The large horn-rimmed glasses weighing down the bridge of her nose were caught by elegant fingers and snatched away in an instant.
“Found you.”
At the same time, the man's fierce voice dropped overhead like the blade of a guillotine.
Meeting the dangerously gleaming eyes of the man, Rihart Cronel, Mona Bellose swallowed hard.
'I'm screwed.'
The man's eyes, normally praised to high heaven for resembling the blue summer sea, were stained red with madness.
At the same moment, warning alarms flashed red across Mona's mind.
“It's you, isn't it? The woman who hit and ran on me that night.”
“I-I have no idea what you're talking about...”
As she played dumb and instinctively shrank back, he closed the distance with a stride, grinding the glasses beneath his combat boot.
Crunch. The sight of her glasses shattering to pieces felt all too much like her own future, bringing a cold sweat over her.
“Ha. No wonder I couldn't recognize you right under my nose with hideous glasses like these on.”
“...I have absolutely no idea what Your Grace is talking about.”
“You're an awful actress, yet you keep playing dumb. Are you still going to deny it after this?”
The moment he gestured with his chin, her loose robe slipped down, exposing her right shoulder blade.
Fixing his gaze on the distinctive cross-shaped scar on her shoulder, he let out a short laugh, baring his sharp canines.
“Did you think I wouldn't remember this scar? It is you. That pale woman from that night.”
She had been certain he had lost his mind with fever, yet he actually remembered this scar.
'I'm dead.'
“Mona Bellose, you're the type whose face gives everything away. You remember that night, don't you?”
“...”
Mona shut her eyes tight as her mind inadvertently drifted back to 'that night' he kept bringing up.
Scenes lewdly burned into her mind cluttered her thoughts.
Having a one-night stand when she had been single all her life was shocking enough, but there was a far bigger problem.
That night, in the middle of their bed, Mona had seen something she should never have seen.
The clandestine secret of the war hero, Rihart Cronel...
Something hard as steel, yet chillingly cold...
“Your Grace...! I am truly sorry. I swear on the Bellose name that I will never breathe a single word about that night to anyone.”
When she threw out the family name she was ready to abandon at any moment like a rubber check and rubbed her hands together in desperate plea, his lips curled slightly.
“Breathe a word, you say. Did you want to brag about sharing a bed with me far and wide?”
“...Pardon?”
“Of course, I can certainly understand wanting to show off the man you took into your arms. It's not as if I'm just any ordinary catch.”
What?
“However, it's only right that you keep quiet about the secret, passionate acts we engaged in—acts that nearly smashed the bed to pieces. It is far too personal, after all.”
He pinched Mona's upper and lower lips together firmly between his thumb and index finger.
“Don't you agree?”
I will! I'll keep my mouth shut!
When Mona nodded vigorously in agreement, he slowly pulled his fingers away from her lips.
Swallowing a trembling breath, Mona looked up at him, harboring a sliver of hope.
"Lord Rihart, th-then, does that mean you'll let what happened that day slide...?"
He raised a single brow as if she were being utterly absurd.
"Let it slide? You have to take responsibility."
"...For what?"
She could barely take care of herself, so what on earth was she supposed to take responsibility for?
"You took my first night, so naturally you should take responsibility for it, shouldn't you?"
"...?"
"Or did you really think you could just swipe the most precious thing I'd been saving and wipe your mouth clean of it?"
Looking at the man who was acting like a rogue and framing her as some shameless scoundrel, Mona felt light-headed with disbelief.
'This man has no intention of letting this go easily.'
He was planning to keep her by his side, knowing she held his secret, and bleed her dry of sanity until it killed her...!
'...Damn it.'
Strictly speaking, she had brought this catastrophe upon herself, so she couldn't even blame anyone else, which made Mona feel like bursting into tears.
Just how on earth had things come to this...?
