He would grab her chin roughly and ask, "It wasn't you, was it?" She expected him to corner her fiercely, demanding, "Who the hell are you?"
"Since when?"
Click, a metallic sound echoed. The man picked up a cigarette from a silver case on the bedside table and asked.
Olivia slowly opened her tightly shut eyes. The chilling temperature in his gaze sent a shiver down her spine.
"With Edgar."
The relief that she hadn't been caught doing something else was fleeting.
"Tell me."
He loosely held the cigarette between his lips and pressed her. His lowered gaze was indifferent, yet not quite.
"Before the divorce?"
"No. You know better than anyone that's impossible."
"Then, since when?"
His expression remained unchanged, but a coldness laced the man's voice.
"Since it stopped being any of your business. Is that enough?"
Olivia didn't avert her gaze, as if determined not to lose. Yohan stared down at Olivia silently.
"Edgar is... out of the question."
What did it matter who she met? It wasn't the business of her ex-husband, who was even engaged.
The power in the bright blue eyes fixed on Yohan intensified.
"I decide that, not you."
Her pale face was quite stubborn. Yohan didn't like that stubbornness.
He reached out again, extending the hand he had thrust into one pocket, and bent down.
Olivia recoiled in surprise, as if she had encountered a pervert. He was only reaching for a match on the table.
'Hold me.'
His wife's voice, seductively clinging to him, tickled his ear.
The revealing negligee was no different from what she wore now, but the essence within felt foreign, as if she had become a different person.
The man she shouldn't get involved with was very tall.
Olivia flinched and turned her head away as if to avoid him. The large fingertips searching for a matchbox on the bedside table came into view.
"!"
Following the neatly extended fingers of the man, the word 'Patek' sparkled in the light on the round anthracite dial above the straight wrist bone.
It was Olivia Blanchett's birthday present. Unbelievably.
"Why... why are you wearing this?"
Olivia was so shocked that she stuttered.
"Because I received it as a gift."
Yohan said it casually. Olivia was dumbfounded by his audacity. A gift was still a gift.
"Give it back."
"Why?"
The man's expression was nonchalant as he leaned back in the chair. Olivia blinked her bright blue eyes, bewildered by his attitude.
"It's not polite to your fiancée."
She felt like he would scoff, asking if someone who knew that would send such a gift. Of course, there was an excuse since he didn't know they would get divorced.
"We're not at the stage of standing on ceremony."
Yohan said expressionlessly.
Courtesy.
He had no courtesy to offer a woman who married him while harboring feelings for another man.
Therefore, he had no qualms about facing eyes that sparkled like a clear lake in summer.
Unaware of this, Olivia was simply bewildered. Goodness, what kind of man was this?
"Then you must have a conscience."
"Unlikely."
He stopped trying to light the match and replied.
He put the match back in the box and tossed it onto the bedside table.
"Give it to me."
Johann Leopold was all Olivia Blanchett remembered.
She hadn't looked into every detail, but she thought she had done well to get divorced.
She also thought that she never wanted to be involved with such a rude and shameless man again.
She wanted to get the watch back quickly and kick him out of the room.
"It's my money anyway, Olivia."
Yohan stared silently at the woman who had been his wife.
He found this changed version of her more eye-catching. It was also refreshing that the woman who used to cling to him in tears was now only thinking of escaping.
She was the wife who said she was jealous of his watch and wanted to be the watch on his wrist.
The woman who used to ramble about loving him like the eternally flowing time was now acting like this.
So, he didn't want to give it back even more. He had no intention of doing so.
"I'll pay you back."
"I must have given you too much alimony."
After all, it was the money he had given her. His wife seemed to have forgotten that fact for a moment.
"You said you loved me."
And the past when she loved him.
Olivia's face, which had been boldly defiant, turned pale.
The densely packed long eyelashes soon fluttered.
Beneath them, her clear eyes were chillingly blue. Were they always like this? They were incredibly lovely and beautiful.
The way she boldly confronted him without averting her gaze or becoming tearful was unfamiliar yet subtly stimulating.
The past came to mind. One day before the wedding, his wife, unable to meet his gaze and with her face flushed red, whispered her love.
"You said you loved me. Olivia."
Olivia's heart fluttered at the heavy voice.
The sharply changed gaze dug into Olivia's eyes as if to devour them. It was difficult to meet his gaze.
But she didn't avoid it. Because she wasn't Olivia Blanchett.
"Not... anymore."
She didn't love him anymore. That was all.
No, she had never loved him in the first place. To her, this man was just someone she had met twice.
"So, that watch. Give it back."
The wife, who calmly let go of the hot emotions that had burned herself out as if they were insignificant, spoke coldly.
It was no different from the way Yohan carelessly blew out cigarette smoke.
His heart ached. It wasn't just because of the whiskey.
