Chapter 17
It was as if Calix had anticipated her reaction; he countered immediately.
“Are you truly satisfied with things as they are, My Lady? With the reality that the home and the land where you were born and raised can no longer be called your own?”
“……!”
“If you are the lady I think you are, I highly doubt that is the case.”
He smiled, as if he had no intention of hitting a nerve even though he had just pierced right through her.
Once again, he looked both cunning and innocent.
“I have no desire to possess a fortune. If I, who have survived this long by the grace of the Royal Family, were to begin amassing wealth through marriage, it would only invite unnecessary misunderstandings. Not only do I not want that, but legally, I am little more than an incompetent person. I cannot dispose of or transfer assets at will without a representative. Should I marry, that representative would naturally be my wife.”
While Matila’s laws did not grant women property rights, they placed no particular restrictions on a woman acting as her husband’s representative.
Lottie, who had been searching for a realistic way to reconcile her freedom with the survival of her family, was not ignorant of this fact.
However, she had quickly dismissed the idea, doubting any husband would entrust his representation to his wife when the right to become an aristocratic member of parliament and vast estates were at stake.
Of course, she also had no desire to marry a man with total paralysis just to manage the family herself.
Yet here was a man who fit those criteria perfectly. Someone closer than she thought—someone she desperately wished it hadn’t been.
“Furthermore, just as I am not the type of man to propose on a momentary impulse, I am also not the type to kiss just any woman out of physical instinct.”
As Lottie’s eyes trembled like leaves caught in a gale, Calix swallowed a strange sense of exhilaration.
“I will not deceive you with lies about falling in love at first sight. To me, you were nothing more than an uninvited guest at the Grand Banquet Hall.”
“…….”
“It was the same when we met at Grand Park. You didn’t give me a proper answer to anything I asked, and you even showed a peculiar hostility toward me.”
However…….
“I could not accept the fact that a woman like you would become another man’s wife.”
He desired her.
“I couldn’t endure it, so I had to ruin your engagement like that.”
“……!”
“If not a proposal, how else should I express this feeling—this desire not to lose you to another?”
Beneath the waning sunlight, a man who looked infinitely radiant and utterly filled with conviction confessed his heart.
Now, the burden of an answer returned to Lottie.
Whether his feelings were genuine or not, Lottie felt her vision grow faint.
“The men kicked out of Blue Brick are spreading rumors that you are a vain creature who wants a bridal home as large as the Queen’s palace, a crybaby who bursts into tears at the slightest thing, and an idiot who can’t even remember the surname of the Royal Family.”
It seemed they were gravely mistaken, though. Calix added playfully before continuing.
“Even if you were to become an idiot or a person full of vanity later on, I do not care. Whatever you may be like, the fact that I want you will remain unchanged.”
In a way, it was an ordinary confession. Yet it resonated within Lottie in a way she hadn’t expected.
‘What… have I been listening to just now…?’
He didn’t care if she was an idiot or vain. Did those words really come from the mouth of that rogue?
“It is true that I am a vain woman. I clearly declared that I would never marry unless my bridal home was as large as Dias Palace and every room was decorated with crystal.”
“Will crystals be enough? Diamonds, pearls, sapphires. Ah, emeralds that resemble your eyes would be lovely embedded in the path leading from the garden to the entrance.”
“Excuse me, but didn’t you say earlier that you were legally incompetent?”
“Do you have any idea how much is in the trust funds frozen in my name? I said I lacked legal capacity; I never said I lacked financial capacity itself.”
“And, and I’m an idiot! I’m a fool who can’t do anything by myself without my father. And… and I also really love alcohol!”
The more she spoke, the more Lottie felt she was only making herself sound pitiful.
Unfortunately, Lottie did not realize that to hide her true heart from this man, she would have to start by closing her eyes.
Calix, who easily saw through the lie, swallowed the laughter that threatened to burst out and replied quite seriously.
“If you are an idiot and a drunkard, then I shall simply become a fool and a sot as well.”
She was doomed.
Gentlemen like Mr. Katz had been on Lottie’s remarriage list, so they were easy to repel, but this man was an impenetrable wall.
Lottie had no information on the man named Calix Valdea. She didn’t even know what her former in-law, with whom she had been on worse terms than strangers, hated most.
“I’m serious. If you marry a woman like me, your life will become miserable, Prince. It will become maddeningly difficult!”
“What difference does it make to add one more misery to an already miserable life? I do not care.”
