CH 15.2

Lila’s cheeks flushed as she realized his gesture was becoming more and more slurred. She felt like a peach, ripe for the picking.

“It looks just like a peach, do you mind if I try it?”

Lila wrinkled the bridge of her nose at his innocent question.

“That’s the way you say it.”

“Did you just speak informally to me?”

“That’s not true!”

“Why, yes, you are.”

As if waiting for a response, Lucas replied. Of course, he wouldn’t care if she said it back, or if she used respect, but Lucas often asked Lila this.

“I think I’m really going to talk informally…

Lila murmured briefly, pouting her lips awkwardly. Lucas often teased her because she was cute in this way.

“You want me to do it?”

“I’ll do it.”

“Why don’t you like speaking informally?”

“I don’t hate it, it’s just awkward.”

“You were so good last time.”

“…”

She grabbed his nose, teasing him for something she’d done once before. Tugging gently, Lila pressed her lips to his forehead, then pulled away.

Seeing his mint-colored eyes widen in surprise, Lila smirked.

“Apparently, my lady likes to play, too, and I like that.”

Lucas squeezed Lila’s wrist and pressed his lips to hers. She jerked her head away at his scent.

His temptation weighed on her because she hadn’t finished her work yet.

Slowly averting her eyes, Lila asked.

“But don’t we have to match the dress to the suit?”

“Hmm…”

Narrowing his eyes at her reaction, Lucas replied, fiddling with his wrist and fingers.

“They should be here by tomorrow.”

“What?”

Lila’s gaze snapped back to Lucas at the unexpected news. Her cobalt-colored eyes widened slightly as she spoke.

“I sent someone to the North, and since you seem to like Kate’s wardrobe, I called for her as the dressmaker.

“You mean… Kate?”

“Hmm, you liked it enough to call her by her name?”

Ever since she’d been to Kate’s, Lila had only ever gotten her outfits fitted there, and Lucas knew it.

It was uncomfortable to hear her call a person by their name informally.

“Jealous…”

Recognizing the look in his eyes, Lila grumbled, but couldn’t help but smile.

She didn’t like the dress shops in the capital. She had bad memories of when she wore ugly makeup.

She couldn’t tell whether it was because he knew it, or simply because he liked it, but Lila liked this kind of consideration from him.

She loved the way he thought of her, the way he cared for her in a different way than his playful, joking way of speaking, and the way he looked into her affectionate, mint-colored eyes.

As if to restrain him from wrapping his arms around her waist, she traced his face with her fingers and she said.

“Oh, I was wondering if you could make me something. I’d like to use less makeup, it’s called a palette, it looks like this…”

As she explained, even gesturing with her hands, Lucas released his arms from around her waist in surrender.

With a sigh, he crossed his arms and legs and looked up at Lila.

“Whatever you need, wife, I can make it happen.”

At his confident words, Lila smiled with happiness.

* * *

“Well, then, I’ll be going.”

Standing in front of the mansion’s gold-painted entrance, Alfonso waved to Charlotte.

“… Yes, goodbye.”

She was stunned by the news she had just heard from him.

As he climbed into the carriage, Alfonso turned to Charlotte, whose expression remained stoic.

“I would advise you to be careful this time.”

Preoccupied, Charlotte looked dumbfounded at his words.

“Excuse me?”

Alfonso said, not smiling as usual, but looking serious.

“If Duke Frederick hadn’t stepped in, you wouldn’t have escaped legal punishment. And I’m telling you, if you’re thinking of doing something to Lady Este again, stop.”

“It wasn’t me, Alfonso. I didn’t know even you would think that of me.”

Alfonso shrugged his shoulders like he didn’t care, and gave her a mischievous smile, even as Charlotte spoke with sadness and tears in her eyes.

“Charlotte, I like you, you’re fun to watch… But it seems you have gotten a little boring lately, and…”

Alfonso’s childlike shaking of his head was normal, but it made Charlotte uncomfortable. Or rather, scared.

Halfway to the carriage, Alfonso approached her with a satisfied look on his face and stole a tear from her eye with his fingertip.

“Yes, yes. This is who you are.”

After stealing a tear from the corner of her other eye, he continued.

“Charlotte, if you weren’t a noble, you’d be a very famous actress. It’s a shame, isn’t it?”

With that, he then took Charlotte’s hand and kissed it, and without saying goodbye, he got on the carriage.

As soon as he was in, the Benière’s private carriage, which had started off at a frightening pace, was out the front door in a matter of moments.

