Chapter 2

After a while, the door opened and Eve followed the servant into the drawing-room. The Count, who had been rumored all the way to the countryside, was certainly very handsome and looked young. The rumors that he was a playboy also seemed to be true.

Eve’s eyes opened wide at the sight of a woman who was almost naked in the Count’s arms, but she didn’t have time to be surprised as she repeated what she had to say in her head over and over.

She greeted the Count, “This is Eve Jenna.”

Eve lifted her head again and looked at the Count, who was looking at her with curious eyes. Eve looked at the handsome Count, who had blonde hair and blue eyes, and the woman with a sexy impression in his arms.

The woman—whose dress was almost stripped off and her large breasts were revealed—was a beautiful woman with a voluptuous body. Eve felt a little sorry for the woman because her breast sticking out through the Count’s long, hard-looking fingers looked painful. 

Even before Eve could erase her sadness, the woman who met her gaze gave her a wink. She was a type of beauty that was hard to see in a small estate.

‘The capital is on a different level.’

Eve greeted the woman slightly and looked back at the Count. The Count, who met her gaze, clicked his tongue and ordered the woman to leave. She smiled and kissed the Count’s lips deeply.

He told her to get out but she kissed him instead? Eve was stunned at the sight. Eve watched the two of them kiss from a distance as the sound of their tongues mingling filled the drawing-room.

Although Eve pretended to be fine, she was a little embarrassed to see the two glancing at her consciously while kissing each other deeply.

Cynthia often told Eve that she found many of the capital’s nobles who played promiscuously and had strange hobbies. Some of them liked to show others that they were having sex. Is the Count like that? If it was the Count who was rumored to have complicated relationships with women, it wouldn’t be strange if he had such a sexual orientation.

‘Yes, this is the capital. No need to be too surprised.’

When Eve watched the two with a calm expression, the Count suddenly pushed the woman away. As if the woman had gotten used to such treatment, she got up quietly without complaining. Then she left the drawing room with light steps—as if she were dancing—without organizing her messy dress.

Eve looked at the Count, who said nothing, and she sat down in the empty chair opposite him, without waiting for his permission. At Eve’s actions, the Count smirked.

“Something strange has come in.”

In terms of strange things, she thought the Count would have more, but Eve didn’t say anything. She couldn’t be hated at a time when her marriage hadn’t even been decided. Because Eve needed the wealth of the Count Hound.

The Count, who looked at Eve who didn’t say anything, opened his mouth again, “They say you have a great beauty, but you don’t.”

Eve had never heard of that before.

Eve knew she was beautiful. She was born beautiful, and her parents invested heavily in improving Eve’s appearance, despite their poor circumstances. It was not their love for Eve, but to cultivate their own wealth.

In other words, Eve was very beautiful because of her natural beauty and hard work.

Eve tried to understand the Count’s words as best as she could. The woman the Count was hugging earlier was definitely a different type from Eve.

To put it bluntly, Eve was a delicate and slender beauty rather than voluptuous and glamorous. Although she wasn’t short, she was naturally thin in bone and had a well-balanced, slender body rather than a voluptuous body. Eve was satisfied with herself, but she might not have been to the Count’s taste.

‘Yes, it could be.’

For Eve, who was always praised as beautiful, this was the first time someone had said she wasn’t. Unlike Jenna’s estate, which has a small population, the capital was large and the people’s tastes varied. Eve can not satisfy them all.

She tried to rationalize as much as she could at the undervaluation she had never heard in her life, but she couldn’t figure out how to respond to that statement. While Eve was choosing her words carefully, the Count raised his eyebrows and said,

“It will be hard to fall in love with such a look.”

Are you serious? Eve tried not to distort her expression. Anyway, she didn’t have strange taste enough to fall in love with a man who greeted her while grabbing another woman’s breasts at the first meeting, and also with a man who exchanged a deep kiss without shame in front of a stranger.

‘Are all the people of the capital like this?’

To be honest, it was clear that the Count was also a person with confidence in his face, like Eve. Eve could tell just by looking at his attitude, which showed that he firmly believed that any woman would like him no matter what he did.

Eve just shook her head slightly. Cynthia used to point out that Eve’s only drawback was that she spit out everything she wanted to say without taking into account her partner’s feelings. So Eve held back the words that were about to come out of her mouth, recalling her sister’s advice. On the other hand, the Count seemed to have accepted Eve’s silence as a positive.

“Have you ever thought about why I sent a proposal to a family like yours?”

I was just making a rough guess. It wasn’t that difficult to read the intentions of this absurd marriage proposal just by looking at the contents of the gossip papers and newspaper articles that flowed into the Jenna estate. In all likelihood, the Count will need a wife who will not bother him.

Eve recalled the former Countesses of Hound and their families one by one. The three Countesses were from prestigious families in the capital city. In particular, the first Countess was not just an ordinary noblewoman, but the present Duchess of Ceratin, the granddaughter of the present Emperor and the only daughter of the Princess.

The Countesses could not tolerate the Count’s affair, and it always ended in divorce. Thanks to this, Count Hound continued to be the subject of gossip in the Empire. So, unlike before, the Count chose a wife who came from a rural noble family as a clear indication of his intention not to follow in the footsteps of his wives’ past.

The Count was looking for a false Countess who wouldn’t bother him no matter what he did, and Eve Jenna was the perfect woman who fit those conditions. Eve knew how to evaluate herself objectively.

“Yes, I have.”

“Do you know why?”

Eve had a gut feeling that now was the time to say what she wanted. She opened her mouth to suggest the things she had been thinking about all the way to the Count’s mansion.

“I will keep quiet and not cause any problems.”

The Count looked down at Eve with suspicious eyes. Eve endured the stares piercing through her body, faced the Count straight, and said, “However, I want it to be a mutually reciprocal relationship.”