“Even if I… hurl verbal abuse at my husband and even lay hands on him?”
“I know you won’t do that.”
“I really will.”
“I won’t believe it. Because it’s a lie.”
No matter what excuse she threw at him, Calix didn’t budge. Lottie practically shrieked.
“Even if I told you there’s someone I like?”
In the fleeting silence, a wind carrying the afternoon heat swept past, disheveling Lottie’s hair.
A moment later, his lips, which had been pressed in a straight line, slowly curved into an arc.
“Liar.”
What a terrible man. Lottie finally lost her momentum.
A young gentleman crossing Bridge No. 1 spotted them and approached at a brisk pace.
Noticing the presence, Calix turned around and swallowed a bitter smile. It seemed they were acquaintances.
“I wondered where you’d disappeared to, and here you are. I told you to wait just a moment, but you couldn’t even hold out for that long….”
The young gentleman, Luca Brown, who had been fussing with exaggeration about how long he’d been searching, belatedly discovered the woman behind him and blinked.
Receiving a look, Calix spoke as if it were of no consequence.
“The lady I just proposed to.”
“Pro… what?”
Luca’s first impression upon hearing that word likely wasn’t much different from Lottie’s.
Calix fixed his entire gaze on Lottie alone, as if he had no intention of offering a kind explanation to someone like Luca Brown.
“You said there’s a man you like.”
“…….”
“What shall I do? I have no intention of giving up regardless.”
Despite the gentle voice and the warm afternoon sun, those words sounded different to Lottie.
A voice as desolate as midwinter air, saying, I simply must have you.
“You keep listing excuses for why you cannot marry me.”
As if sensing the frozen atmosphere, Calix’s expression softened again.
“……That is.”
“Do you hate me that much?”
It was a light tone. However, the words he spoke did not sound light at all.
Her mind lost control and awakened memories of days past.
It had already been a month since then. When she had become Calix Valdea’s partner for a day at Grand Park.
They had reached the end of their time together after silently watching the Contra River. When Lottie began to walk with a limp in her uncomfortable shoes, Calix had watched her intently.
- Surely you aren’t about to suggest carrying me because my feet are uncomfortable, or switching shoes, while prattling on about a gentleman’s duty?
When Lottie crossed her arms in an ‘X’ in front of her chest, Calix snorted. As if that would absolutely never happen.
And then, what he said to her was:
- Take them off.
He had spoken in a way that was perfectly designed to be misunderstood, then added as if wondering why she was so surprised.
- Not what you’re thinking right now.
The shoes, I mean. The shoes.
At those words, Lottie’s face, which had turned pale, flushed bright red.
Resentful at being teased again, she argued, ‘What if I step on a pebble and get hurt while walking barefoot?’ to which he casually countered that it was better than crushing her ankles in those shoes.
It didn’t seem like he was wrong, and she couldn’t find the courage to take another step in those shoes, so Lottie took them off as if she had no choice.
Calix, walking a few steps ahead of her, had secretly cleared the path while Lottie walked barefoot.
He used his booted feet to push away any protruding pebbles or dirt.
The feeling of walking barefoot with her shoes in hand was more pleasant than she’d expected, and the experience of walking along a path someone had cleared for her was stranger than she’d imagined.
The fact that the ‘someone’ was a person she had never expected made it even less surprising that the memory lingered so long.
‘Right.’
At least until just before the kissing incident occurred, she couldn’t deny that she had thought a little better of this man because of that day.
The reason she was recalling that moment now was clear. She wanted to be persuaded. Because his rational arguments for marriage were so incredibly alluring.
Because whether he was the tyrant who had killed her or not, she wanted to close her eyes tight and take his hand.
Because she needed self-justification that it was okay to do so.
‘You’ve truly gone mad, Charlotte Evanshire.’
She didn’t know the ultimate, underlying reason why this man insisted on marrying her.
She didn’t know if the favor he showed was genuine. She didn’t want to know.
But whatever the reason, she knew he wouldn’t back down easily.
And she knew that if she stayed like this, her infinitely weak heart would eventually be bewitched by that cruel murderer.
She also knew what kind of hell she would face afterward.
“Yes. I hate you.”
Lottie slowly rose from her seat. She looked straight into the eyes of the man sitting across from her. She hoped her sincerity was fully conveyed.
“……Liar.”
“…….”
“You were wavering.”
What she faced was a wall that remained as solid as ever.
An arrogant man who was certain that nothing could ever break through him.
