Chapter 3: Even Though They Won’t Believe It

“Speak up, Clea. Don’t test my patience any further.”

Putting down her teacup, Clea turned her gaze to Lloyd.

When their eyes met, Lloyd flinched at her cold stare, but soon regained his composure and didn’t avoid her gaze, filling his eyes with defiance.

Clea felt her chronic headache, which had developed since her transmigration, coming back again.

“Even if I speak, would you listen? You’ve already made up your mind about something. No matter what I say, that thought won’t change.”

She had no intention of denying her night with another man.

She didn’t have enough emotional investment left to engage in a fight with him.

So instead of explaining herself, she quietly looked at him while reflecting on her position.

As usual, people would curse her, not Lloyd.

They would ask how she could have a secret meeting with another man while having a fiancé.

‘Although Lloyd played around with other women for years while having a fiancée.’

Being criticized by people was nothing new to Clea.

She thought nothing of it as she watched Lloyd’s expression distort even more at her answer.

Seeing his twisted expression, Clea felt like laughing from the sudden good mood.

“Are you now seeking attention from random people because I don’t give you affection?”

“You’re wrong. I haven’t craved your awful affection for years.”

“Who was it that clung to me persistently? And who kept demanding an engagement with our family?”

“I’ve been telling you since then. That I’m sick of you. You must be sick of me too, so I said let’s break off the engagement.”

This was something she had been saying for years. Ever since her transmigration.

At first, he thought she was trying to get his attention, but when she kept announcing the breakup, his attitude changed.

Now he was trying to hold onto this meaningless relationship.

Even though she tried to change people’s perceptions somehow, nothing changed, and Clea gave up on everything.

No matter what she did, they would never change.

After coming to that realization, she tried to cut off relationships one by one.

To her family, and to Aria, she was bound by tiresome ties…

And among them, the relationship she wanted to cut off the most was with the man in front of her.

“Go to Aria Hersher whom you’re dying for.”

It was a quiet warning not to drag her into that sappy melodrama.

But this insensitive man seemed to think nothing of Clea’s warning, and instead gritted his teeth before smiling.

“Are you doing this to get my attention now?”

Clea was dumbfounded by his arrogant smile and response. She wondered where she should even begin to point out what was wrong.

While Clea couldn’t respond to his nonsensical words, Lloyd seemed to take that as confirmation.

Not wanting to cause any unnecessary misunderstandings, Clea briefly looked at the tea in her cup.

Disappointed at the tea that had gone cold while they were talking, she poured it straight onto Lloyd.

Faced with this sudden situation, Lloyd’s eyes showed clear signs of bewilderment.

But Clea spoke to Lloyd with the calmest gaze ever.

“Is this also to get your attention?”

“Clea Odoi!”

Drenched in tea, he shouted her name loudly.

Seeing the unsettling eyes watching from afar trembling, Clea clicked her tongue inwardly.

Though she felt like sighing, thinking about how her family would soon hear this news, she had to face the reality before her now.

Seeing Lloyd approaching while breathing heavily, Clea smiled.

“Let’s break up, Lloyd. I have no memory of ever liking someone like you.”

With those one-sided words, she turned around and disappeared.

Lloyd wanted to run after her and grab her wrist right away.

However, being noble as he was, he wanted to deal with his ridiculous appearance first.

The tea from the small cup had completely soaked his top.

“I’ll make you regret this absolutely.”

If Clea had heard this, she would have thought:

Why do so many people keep talking about regret?

As Lloyd whispered in the place Clea had left, he had to be thankful she hadn’t heard.

If she had heard those words, Clea would have slapped his face too.

But Clea, who had already left, couldn’t have heard those words.

Lloyd bit his lip hard and quickly left the ducal  mansion.

* * *

‘Why won’t he agree to break off the engagement?’

When she was refused the breakup several times, Clea thought it was because his pride was hurt at being dumped by her.

So she tried suggesting to him once.

That he should announce the breakup first so that she could be thoroughly humiliated.

Although it would be a very dishonorable thing for nobles, the honor they spoke of was useless to Clea who was waiting for her death.

She wanted to be comfortable. From all of this.

‘It’s already a three-way battle, I don’t want to get involved.’

Eventually, the original work leads to a love triangle.

The male lead who becomes Emperor, Lloyd who becomes Grand Duke, and Aria who is a duke’s daughter like Clea.

