“If your wish is to get f*cked by me, feel free to frequent my bedroom. Like you did last night.”

Diez’s gaze as she looked up at Jürgen was filled with fear and tension. She now seemed to see the late Duke in Jürgen.

There was no reason to feel wronged. It was a clear fact that Jürgen himself was no different from his father.

The right forearm that had been burned with a cigarette began to sting again. Would she have looked like this back then too? When his father held a whip in one hand and approached her as she sat on the cold floor, Diez must have been just as terrified.

Now the target of her fear was no longer the dead former Duke but him. Even as his heart raced and his fingertips trembled as if seized by compulsion, he felt a strange sense of relief.

He thought it was rather fortunate that everything would be concluded by the mistake he’d made of pinning her down on the sofa.

“You have no idea how hard I’ve had to try to restrain my desire to hold you.”

“……”

“So it would be better not to create more situations that provoke me. Unless that’s your preference.”

“B-but, Your Grace.”

She squeezed out her voice as if clinging to a final stronghold.

“You told me before. When we walked in the garden…… you said you didn’t want me to live an unhappy life. You said you deeply hated the late Duke. You said you would help me live well even after I left the mansion, surely……”

“Of course, my offer to help is true.”

He mercilessly cut off the words Diez was struggling to continue.

“It’s true that I want to f*ck you, but that would only end up smearing my honor with filth.”

“……”

“To be honest, I just want to get rid of you quickly. And in a way that leaves no complications. I don’t want to live filthily like my father. I’ve seen what it’s like to live with people pointing fingers behind your back, and do you think I would inherit that same life?”

He saw Diez’s eyes sink into despair. Judging this was enough, he straightened his tie and added in a cold voice,

“You’d better plan on meekly accepting my goodwill. If you don’t want to be locked in the mansion taking c*ck until you die.”

“……”

“I am restraining myself for your sake right now. I hope you don’t forget that fact.”

He left the bedroom without looking back. The moment the door firmly closed, Diez curled up against the wall, clutching the blanket with trembling hands.

Perhaps due to the shock, she couldn’t think of anything for a moment.

How many minutes had passed? Finally unable to suppress the rising emotions, Diez began to sob quietly.

It was something she had never imagined.

That Jürgen had been looking at her with such eyes.

She thought he was a good person. Even though he spoke that way, she had thought he was truly a kind person.

And she, knowing nothing……

Jürgen’s words were ultimately true. Diez was a pathetic and stupid woman. She had felt some attraction toward a man who had been planning to drag her to the Blue Room all along.

Why did it hurt so much? Even though she had endured much worse when the late Duke was alive.

It felt like punishment for having freely given her trust to Jürgen. She had thought her life had improved significantly, but that wasn’t the case at all.

In the end, what awaited Diez was a sewer just as horrible and filthy, only in a different form.

To think it had all been her delusion. The kind words he spoke to her, the attentiveness he showed in personally selecting menus for her—all of it had been lies he fabricated.

It seemed the time had come for her to realize it herself.

Good days would never come to her life. How dare she expect happy days to return after living in stupid delusions.

Above all, she felt empty, as if her heart had been hollowed out. It felt like a large, black hole had been drilled through her soul.

I was relying on Jürgen more than I thought.

Having just realized this fact, Diez directed a bitter sneer at herself. There was never anyone she could rely on in the first place. From the moment she was sold to pay off her family’s debt, Diez had nowhere to lean on.

She was completely alone.

For someone who only knew how to live in someone else’s embrace, this was an unbearable reality.

Perhaps that’s why she had placed unfounded hope in Jürgen. Because she wanted to find someone to rely on. Because it would be easier to lean on someone else than to support herself.

In the end, only a cruelly cold reality remained before Diez. She wanted to turn away from it with all her might, but she couldn’t.

Would she have to live repeating this despair for the rest of her life?

She should have known earlier. That there was no one left to take her side.

Curled up in bed, she cried silently in endless misery.

She missed her parents.

Time passed indifferently and quickly.

There was no change in Diez’s life. Her daily routine was monotonous. Forcing herself to eat three meals a day, staying quietly in her bedroom, and occasionally fiddling with embroidery tools—that was the entirety of her daily life so far.

If anything had changed, it was that she no longer went out to the garden. Now Diez substituted walks by looking out the window. She lacked the energy to go out and walk, and she simply didn’t feel like it.

No servant came to persuade her otherwise. Diez was just a miss staying as a guest, not even a member of the family. For them, the best approach was to draw an invisible line by giving her minimal treatment as a miss without going against Jürgen’s mood.

It might be natural, but after that day, she never encountered Jürgen. He never visited Diez’s bedroom again. The same was true for Diez. The two no longer had lunch together either.

Time passed, and the Victory Day celebration that once seemed like it would never come finally approached.

Diez, who had been living day by day without even knowing how many days had passed, learned about this fact thanks to the maids.

“You must leave the mansion with the Duke at around five in the afternoon.”

They sat Diez in front of a mirror and concentrated on creating a splendid miss worthy of being Duke Klaus’s partner. Perhaps because her complexion had deteriorated, she looked much worse than before despite being beautifully adorned.

Only when she was dressed in a gorgeous dress with the help of the maids did she finally realize it.

‘Tomorrow marks the beginning of the festival period.’

The Victory Day celebration, lasting from a week to ten days, begins with an eve party. Nobles and capitalists gather in their finest clothes, drinking, dancing, and celebrating together until the stroke of midnight announces the arrival of the commemorative day.

The memory of attending such an event with her father seemed like a previous life. She recalled loving the fireworks that burst in the night sky at midnight.

“We’re finished, Miss.”

The maids who had completed her preparations stepped back from her.

“Is it to your liking? If you have any further instructions……”

The head maid who was continuing her words glanced at Diez’s expression and then skipped to another topic.

“The Duke will return within thirty minutes. You should wait here so you can depart immediately.”

“I understand.”

Wearing shoes that once made her heels bleed, Diez sat neatly arranging the hem of her dress and remained motionless like a living porcelain doll.

The maids who stood by her side to attend to her kept their words to themselves. They too had long sensed that something must have happened between Diez and Jürgen, but none dared to show it.

Soon, the sound of a car engine approaching the mansion announced the Duke’s return. The maids, who moved busily as soon as they noticed his presence, led Diez to the front gate of the mansion.

Jürgen was outside, perhaps to change cars. He was already perfect without going through the elaborate preparation process like Diez.

As soon as his eyes met with the beautifully dressed woman, he simply nodded his head.

“Get in.”

At his brief instruction, Diez obediently approached him.

The servants who helped her get into the car without damaging her dress soon closed the car door for them. Sitting next to Jürgen in the car, Diez felt as if she was suffocating the moment the door closed.

This must have been apparent to Jürgen.

“If you’re uncomfortable, I’ll lower the window a bit.”

“……I’m fine.”

I wish you would let me get out instead. Swallowing her true thoughts deep in her throat, Diez only looked down at her neatly folded hands.

Jürgen’s gaze briefly touched her before being withdrawn. There was no conversation between the two during the entire journey. Diez never raised her head either.

* * *