Chapter 5

Since when? From the moment he noticed I was following him? Or from the moment he was already watching me, before I even began looking for him?

Every nerve in my body was on edge. The surrounding air brushed sharply against my nerves like a tightly drawn thread.

Unlike me, struggling not to reveal my unease, Lucian leaned back against the sofa with an even more relaxed attitude.

He wore a satisfied smile, as though he had read all my inner thoughts.

At a glance, I must have looked composed. But his demeanor, as though we occupied different atmospheres within the same space, inevitably made me anxious.

“Are you going to remain standing?”

There was not a trace of impatience in his slowly delivered voice. Lucian’s gaze briefly moved toward the sofa opposite him.

He was offering me a seat while naturally claiming the upper hand. His gaze was issuing an order before his words.

Instead of immediately sitting down as Lucian wanted, I gave a faint smile and offered a greeting just as naturally.

“Have you been in good health?”

My refined but firm voice returned to my ears. I found a little reassurance in hearing no confusion in it.

Moving as slowly as his voice, I sat upright. A small laugh escaped Lucian, who did not take his eyes off me until I had placed both hands on my knees.

It was a question that could be asked of anyone, regardless of the relationship, yet Lucian seemed to like my response all the more for it.

Unable to understand exactly what had pleased him, my thoughts grew even more complicated. But having too many thoughts now would not help me.

“Your air has changed considerably since we last met.”

Rendering my efforts to clear away unnecessary thoughts futile, his brief remark caused a considerable disturbance.

It could have been a conventional remark, but it suddenly struck me differently.

Lucian’s words felt as though he were indirectly expressing that he somehow knew I was not Olivia. To hold together my expression, which threatened to crumble, I deliberately glanced around. Fortunately, by the time I turned back to Lucian, my trembling heart had calmed somewhat.

“It has been so long since I last appeared before people that I took some care. I am glad it looks that way.”

An answer like this should turn his words into something conventional rather than meaningful. I might not be able to confirm his intent, but giving him no opening was more important now.

“I think we have caught up enough……”

Once again, Lucian seemed pleased with my answer. The way he prolonged the end of his words, heightening the tension, made me tense again.

“If you followed me to such a secluded place, it must be something of considerable importance.”

I wanted to ask whether I had followed him or he had made me follow, but I did not bother saying it aloud.

His timing was exceedingly practiced, seeming to circle around before striking directly at the heart of the matter.

Suddenly, Liam’s face came to mind. That expression of contempt and weary disgust toward me.

Over Liam’s face appeared the face of another person, whose selfishness was exactly like his—taking everything Olivia possessed, yet neither discarding her nor letting her go.

I did not know whether this was Olivia’s revenge or mine. But it did not matter. I had decided to bring down Liam and Selina, and the person I needed most to do so was before me.

I could not lose everything through even a momentary lapse. With only a novel whose main focus had been Liam and Olivia’s relationship, it would be difficult for me to find a better ally than Lucian.

More precisely, there was no telling how long it would take to find such a person and approach him. Moreover, there was no guarantee that he would be more powerful or pose a greater threat to Liam than Lucian.

“I do have an important matter. One that only Your Highness can grant.”

At my composed answer, one of his eyebrows rose slightly. He seemed not to have expected me to respond as directly as he had.

Tap.

A small sound against the glass shattered the precariously balanced atmosphere. I unconsciously looked toward it with widened eyes. A small bird perched on the windowsill was tapping the window with its beak.

The sight of the bird persistently tapping its beak, as though asking for the closed window to be opened, made my heart a little sorrowful.

It felt as though I were looking at Olivia and myself, endlessly waiting before a heart that would not open, becoming worn and exhausted before finally falling.

Let that be enough, and fly away. Fly freely into that deep night sky, wherever you wish.

After inwardly conveying that sorrowful wish, I turned my gaze toward Lucian. Before my head had fully turned back, I paused.

Lucian had no interest in the bird. He seemed to have been staring only at me, as though he had never once turned his head.

What expression had I worn just now? Had the pain in my heart slipped onto my face, even for a moment?

Even as I quietly received his gaze, Lucian continued to watch me persistently. Like someone determined not to miss even a single blink.

Why was he observing me so intently?

Before that question had faded, Lucian’s lips curved strangely.

“To steal your gaze away……”

Pausing briefly, he laughed softly.

“What a wicked bird.”

He spoke as though joking, but I could not laugh along with him. His playful words seemed instead to make his dangerousness more pronounced.

My eyes suddenly went back to the window. The bird that had been tapping the glass until moments ago had already disappeared.

Was it flying freely through the night sky? Or had it fallen somewhere in the darkness?

A meaningless thought passed through my mind. Once again, Lucian did not take his eyes off me.

Until my gaze had fully returned to him from the window, he watched me without so much as blinking.

As though testing how far I could be shaken.

After quietly watching me sit composedly amid the inexplicable silence, he shrugged as though it did not matter.

“A matter only I can grant. And since those words came from you, I am all the more curious.”

“It will be quite an interesting story.”

“Tell me.”

I had to keep my wits about me. Moreover, what I had to discuss from this point onward required me to take a deferential position before Lucian. At the same time, I could not let him seize the initiative, so I needed to concentrate all the more.

I tightened my clasped hands. I felt an exceedingly faint tremor. It was a movement too small to be visible, yet Lucian’s eyes lingered there briefly.

His gaze rested so openly on my hands that I held my breath and tensed my fingertips.

The trembling subsided, but I had no way of knowing how it had appeared to Lucian.

Lucian said nothing. He neither pointed out the trembling he had discovered nor mocked it.

He merely tilted his head ever so slightly, like someone who had noticed nothing. But that silence made me all the more sharply alert.

He certainly knew. That I was trembling.

“There was one time when you, who had always been so frail, did not back down even once.”

His unhurried voice quietly resonated through the room. He was now recalling a part of Olivia’s past that I did not know.

“Was there?”

“There was. But you are different from then, too. Now you seem like another person.”

Lucian responded without the slightest hesitation to the words I had tried to laugh off.

Earlier, he had said I had changed, but now he said I seemed like another person. It felt as though he had seen straight through to me inside Olivia, and my body flinched.

Lucian could never discover my existence. There was no way he could comprehend something that transcended human common sense.

“What could have made you this strong?”

His gaze dropped to my fingertips again, then slowly rose. Like someone determined not to miss a moment of hesitation, he voiced his question in a low tone.

“What could have led you all the way here?”

My breath trembled faintly. I steadied myself and swallowed my tension. I did not force a smile. Nor did I act desperate. I simply spoke as calmly as possible.

“I want to bring down my husband.”