When Pride Fell At My Toes - Chapter 76



Only Krnovel

#76. Trapped Heart
2024.03.16.

Her voice, muttering very softly, rang in his ears. The smile on his lips, which had frozen for a moment as if he had been splashed with cold water, slowly disappeared.

“What?”

He whispered back. She must have been thinking of something else. She must not have been talking about him. Trying to deny it. While

he was satisfied with the silence that she, not the clock, filled him with, and savoring the warm air, the word hell, so different from him, struck him so clearly.

He stared at her as if urging her to explain quickly, thinking that she must not be talking about this situation right now.

Emilia’s gaze, which had been lowered, slowly rose, revealing her eyes that looked so miserable. His heart pounded and he fell to his toes.

“… … Hell, you say? What?”

He didn’t want to ask, but the words came out of his mouth on their own.

“Ha… … .”

She let out a sigh and smiled with a face that looked like she might burst into tears at any moment.

“This whole situation right now.”

Emilia’s face looked pale, perhaps because of the blue moonlight. I’ve seen her cry, but it was the first time I’d seen her swallow her sorrow so hard.

His lips twitched a few times before finally letting out a voice that seemed to be dying.

“… … Being with me is like hell?”

He could tell that he couldn’t believe it. He thought that even though she kept pushing him away and kept talking about contracts, she wasn’t completely uninterested in him.

Maybe she was just trying to save her last remaining pride and suppress her feelings that were a little appealing.

However, Emilia’s face, saying that it was like hell, with such a suffocating expression, was enough to shock him.

Now he realized that he felt more empty without her than with this watch, but the fact that she had difficulty breathing made him sink into a deep pit.

“Yes. Every second is increasingly painful now.”

The thought of just ignoring her feelings and doing whatever he wanted was instantly erased. If

he were to forcefully tie her up, would that woman think every moment was like hell and would look at him with those eyes immersed in pain?

A sense of helplessness weighed on his shoulders, as if mocking the idea that he should just fill the gap with his body rather than longing for some unknown affection.

His jaw, which was tightly shut, trembled and then slowly opened.

“Why? I’m getting what I want.”

“… … That’s right. I know I have to endure it, but the process is more tiring than I thought.”

“Why do I have to endure it? What on earth is so tiring! I’m giving you everything. The information you want, the ballet. I’m giving you everything.”

“You’re just capricious anyway. I’m the one who can break the strings at any time depending on the Duke’s mood.”

“I clearly said that I would keep the contract. I said that I would provide you with information until the end, even if I got tired of it.”

“… … Is that really true? You’ve been bringing up things that weren’t in the contract so far and trying to suppress everything I do as if it were a given.”

His eyes blinked briefly.

“How can I trust you, Duke?”

“I’m not tired of it at all. No, there’s nothing to be tired of.”

Enrico answered quickly, uncharacteristically.

His tone of voice was impatience that seemed to reveal his true feelings, but Emilia’s eyes, which had been wide open as if she was trying to hold back tears, blinked once as if they had reached their limit and a tear fell.

“I can’t believe it.”

“… …!”

“If it were up to me, I wouldn’t want to have any relationship with you, Duke.”

The words that she didn’t want to have any relationship with you struck Enrico’s heart harder than the words that she couldn’t believe it. He felt as if all the blood in his body was draining out through his feet, as if it was going to his heart that had just collapsed.

In the end, his mind that had been wandering aimlessly was trapped in the abyss.

***

As usual, Emilia arrived at the practice room early, but her body was still on the floor. Her eyes, unfocused from thinking about yesterday, continued to stare out the window.

Enrico’s sharp words didn’t hurt that much anymore. Rather, seeing him expressing his possessiveness towards me, I kept having false hopes, which only made me feel more miserable. I

was already struggling with my own feelings, and now I was trying to infer his feelings.

Even if he was attracted to me, it would only be temporary, so why did I keep giving meaning to his actions and getting swayed by them?

If there was something I should never have started, it was a relationship with him, but knowing that, I kept getting swayed by him, which was foolish and miserable. To the point where I couldn’t help but say that it was like hell.

