendant held a lit taper to the end of it.

Damon drew from the cigar at his leisure. Even so, his eyes refused to leave Nate’s back.

* * *

“Miss O’Hara, are you all right?”

Wendy, her maid, asked in a careful voice as Nate returned to the manor after the party. Nate, seated before the vanity, answered.

“I have to be……”

A faint tremor ran beneath her quiet voice. Wendy spoke to her.

“I honestly didn’t think you would tell Young Lord Preston directly that you were giving up on him.”

“I had to say it out loud, or I’d waver.”

“…You meant it, didn’t you, Miss O’Hara. That you’re truly giving up on Young Lord Preston.”

Even Wendy, her own maid, assumed Nate was only going through a passing moment of hurt. That she was saying those things because the wound from Damon was still fresh. That by tomorrow she would be back to loving him again.

No, even saying “back to loving him” felt strange. Nate was already in love with Damon, and had been for a long time.

But watching Nate make that declaration to his face at the party tonight, Wendy understood. She truly intended to forget Damon.

‘Then again, no matter how many times he rejected her, Miss O’Hara never once said she would give up on the Young Lord.’

Wendy looked at Nate with a pained expression.

Meanwhile, Nate sat staring blankly at her own reflection in the vanity mirror, her face neither crying nor smiling. The hands resting on her knees curled slowly into fists.

‘It doesn’t feel as devastating as I thought it would.’

Nate thought to herself. It would be a lie to say her heart didn’t hurt, but it was more bearable than she expected. At least she didn’t collapse on the floor of the party hall. At least she made it home without crying.

She recalled what moved her to decide to erase Damon, the man she loved so deeply, from her heart. It was the scene she witnessed at the imperial palace party the night before.

Nate went looking for Damon to confess to him, though she had long since lost count of how many times she had tried. People always surrounded him. That alone made it no easy task to find a moment alone with him.

She happened to spot him leaving the banquet hall alone, and quietly followed. Damon already knew she was following him. Nate noticed the glances he occasionally cast her way.

Perhaps she read something into those glances and let herself hope in a way she rarely allowed. She felt, somehow, that today might bring a different answer than before.

‘Mmh! D, Damon…… Mmm. Ah! Touch my chest too, yes, like that……! It feels so good, aah!’

But what Nate found when she followed Damon was nothing short of a shameless, indecent scene. A young noblewoman with her dress nearly stripped away, and Damon Preston leisurely exploring her body.

She already knew, in a general way, about his disorderly private life, but she never imagined she would witness it with her own eyes. Perhaps she understood in her mind that Damon’s entanglements with women were complicated, but in her heart she was still in denial.

It was at that moment that Nate understood. When Damon’s blue eyes shifted away from the young noblewoman and found her, the one who had been secretly following him. He was someone who did not suit her at all…… And more than that, the fact that Damon would ever come to love her was something that would simply never happen.

Just as the reason she first took an interest in him was something small and trivial, the reason she stopped was equally so. Though of course, the wounds of five years of unreturned love also played no small part.

Wendy spoke up in a worried voice.

“Miss O’Hara, then you’re not planning to tell Young Lord Preston about that?”

“Tell him what?”

Nate asked, not sure what she meant, and Wendy answered plainly.

“You and Young Lord Preston share a deep connection from when you were children.”

“Ah……”

The mention of it brought a forgotten memory to the surface, and Nate let out a small sigh. But she spoke as though she no longer intended to give it any thought.

“It probably isn’t a good memory for Young Lord Preston anyway. There’s no need to make him revisit something unpleasant.”

The truth was, Nate intended to bring up the past once she grew a little closer to him. She thought that just as she was curious about who Damon was back then, he might be curious about who she was as a child too.

But she now realized all of that was pointless. It was nothing more than a foolish hope she built up because she was in love with him.

Wendy, for her part, looked a little crestfallen.

“I’m so disappointed. I really thought that if Young Lord Preston found out you two had a connection from the past, he would surely be glad to know.”

Nate smiled faintly.

“It can’t be helped……”

She made up her mind to give up on him, after all…….

Nate decided to let every memory tied to Damon simply become a part of the past.

She looked at her reflection in the vanity mirror and spoke to Wendy.

“Can you bring me all the party invitations I’ve received?”

Wendy’s eyes went wide, clearly surprised.

“All of them?”

“Yes.”

The parties Nate attended were always limited. The formal ones she was required to attend, and the ones Damon Preston was attending.

On top of that, what she did at those parties amounted to nothing more than standing near Damon and waiting endlessly for even a single glance from him. It was hardly what one would call a proper social life, and as a result, her opportunities to truly mingle with other nobles were severely limited.

But now, Nate seemed to have a different kind of life in mind. She spoke in a gentle voice.

“If I want to forget Young Lord Preston, it’s better to keep myself busy so my mind doesn’t wander than to sit still.”

Only then did Wendy’s expression shift to one of understanding, and she moved at once to retrieve the invitations she had set aside.

Nate watched the direction Wendy disappeared in, then quietly turned back to her reflection in the mirror. For a woman who just ended five years of lonely, one-sided love, she was doing all right, Nate thought to herself.