Originally it would be a four-way relationship, but Clea, who didn’t like Lloyd, didn’t want to get involved in the three people’s love drama.

Even without being involved, life was miserable and painful.

Her mind and body were already exhausted.

‘At least yesterday was somewhat enjoyable.’

Clea recalled what she had tasted yesterday.

Taking the man whom she thought would never share a bed with just hours ago.

He always looked at others indifferently with his coldly frozen face.

His breathing when she left her marks on his neck, his expression as he clung to her desperately – these were unimaginable from his usual self.

For the first time since falling into this world, experiencing this pleasure made Clea regret her death for the first time.

“If I die, could I return to my original world?”

She couldn’t find meaning in this world where she suddenly possessed someone while sleeping.

It wasn’t like she had read the original work with any particular affection anyway.

Just as she smiled, thinking she had left a good final memory, someone roughly opened her room door.

“What did you do to Lloyd!”

“I believe I said it’s not proper to enter a lady’s room so carelessly.”

“Lady? To hell with being a lady!”

Clea narrowed her brows seeing who had entered.

“Because of you, the Persi family is reconsidering their investment! What are you going to do about this!”

‘So this is what he does right after returning.’

Lloyd was always like this.

On days when Clea declared breaking off the engagement, he would put pressure on the Odoi family that Clea belonged to like this.

Although the Odoi family was also a high-ranking ducal family.

Duke Odoi had been running money-draining businesses day and night at Lloyd’s instigation, and now it was impossible to maintain the business without the support of the Persi family.

Every time this happened, Clea went through the same thing.

“Come down to the dining room right now. Right now!”

Her brother, Steve Odoi, the legitimate heir to the Odoi family, shouted at Clea and went outside.

Looking on with salty eyes, Clea contemplated.

What would happen to their future if she threw herself off the terrace right now.

But she quickly dismissed the thought.

Not only did she think it would be too wasteful to throw away her life because of them, but her room was on the second floor.

Thinking that throwing herself from just the second floor would obviously only result in broken bones, she got up from her seat.

The idea of locking herself in was also very clumsy since they could just open it with a key.

In other words, there was nothing she could do in this house.

‘If I don’t go out, someone will drag me out.’

Once, she had chosen to starve herself.

She thought it would be worth it if she didn’t have to face them in exchange for starving.

But even when she chose to starve, Duke Odoi eventually dragged her to the dining room and made her sit.

As Clea thought, they didn’t choose to come to her room to talk.

They couldn’t find any reason to spare the time to come to her room.

Since Clea felt uncomfortable with someone touching her body, she decided to move herself, pretending to give in.

When she arrived at the dining room, there was a middle-aged man with silver hair like Clea’s at the head seat, and Steve was sitting next to him.

They didn’t give her any attention even though Clea had arrived.

Clea felt most suffocated during these times.

She remembered a line she had read in the novel.

[They only treated Clea as a member of the Odoi family when it came to matters concerning Lloyd.]

From this one sentence, she could roughly guess how she had spent her life.

Being ignored and used as a tool for the family. That’s what she had actually experienced after her transmigration too.

But her interest ended there.

Since it wasn’t her life anyway, there was no need to care that much.

In a novel that she read, simply hoping the female lead would be happy, the villainess’s role was to show how miserably she would fall.

The life of a villainess who was abandoned by her family, betrayed by her fiancé, and finally lost everything.

Having experienced some of that, Clea felt like retching at the bitter memories.

“Where were you last night?”

The conversation started as soon as she sat down.

The voice was very cold.

So cold it was hard to believe these were first words to his daughter.

Clea moved her gaze to where the voice came from.

Meeting the blue eyes with silver hair, Clea smiled and said.

“I was with His Highness the Crown Prince.”

“Pfft, you?”

“…This isn’t the time for jokes.”

She inwardly sneered.

At these people who thought she was lying even when she told the truth.

Surely they must have heard the rumors that were spreading.

But their eyes still showed they didn’t believe it.

Clea didn’t think they would believe her either.

After all, she had no connection with Edmund except for the fact that they attended the same academy.

Duke Grit Odoi, thinking Clea was telling an absurd lie, asked her again in a stern voice.

“Who were you with last night?”

Though it was filled with a warning tone as if this was the last chance,

“I told you. I was staying at the Imperial Palace.”

Clea’s answer didn’t change.

Only then did Grit finally take his eyes off his food and look at Clea.