Chapter 7
“No. I want to go myself and get some fresh air. There’s also somewhere I need to stop by on the way, so I may be gone for a while.”
“Somewhere you need to stop by? Where?”
That meant—
Why would she not tell him exactly where she was going?
Until recently, there had been almost no place Chloe would go that Lucian did not know about.
So his doubt was natural.
At least—
It had been, until now.
But from now on, nothing about Chloe would ever be natural to Lucian again.
Chloe lifted the large paper bag with handles that had been beside her the whole time and said,
“To the place where the owner of something I borrowed is.”
And then—
Chloe’s eyes, clearly taking in both Roeni and Lucian, shone strangely.
The place I’m going to… to have an affair from now on.
She had just stepped out of the annex.
At that moment—
“Chloe, it seems you’re going somewhere.”
The familiar deep voice of a man caught Chloe’s attention.
“Father.”
Seeing Count Dmitri Enrite, Chloe forced a smile.
He seemed to have just returned home after attending the imperial court meeting, still dressed neatly in formal uniform.
His silver hair and deep silver-gray eyes looked exactly like Chloe’s.
But his face was somehow different from hers.
That was because Chloe looked so much like her mother.
“Chloe, whenever I look at you, it feels as if you are half me and half your mother. That makes me grateful to God, and makes the world feel mysterious.”
Whenever he looked at Chloe, her father would stroke her hair with satisfaction and say that gently.
At least—
Until her stepmother Lilliana and her stepsister Roeni came into the estate.
“My Chloe. My poor daughter. For your sake alone, this father will make a new family for you.”
Five years after Chloe’s mother suddenly fell ill and passed away, Count Dmitri Enrite decided to remarry for Chloe’s sake.
During that time, while staying briefly in Baron Belomor’s territory because of official work, he met Lilliana there.
Like Father, Lilliana had also lost her spouse early and was raising Roeni alone.
After watching how kindly and devotedly she cared for her child, Father decided to propose.
Afterward, her new stepmother, Lilliana Belomor, the daughter of a provincial baron family, entered the Enrite estate with five-year-old Roeni and Chloe’s father.
At that time, Chloe was ten years old.
She had no time to think of wariness or resistance.
To her, they were simply a new family who had suddenly appeared one day.
She was truly happy to have a stepmother and stepsister.
She had lost her mother a long time ago, and her father often left the estate because he had to travel around the Empire himself.
So Chloe had always grown up carrying emptiness and loneliness in her heart.
And although Lilliana was her stepmother, she treated Chloe with as much love as she did Roeni.
Rather—
Whenever the chance came, she would tell her own daughter to grow up to be exactly as mature and clever as her older sister Chloe.
As an only daughter with no siblings, Chloe was simply happy to have gained a warm mother and a cute, lovely younger sister.
Rather than being alone in the house that was always lonely and empty—
The time when her stepmother would read to her gently before bed,
And the time when she would play house with her younger sister in the garden, picking flowers and making grass rings—
Those things made ten-year-old Chloe deeply happy.
As time passed, Roeni became Chloe’s dearest friend.
They grew into sisters so close that they had no secrets from each other.
“No sisters in the world could be that close.”
“I wish my children were even half as close as they are.”
The people of the estate and visiting guests would always say such things when they saw Chloe and Roeni, smiling warmly at the two girls.
And there was one more thing—
Praise for Roeni, who was growing into an especially beautiful young lady.
Even so, Chloe had never once felt jealous of Roeni.
Rather, she was amazed and proud to see how her younger sister grew more beautiful with age and began to capture the hearts of so many men.
But—
After Roeni began to receive praise and admiration from people, the atmosphere in the household slowly changed.
Whenever Father saw Roeni, he would always say,
“My daughter is so beautiful!”
And—
“Roeni, I am so proud and happy that you became a daughter of the Enrite family. Your purple eyes, so much like your mother’s, seem prettier to me than the silver-gray eyes I have always seen.”
Chloe’s silver hair and silver-gray eyes were no longer something mysterious to her father.
“Roeni, this is a special gift from your father, only for you. It’s a secret from Chloe.”
The one Roeni received with a bright face—
Was expensive jewelry and dresses.
After passing by her sister’s room and accidentally hearing it, Chloe realized that her father was no longer fully on her side.
After that as well, she pretended not to know, even though she learned that Father often bought special gifts only for Roeni.
But then—
Father began to cherish Stepmother Lilliana even more than Chloe as well.
“Your mother had only been alone for a few days, but she was so lonely. My heart kept aching, so I pushed my schedule and came home early today.”
Just as he did now—
Whenever it came to Mother, Father would try to do anything for her.
Rather than worrying about his children, he worried over and over whether Mother might feel lonely when she was alone without him.
Before… I think that person used to be only me…
Even though she had never once resented Father, who buried himself even more in work after losing his wife—
Even though she once promised herself that she would one day meet a man just like her father—
She began to wonder in the end—
Does a man’s love really change like that?
And then one doubt led to another.
Maybe Roeni and Lucian had not simply been careful.
Maybe someone in the family had known all along—
And chosen to ignore it.
At the thought, goosebumps suddenly rose on her skin.
So, just in case—
She carefully brought it up.
“Father. About Roeni and Lucian…”
“Hm? What about them?”
Father blinked and asked back.
Watching his face closely, Chloe finally asked the question she truly wanted to ask.
“Have you ever felt that… the relationship between the two of them is somehow unusual?”
At that moment—
Father’s eyes, which she had been watching carefully, shook.
His lips seemed to dry for a moment.
He moistened them once before answering.
“Unusual? No, rather, thanks to you, Father is only happy that the two of them have become much closer.”
No.
That was a lie.
Father had always been terrible at lying.
He kept looking elsewhere and repeatedly pressing his lips together.
The moment Chloe stared at him, she finally understood the truth.
Father had already noticed.
He had known all along—
And closed his eyes to it.
If it was for Roeni, the daughter he now loved more than his own flesh and blood—
Then everything made sense.
Everyone… was in on it.
If Father knew, then there was a high chance Mother knew as well.
So everyone—
Had deceived me.
The moment she clearly realized that truth—
Chloe felt as if every light in the world shining on her had vanished.
“Chloe… asking something like that, is there perhaps something going on that I don’t know about?”
After Chloe stayed silent for a while, he asked, sounding slightly uneasy.
“Your complexion doesn’t look good.”
The false concern he had always shown—
Now she no longer wanted to hear it at all.
Shaking her head, Chloe smiled again and said,
“I think I just look like this because I didn’t sleep well.”
Though her lips trembled in secret, she added with a clear smile,
“Nothing is wrong.”
When Chloe said that, Father naturally changed the subject.
“Then why don’t we all have lunch together for once? It looks like Roeni and young Lucian have just returned from going out as well.”
But Chloe refused.
“I’m sorry, Father. I have somewhere I need to go today. Let’s eat together next time.”
There was no longer any family left for her in this house.
And she no longer wanted to see Father’s face either.
“It’s a shame, since our timing matched for once. It can’t be helped. Our Chloe’s matters are just as important as Father’s work. Then take care and come back safely, my daughter.”
Seeing Father wave kindly on purpose, Chloe smiled back at him once more.
And at the same time, she thought—
If I have an affair and the social circles of Calentia are thrown into chaos… Father will suffer great damage too.
As the head of the historic Enrite family, and a man with close ties to the imperial family, such a thing should never happen for his sake.
But—
To me now, Father is no one as well.