Charlotte, frozen by Alfonso’s words, turned her back. Chewing her lip, she strode into the manor and called out to her maid in a shrill voice.

“Amanda!”

She had been waiting not far away, and came swiftly to her master’s call.

“Yes, my lady.”

SLAP!

Charlotte giggled as she slapped Amanda’s cheek, too scared to approach.

“An ugly thing, I don’t like it.”

For some inexplicable reason, Amanda couldn’t even touch her tingling face, and only hang her head.

Charlotte in this state had no choice but to endure and move on.

“Do you have tea and dessert ready?”

Amanda had no choice but to say no to Charlotte, who asked for something she had never ordered.

Charlotte gritted her cheeks mercilessly as if she had waited for her answer. Soon, the person went away, and moved the steps that had stopped.

Amanda’s freckled face was full of scratches, but no one could help her.

No, they didn’t want to help.

They were just glad they didn’t have to deal with Charlotte and her hysteria.

Stomping back to her room, Charlotte threw everything in her way.

“What, an actress?”

Charlotte burst out laughing at what she had just heard.

“Telling an actress it’s a shame she can’t be an actress… What a stupid thing to say.”

Dodging the glass and feathers that littered the floor, Charlotte walked into the bathroom and looked at her reflection in the mirror.

“My original face is prettier… How am I supposed to be a heroine with a face like this?”

Unable to overcome Charlotte, or rather Jin Yura, who had taken over her body, she threw everything in the bathroom.

It wasn’t until the mirror cracked that she stopped. Breathing harshly, Jin Yura remembered.

The Reaper who didn’t even look like a reaper.

This was the body she’d gained from her sneaky escape. It was hard to believe that she was dead, and he didn’t even look like a reaper, yet he introduced himself as a reaper.

“I thought it was all bullshit…”

Then things took a turn for the worse. Sights she had never seen in her life flashed dizzily by, and only after seeing the deaths of so many people in the air did she realize that she was really dead.

It was unfair.

She had just reached the level of a great star, and it was a great pity that she would die young without being able to enjoy that honor.

But the fierce Cho Yoon Seol didn’t die.

If I’m going to die, you should die too, why?

At that moment, a dreary voice came from somewhere. A voice like a cold winter wind whispered to her.

[Do you want to live?]

The words sent chills down her spine, but she couldn’t ignore them.

Instinctively, she scanned the Reaper’s position, and the cold voice pierced her eardrums once more.

[If you want to live, I’ll help you].

Jin Yura looked down at her feet. The truck that had crashed into her was still burning, and the area around her was filled with bleeding bodies.

She didn’t want to die in vain like this. She didn’t have the courage to look at herself, crushed to death. Her face must be unrecognizable.

She nodded urgently, wondering if the cold voice would go away.

[I want to live].

She felt like her whole body was freezing, like her soul was turning to ice.

[Argh!]

A voice came through the tearing pain.

[No!]

[Too late, buddy. Then…]

With the last memory of being sucked away, Jin Yura woke up in Charlotte’s body.

The man who was floating in an incomprehensible situation looked at her and let out a dull laugh.

[I’ve granted your wish, and you will be the main character here…]

Even the words were strangely fuzzy. To Jin Yura, who was staring at her unclear but colorful figure, he continued.

[Because that is the empty wish of the woman who was the owner of that body.]

Only then did Jin Yura run her hands over her face. When she spotted her crimson hair, she jumped to her feet and found a mirror.

In front of the full-length mirror, which she found in her ornate, fancy bedroom, Jin Yura froze like a statue.

The man hovering over her head reminded her through the mirror.

[You must be the main character here, that’s the price.]

Barely opening her eyes from pupils that looked like they were made of molten gold, Jin Yura–no, Charlotte–asked, her young body frail from not waking up for days, her voice as thin as a bird’s.

[The price?]

[Yes, the price.]

[If I don’t get to be the main character… What happens then?]

At her question, the man, or rather, the demon, chuckled coolly.

[It’s okay. That’s fine as it is… It seems like it will be interesting.]

Charlotte’s brow wrinkled at the vague answer.

[I was always the main character].

[Only if…]

The devil didn’t care if she was the main character or not. The contract was sealed anyway, and so was the contract with the body’s former owner.

As a demon, he doesn’t make contracts only to lose.

No matter what he did, the two women’s souls had already fallen into his hands.

He could only hope that their souls would ripen even more deliciously.