Chapter 48

“What is the matter!”

Rodin rushed into the tea room.

He glanced between the three people in the room, then his eyes widened as he looked at Edward.

“When did you arrive, Masquis?”

It seemed Rodin had only just learned that Edward had returned home.

He had disappeared from the house without warning, and now he was back just as unexpectedly.

Edward seemed not to hear Rodin’s words at all, giving no reply and only glaring at the Duke.

Rodin’s now chilly gaze soon turned towards Diane.

Diane bit her lip.

Rodin was speaking to her with his eyes alone.

‘Miss Diane Lina, you’re the problem again,’ he seemed to say.

Even without Rodin’s silent reproach, Diane herself could feel with every fiber of her being that President Edward Wale was angry because of her.

She had been learning piano from the Duke, and, unfortunately, the President had come in just when the Duke was rather close to her, so the situation might have seemed somewhat inappropriate.

But even so, she couldn’t understand why the President was so furious.

Even if the Duke and she, as employer and employee, had acted improperly, he wasn’t the Duke, nor the Head of the Family, nor the person involved—so why was he so angry?

He radiated the kind of rage and ferocity a predator might show if another predator tried to steal its prey.

As if she were his property or a meal.

Property, prey?

Ah! Was it because of that again?

Professional Beauty.

He arbitrarily thought of her as his Professional Beauty?

She glared at President Edward Wale over the Duke’s shoulder.

The President, as if waiting for her to look at him, shifted his gaze from Adrian to her, staring directly at her as if he could pierce her with his eyes.

Seeing his eyes, Diane felt her embarrassment and confusion over the awkward situation instantly disappear.

So it really was that.

She couldn’t understand it.

When had she ever given him any reason or possibility for such thoughts, for him to define her as he pleased and actually treat her that way?

She couldn’t make sense of what went on in the President’s head or heart.

‘I’m not your property!’

She stepped to the side from behind the Duke and faced President Edward Wale head-on.

She decided to stand up to anyone who treated her as an object.

“I was playing the piano for a moment, and the Duke was simply teaching me how to play. As an employee, I don’t think I did anything especially wrong, but if you’re angry that I used something in this house without permission, I apologize. I had no intention of playing further and won’t do so again. Now, I’ll be leaving.”

“What? Hey! You—”

The President shouted, making a scene at her words, but Diane thoroughly ignored his reaction, bowed her head slightly only to the Duke, then passed Edward Wale and Rodin and left the tea room.

She managed to keep her composure as she started up the stairs to her room.

But as she climbed each step, her legs began to weaken.

Soon, the trembling that started in her legs spread to her arms.

Her hand kept slipping from the banister, and both legs felt like heavy weights she had to drag.

She had to get to the fourth floor, no matter what.

She wanted to leave the house altogether, not climb any higher.

Struggling up the stairs, she suddenly thought so.

The Duke was overwhelming, the President she disliked.

Living in a house owned by them felt so heavy it physically hurt her.

She thought of Gale Tertz and Walt Tertz, who were staying at the Wale Corporation’s staff quarters.

She missed the days with them, when things weren’t overwhelming or unpleasant.

* * *

“Rodin, step outside.”

Adrian gave a short order.

Rodin was a butler who knew his place well and sensed the tension between the two masters.

He left the tea room without a word.

“I told you to stop being interested in that woman!”

“I never said I would.”

“What? What nonsense is that?”

“Just what I said. You can’t tell me what to do. Whether I’m interested or not, that’s up to me, Ed.”

“Are you crazy? You’re preparing to marry Earl Lautrec’s daughter, and you dare show interest in Diane Lina? Are you trash?”

“Watch your mouth, Ed.”

Adrian, who had seemed calm and composed compared to Edward, now showed a clearly hardened face.

“If you’re not trash, then pay attention to your fiancée! Why are you messing with someone else’s woman?”

“Someone else’s woman?”

“That woman, Diane Lina, she’s mine.”

“Is that so?”

Adrian’s face showed a hint of ridicule.

“What’s with that expression?”

“Are you sure she’s yours?”

“…….”

Edward fell silent.

“She’s not, is she?”

Adrian said it as if to show off.

“You can’t tell me what to do. Diane Lina isn’t yours, Edward.”

“Diane Lina is mine!”

“I don’t think so. Didn’t you see the way she looks at you?”

Edward’s face, which had been calm until now, twisted in anger.

“If she’s not mine… then what, you’re going to… do something? Is that what you’re saying?”

Uncharacteristically for Edward, he spoke slowly, pausing several times.

“Well, maybe I could.”

“You jerk!”

“It’s not me, it’s you. Diane Lina thinks of you that way.”

“Shut up?”

“Does Diane Lina like that kind of talk? Do you think she could? I don’t think so.”

“Just shut up. What are you up to with her?”

“Nothing in particular… Diane Lina is just… Leon’s teacher.”

Adrian brushed past Edward’s shoulder and left the tea room.

But as he climbed the stairs to his room, his face grew darker.

Tutor, teacher, Miss Diane Lina, Diane Lina, Diane.

He hadn’t lied to Edward.

Diane Lina really was just Leon’s tutor.

But why was this tutor, this mere teacher, turning into Diane Lina, into Diane?

He was the Duke, the Head of the Wale family, yet because of her, he was acting out of character.

She was just a tutor.

He had reached the third floor and now stared blankly at the stairs leading to the fourth, his eyes dark.

* * *

Left alone in the tea room, Edward sat on the piano bench.

<She’s not, is she?>

His brother’s words echoed in his ears.

Not his?

Diane Lina wasn’t his?

How could his Strawberry not be his?

The Strawberry he found and brought to his house?

But when his brother asked, ‘Is she really yours?’ he couldn’t say a word.

<I’m not someone you can control at will, Mr. President.>

Was it because of those words Diane Lina had said?

Or was it because of the look of contempt she had given him, both today and before?

Why did she look at him as if he were someone to be despised?

The girl who had once told him he was like a prince, who said she would be his woman.

Sitting with his back to the piano, he turned to glare at it.

He recalled her sitting there, her face flushed red, surrounded by his brother.

He wanted to smash the piano.

But thinking back, it wasn’t the first time he’d seen her make that face.

She’d had that look the very first evening she came to the house, at the dinner table.

<Duke Adrian Wale, did you ever visit a place called Lina Orphanage when you were young?>

Even when she asked that, her face was as flushed as before.

Even after that, whenever she was with his brother, she often looked that way.

He had thought she simply liked his brother’s piano playing, but maybe she liked something else.

She had flatly refused to go to the opera house with him, but had gone with his brother using the tickets he’d prepared.

His Strawberry, Diane Lina.

The woman who was his.

He had never doubted it, but now that certainty was shaken.

No, it had already been shaken, but maybe he had just ignored it.

To him, she was always his woman, but to her, he might just be the employer she met a few months ago.

Not a few months ago, but the prince she met at the orphanage as a child—not knowing he was that prince.

She believed the prince she met at the orphanage was his brother.

He couldn’t understand why she was so mistaken, but he thought she would remember someday.

But she didn’t.

Her flushed face, ironically, was turned toward his brother.

His brother had never even seen her, never knew her!

His clenched fist bulged with veins.

He slammed the piano lid shut as if to break it.

The dull sound echoed from the wood to the strings.

He got up.

She had to know.

She had to know that the prince she met at Lina Orphanage was not Adrian Wale, but Edward Wale.

That the prince who kissed her on the cheek and became her brother, the prince she called handsome, was not his brother, but himself.

He headed for the second room from the end of the fourth floor East Wing.