Chapter 1

“Why are you acting like that, Liv?”

A voice as subtle and sweet as the hand caressing my waist curled around my ear. I knew it would be better to remain quietly in his arms, but I involuntarily flinched and tried to escape the embrace of Lucian, the crown prince.

But Lucian tightened his grip as though he had already known I would do so. Contrary to my intention, I ended up drawn even deeper into his arms. I was flustered, but while I composed my expression to keep it from showing, his other hand approached.

The large, warm hand that touched the nape of my neck guided my gaze toward him.

As I hesitated at something wavering in darkness as deep as an abyss, his eyes curved gently.

“Tell me, who is making you tremble like this?”

You. Your eyes, which have gone a little—no, actually, quite thoroughly mad, frighten me the most.

I swallowed the words that rose to my throat and rested my face against Lucian’s chest. The laughter resonating through our touching bodies told me that the action I had chosen satisfied him.

In contrast to the relaxed Lucian, disbelief and humiliation appeared on the face of the duke standing before us, who was now my ex-husband. And, though only for a fleeting moment, a sense of loss passed across it as well.

A sense of loss.

Hiding my face in the crown prince’s arms, I smiled coldly. Did he now think he had been robbed of me, when he had never once tried to have me?

I had come this far to see that face now. As I had wanted, I had divorced Liam and taken many things from him.

Of course, everything I had taken from Liam had fallen directly into Lucian’s hands, but those were the terms of our contract. Both Lucian and I had obtained everything we were to gain, so my role as his lover would end today.

Only one thing remained now. For him to discard me. With that, the contract would end, and all that would remain for me was to leave with a light heart.

Just as I briefly relaxed at the ending now before my eyes, a little malice appeared on Lucian’s face. It was an exceedingly faint emotion. But to my eyes, it was clearer than ever.

Tilting his head as though the thought had just occurred to him, he spoke calmly.

“Ah, I intend to marry Liv soon.”

His leisurely voice was directed at Liam. At his words, Liam’s face visibly contorted, and I looked at Lucian without managing to conceal my bewilderment.

There was no way Lucian was unaware of my feelings, but he merely wore a look as though he could not hide his affection, then leaned closer and kissed the corner of my eye.

Liam and I were not the only ones taken aback. The people who had quietly gathered as though watching an entertaining spectacle began to stir noticeably.

“Y-Your Highness?”

“Of course, it will only be possible if Liv agrees…… Still, thanks to you letting her go, I have a chance now too.”

Lucian, who placed particular emphasis on “letting her go,” smiled brightly. Momentarily dazed by a smile more dazzling than the lights illuminating them, I bit my lip and gathered my senses.

As I had thought, joining hands with Lucian might have been a dangerous choice.

Having made both the best and the worst choice at once, I simply closed my eyes and let my body rest against him.

“Are you very tired?”

To anyone watching, he would have looked like a man so deeply in love that he did not know what to do with himself. When I gently opened my eyes, Lucian’s dark red eyes, brimming with concern, came into view.

There was much I wanted to say, but I said nothing. Fatigue washed over me. So much that I could not endure it.

Where had things gone wrong?

A woman over whom the shadow of death had fallen blinked in the mirror. Even that small movement was filled with despair, yet her beauty was brighter than the sunlight falling into the bedroom.

Clear, shining sky-blue eyes and pale pink hair that displayed a mysterious quality depending on the light. Not a trace remained of the vitality that must once have rested on the lovely face beneath it.

I would like to see it at least once.

I reached toward the pitiful woman standing all alone in the mirror. At the sight of the hand reaching toward me, I unconsciously stepped back a little.

I looked down at the pale hand. Faced with an unfamiliar body and face that I could scarcely grow accustomed to, I drew a deep breath and met her gaze in the mirror again.

Had there been no painless way to die? It had hurt so much that bitter regret had washed over me. I felt complicated emotions at the fact that I had not died after all, and before long, I realized that I had become someone other than myself.

It did not take long to realize that I had become Olivia, the female protagonist of a bleak novel I had read before—a novel that, moreover, had a sad ending.

Though it did take some time to accept that this was after the ending in which she had taken her own life.

“His Grace the Duke really is too cruel.”

I heard a voice filled with distress. Rose, her childhood nanny, looked as though she might burst into tears at any moment.

After setting the soup she had personally brought on the table, Rose hurried over and supported me.

“They say he is still by that woman’s side. Even though you are this…… unwell, my lady, they say he cannot leave that woman’s side when she merely has body aches.”

Rose’s voice trembled slightly as she spoke of that woman, Selina. Selina was Liam’s mistress, who had entered the ducal household immediately after his marriage to Olivia and occupied the ducal couple’s bedroom.

“To be this frail.”

When cold sarcasm and a chilly laugh escaped me, who had always been merely sorrowful whenever Selina was involved, Rose’s eyes grew even more worried.

In fact, Olivia was to be murdered by Liam shortly afterward. It was none other than Selina who had informed Olivia, isolated within the ducal household, of that fact.

How kind of her.

As perceptive as she was, there was no way she did not know how deeply Olivia loved Liam. Even so, Selina was always desperate to flaunt Liam’s affection for her in front of Olivia.

Selina tormented Olivia more persistently than anyone else. And in the end, she pushed her into despair.

Liam would not let Olivia go because he needed her, yet he had no intention of letting her be, either. The reality she had struggled not to see was too cruel for Olivia.

The hope that he might turn to look at her someday, the expectation that she might receive even a single grain of affection.

The moment those crumbled, Olivia’s heart shattered with them.

“This is a message His Highness the Duke instructed me to deliver.”

As though a brief knock was the utmost courtesy he could show, Wilson, the head servant, stated only the purpose of his visit, without even a formal greeting.

“The second lady is unwell, so he instructed that you, the first lady, take particular care in nursing her. Let us go.”

In that instant, the air in the bedroom grew strangely heavy. The weight settling on my shoulders was probably a memory held by Olivia’s body.

Unlike Rose, whose very breathing had become cautious, Wilson’s gaze did not waver at all.

As though he were certain there was no possibility that I would refuse.

He said he was delivering a message, but his tone was quite overbearing. An incredulous laugh escaped me at his tone, which assumed I could not refuse, and I sighed at the contempt in the eyes with which he regarded me.

Wilson was not giving me a choice. He gave orders, and I was merely someone who had to obey.

As I remained silent and merely smiled bitterly, Wilson began to open his mouth, perhaps to hurry me along. At that moment, Rose stepped in front of me.

“Is my lady someone who should be made to nurse another person?”

“This is not a matter for you to interfere in!”

The moment Rose, who had been fidgeting anxiously beside me, finished speaking, Wilson shouted at her. In the brief time since Wilson had appeared, I could truly feel what Olivia’s position in this mansion was.

There could only have been one reason Olivia, who had been raised more nobly than Liam, had lived while enduring such indignities and humiliation. Liam Ravils. Because she loved this man, because she wanted to remain by his side……

I had little interest in Olivia’s life, but suddenly I saw myself overlapping with her, who had been passionate and pure in love.

Could anyone understand as well as I do your heart, so miserably trampled upon even after giving everything? Both you and I should be free now.

Olivia, I will imprison them in darkness deeper than the despair you experienced.

Watch carefully. See what ending awaits them.

“My lady, His Grace the Duke will be enraged.”

Wilson subtly pressured me by bringing up Liam, Olivia’s only weakness. I looked straight into his eyes and gave him the most elegant smile I could manage.

“Of course I should look after her. I will nurse her.”