‘… … You’re saying being with me is like hell?’

Enrico, who was looking at her with a stern face, flashed through her mind. He reacted as if he was so surprised by the word hell, but even if it was an illusion, she didn’t want to deny it because he seemed hurt.

In a way, everything she said back then was true. Now, the moment she was with him was really painful.

She hated being treated like a dancing puppet, but now she was willing to kill her emotions and become a puppet so as not to be swayed by his words. How contradictory.

‘Ha… … .

Let’s stop thinking about it.’ Now, he might distance himself from yesterday’s conversation. Maybe he would never come back, or he might treat her well as if he were giving her food out of spite.

But that was only temporary. Now she had found a lawyer, and it wasn’t long before she had to find out about her parents’ accident.

The investigation was delayed for a while because of the car investment rights, but she had a feeling that it wouldn’t be long before she caught the culprit of her parents’ carriage accident.

“Huh? Why aren’t you warming up?”

Before going to the changing room, Juliana, wearing a light yellow dress, was standing at the door. Emilia blinked and slowly got up from her seat.

“Just… … .”

“Did you see the newspaper? Is that why?”

“… … No? Did you read anything?”

In the morning, she was so busy that she didn’t even think about reading the newspaper she had been reading recently. Emilia approached the door and asked nonchalantly.

“Haven’t you seen this? You should definitely read it!”

Emilia absentmindedly accepted the newspaper that Juliana had handed her as if telling her to look at it. She narrowed her eyes as soon as she saw the front page. The article was about a noble lady from a foreign country who had gone missing, and it emphasized that she was blonde.

She couldn’t mention the murder of a blonde woman outright, but anyone who had read the article before would know what it meant, so she couldn’t help but feel uneasy.

“But even if you’ve touched a blonde, you’ve never touched a noble.”

“The murderer must be out of his mind, so how long can you keep that up?”

“… … Is that so. By the way, this is a big deal. We need to find it quickly.”

“That’s right. It says that it could easily develop into a diplomatic issue. We don’t know anything about such matters.”

Juliana shrugged her shoulders and opened her eyes wide. She didn’t change at all when she talked about Emilia’s status, her relationship with Enrico, and her future plans. She

just treated her the same way as before, not showing any signs of being unfamiliar or uncomfortable, and Emilia felt grateful and slightly raised the corners of her mouth.

“That’s right. It’s hard for me to take care of myself, so how could I worry about the country?”

“That’s right. But after reading this article, I think you should be more careful. If it’s true, it means you don’t care about your status anymore and you’re just messing around. From now on, make sure that the coachman you always ride in is the one who pulled the carriage.”

“Understood.”

Emilia nodded obediently and handed the newspaper back. She began to hear people coming from the central staircase.

“Change your clothes quickly and come back.”

“Yeah, I’m resting.”

Juliana also hurried down the hallway as if she wanted to get there quickly before the dressing room became crowded. Emilia felt eyes on her through the open door for a moment. Some

of the glances she saw as she passed through the hallway were emotionless, but others were definitely not kind. She

sighed, wondering if the suspicion that Enrico’s breath had been in the audition even a little would not subside even after the performance was over.

Emilia closed the door and turned her back as if she was trying to avoid eye contact until the people arrived. And in the end, she let out a deep sigh.

***

Enrico pressed his temples as he watched the uninvited guests who had barged in since the morning. The sunlight streaming into the living room was so dazzling that he was considering closing the curtains for the first time in a while.

“Uncle, I apologize for visiting you so early in the morning.”

The second prince, Riccardo Treano, who had black hair like Enrico but had eyes like the clear sky outside the window, lowered his eyebrows as if he was embarrassed.

Ricardo had a complicated expression on his face, saying that he was just embarrassed by the situation but that he had no choice.

“Since this was the case, I had no choice but to come to you right away.”

“So it was before you came here before this article came out?”

Enrico nodded at the newspaper on the table and leaned back against the chair. What did he want me to do when the rumor had already spread?

The police would investigate anyway, so he didn’t understand why he was asking me to do it.