Yohan, who knew how to control his thoughts without distraction, had been finding it difficult lately.
Especially when the subject was Olivia Blanchett.
Yohan opened his eyes, which had been closed.
"So."
Yohan, who had been listening to Maurice's report, took a deep drag of his cigarette.
The early summer weather was unseasonably chilly, and the night breeze heartlessly scattered the hazy smoke.
"The letter is indeed the same one that Marquis Lancelot wrote in a similar situation before."
Yohan's sharply defined face looked tired. He slowly stroked the end of his chin with his fingers, which loosely held the cigarette.
"Princess Anne Boleyn is behind it."
"The coachman is denying it, but the circumstances suggest so."
"The witness who saw Olivia."
"They disappeared immediately after the commotion. Not yet."
Yohan's gaze reached Maurice, who was standing blankly.
Of course, it wasn't a kind gaze, so Maurice felt like he had become the most useless person in the world and felt wronged.
It was already two in the morning.
It was Maurice who had been running around like crazy, interrogating the coachman and searching for and investigating the accomplices in the hotel. He wished he would acknowledge it.
"I need to see the Princess."
Yohan murmured as he tilted the bottle into the empty glass. His dry eyes were detached.
Kidnapping, confinement, defamation, obstruction of business. Weren't these not enough?
For daring to turn the culmination of four years of effort and investment into a mess.
Yohan emptied his glass in one gulp.
'Not... anymore.'
'So, that watch. Give it back.'
Olivia's voice lingered in his ears.
The cold words touched Yohan's fuse. Since the fuse had been lit, it was only a matter of time before it exploded.
Across the dark window, the Lancelot Hotel, brilliantly lit from head to toe, came into view.
Yohan put a cigarette in his mouth.
The first night at the Leopold Hotel, where no one could sleep, was deepening.
"I'm disappointed, Anne."
Crown Prince Alex's eyes were fierce. No matter how much he cherished his sister, he couldn't take her side this time.
Why did she have to touch him?
"It's Yohan. Duke Johann Leopold. That's who you touched, Anne."
"I told you it has nothing to do with me."
Anne Boleyn's voice was perfectly calm.
The elegant way she lightly lifted the handle of the teacup was no different from usual. She was like a white peony in a vase.
"Anne."
"I don't know why everyone is doing this to me. Brother should trust me, shouldn't he? Isn't that right?"
Anne Boleyn's eyes, which had been lowered slightly and then slowly raised to meet Alex's, were moist.
They were filled with resentment, as if she felt very wronged.
Alex sighed.
Anne Boleyn was who she was now because the King and he had raised her with only affection, feeling sorry for her for losing her mother at a young age.
"Tell me the truth. That's the only way I can help you."
"It's not me. Why do you think I would do such a despicable thing?"
Anne Boleyn looked across at her brother with a wounded expression.
She knew that he was weak to this expression. The anger in Alex's eyes faded.
"I'll ask you one last time. Are you sure it has nothing to do with you?"
"I don't know anything about it."
Anne Boleyn, who answered calmly, simply shifted her gaze beyond the clear glass window. The sparkling fountain shooting up was refreshing.
It was around this time four years ago. Back then, when the world was green with the freshness of early summer, when she was in love with Edgar.
Now that she thought about it, she had a big fight with him over something trivial.
Angry, she went down to the villa in the southern city, but Edgar brought her back to his side in his own way.
「Bring her back respectfully」
The reason why the carriage heading to the villa suddenly changed direction was because of the letter Edgar had sent to the coachman.
She never knew that she would use the handwritten letter, which she had kept like a precious treasure, in this way, but she could just deny it.
Since she had already prepared a criminal who would confess to stealing it and plotting the crime, Anne Boleyn had nothing to fear.
As much as the huge amount of money for keeping her mouth shut cost, there was no corner where her name would leak out.
However, she was unbearably angry that she had been put on the list of suspects without any results.
She never imagined that he would have a surveillance agent attached to his divorced wife.
The Duke's impulsive actions, which she hadn't anticipated, were the cause of her failure.
"I have practice time."
As if she had nothing more to say, Anne Boleyn rose from her seat.
"The opponent is Yohan. And Edgar too."
Alex became frustrated when he saw his sister's eyes, which he couldn't tell what she was thinking. He pressed his eyelids and continued.
"You'll have to hope that they're as merciful as I am."
They were people who would hold the Brittish royal family responsible for protecting their sister.
As the price for covering up Anne Boleyn's misdeeds, Alex might have to accept ridiculous conditions.
"I hope you act wisely."
Alex, who swallowed a deep sigh, got up from his seat.
As the Crown Prince left, Anne Boleyn glared at something beyond the glass window with wide eyes.
She couldn't even do one simple thing properly.
Anne Boleyn began to bite her fingernails.
Now, her future depended on how strong the loyalty of the maid who had sworn allegiance to her was.
