TINOT 8

Chapter: 8

“You think you’re quite something, don’t you? You believe that just because you’re the next Duke of Spencer and have a half-decent face, the whole world is in love with you.”

It was true that a plausible social standing and good looks made life easier.

But those things alone were never enough to satisfy everything.

There were far more important factors when it came to one person liking another.

In that sense, Joel Spencer’s results were rather poor compared to the favorable conditions he had been given.

“No, people don’t like you as much as you think. I’ve never once thought you were a decent person either.”

“Don’t lie. You liked me. You were so obsessed with me that it got sickening.”

At Lisithea’s calm reply, Joel’s face flushed red, then pale.

“I didn’t care if you were trash. I just wanted to have something that was entirely mine. Shiny, good things were never going to belong to me anyway. You seemed like something I could take.”

What kind of person Joel was didn’t matter.

What mattered was having someone who belonged to her—someone no one could criticize her for claiming.

An officially recognized relationship, approved by society. She liked the sense of stability that label provided.

Emotions were secondary.

When she realized that all Joel wanted from her was money, she had even felt relieved.

As long as the Cullinan mine didn’t run dry, their relationship wouldn’t change.

A relationship bound by money and ownership.

That should have been enough…

“Joel Spencer, I don’t share what belongs to me.”

In the end, it seemed that wanting to possess someone had been an excessive desire for her.

“Think carefully. This is your last chance.”

And Lisithea was not the kind of person to quietly accept having something taken from her once it was in her hands.

If Joel broke the promise he had made to her, then he would have to pay the price accordingly.

Wishing the other person happiness, or a clean breakup where they each went their separate ways—none of that could ever count as payment.

Joel needed to realize whom he had made his enemy, and just how costly that precious love of his truly was.

Perhaps it was inevitable that this world had assigned Lisithea the role of the villain who employs every dirty trick to obstruct the protagonists’ true love.

After all, not many people would willingly throw themselves into a fire pit, knowing a ruined future awaited them.

How convenient it was that the greedy, obsessively persistent fiancée was destined to die in a year.

Yes—if that was her role, then Lisithea Aster intended to perform it to the fullest.

Even if it meant hastening the end of her already limited lifespan.

Five days had passed since she visited the Spencer estate to warn Joel.

She had waited long enough.

Lisithea, seated by a sunlit window and writing something down, briefly lifted her head.

Outside the window, she saw Marie hurrying into the annex.

After I die, I should also think about what will happen to Marie.

After Emma’s funeral, Lisithea had moved her residence entirely to the annex.

Marie had been the only servant from the main house who followed her.

Marie had once said she lost her older sister to a fever when she was young.

Lisithea thought that was probably the reason for Marie’s unusual loyalty.

She was sturdy and clever, yet clumsy with her hands in an endearing way.

Lisithea hoped that, at the very least, Marie would be happy even without her.

The devotion Marie had shown her over the years more than deserved that.

As Lisithea paused with her pen and waited, a knock sounded, and Marie entered the room.

“Um, Miss… about what you asked me to look into…”

Marie, having returned from gathering information on the Spencer ducal household, hesitated nervously and glanced at Lisithea.

“It’s all right, Marie. However they respond, I have my own plans. I can roughly guess what they’d do anyway.”

“…They moved Lillian Rose’s quarters to the annex and put up a small fence between the main house and the annex.”

Since Lisithea had gone as far as mentioning annulment, they apparently couldn’t just ignore it and resorted to such a token measure.

“To think they’d try to fool people with something so halfhearted… An engagement isn’t child’s play.”

Lisithea let out a light laugh and lowered her head, filling in the remaining lines on the paper.

She didn’t know whether this world truly didn’t want the two to separate, or whether Lillian had already become more precious to Joel than the Cullinan mine.

Either way, Lisithea had no reason to wait any longer.

“It’s time I saw Father.”

Taking the completed document, Lisithea stood and headed toward the marquis’s office in the main house.

“Are you inside?”

After confirming the presence of her father’s guard knight standing watch by the door, Lisithea pushed the door open without hesitation.

Bang.

The door flew open roughly, stirring her hair as she stood in the doorway.

The man seated behind the desk, reviewing documents with a monocle in place, frowned in irritation.

That youthful-looking man—hardly appearing to be someone nearing forty with three children—was Eric Aster, Lisithea’s father.

It had been three months since their last face-to-face meeting.

“What do you think you’re doing?” he asked coldly, removing his glasses.

At her biological father’s icy reaction, Lisithea merely shrugged and walked past him to sit on the sofa in front of the desk.

“No matter how long I waited for you to summon me, Father, there was no word. I had no choice but to see you like this.”

“In this manner?”

He looked down at her with disbelief.

“Please send a letter requesting the annulment to the Spencers.”

Ignoring his reproach once again, Lisithea stated her business plainly.

“For what reason?”

“Did you know that the young lady of Baron Rose has been staying at the Spencer estate for half a month now?”

“……”

“So you did know. Of course—you’re an Aster. It would be strange if you didn’t.”

He clearly knew, yet still asked why she wanted to annul the engagement.

Had he simply forgotten because he deemed it unimportant?

Or did he think she would obediently go through with the marriage even after being treated that way?

Either way, it didn’t matter.

“I requested three times—twice in writing and once in person—that Lillian Rose’s quarters be separated. All were refused.”

In a dry tone, Lisithea laid out the facts and handed him the paper she had prepared in advance.

“You’re far too busy to personally draft something as trivial as my annulment request. I’ve already written the letter, so please just stamp it with your seal and send it.”

For a moment, he forgot what to say, his lips parting slightly.

Faced with a daughter who calmly declared she had written the annulment request that he himself ought to have prepared, he didn’t know where to begin criticizing her.

Her attitude—drawing a clear line as if telling him not to interfere in her affairs, and then practically ordering him to stamp and send it—was all deeply displeasing.

“Do you think it’s right to decide and notify me of something like this on your own?”

“Then when were you planning to call me in to discuss it?”

Hadn’t Lillian Rose been staying at Spencer for half a month?

Had it really already been that long since he first heard the news?

The Aster family should have stated their position and demanded corrections from the Spencers much earlier.

Failing to do so was his mistake.

But he had merely missed the timing while dealing with more important matters.

There had been no ill intent.

“Were you waiting until Joel Spencer sent me an annulment request saying he wanted to get engaged to Lillian Rose?”

“Of course not. If it bothered you that much, you could have come to speak to me first—”

He pressed his fingers to his throbbing temple and sighed.

Would it have been so hard to simply ask politely what he intended to do if he had forgotten?

Instead, she barged into his office like this and made demands as though delivering a notice.

Lisithea was always like this.

Excessively calculating, leaving no room for warmth—impossible to feel any affection toward.

The unease she gave him wasn’t solely because of her maternal relatives.

“Father, if this hadn’t happened to me—if it were someone else—would you still have stood by and done nothing?”

He froze, startled, then grasped her meaning and felt disgust rise even at the thought.

Edward and Celia were only sixteen.

Still children in many ways—how could she even imagine something so base involving them?

“What kind of thing is that to say! Are you implying you want your siblings to experience something like this?!”

He sprang to his feet, anger simmering over, knocking items off the desk with a crash.

Despite the loud clatter of falling and breaking objects, Lisithea remained seated like a statue.

Her calm, unmoving eyes watched him in silence.

For some reason, he felt as though cold water had been poured over him.

“Exactly. Just imagining it is unbearable—yet this happened to me in reality. So why are you so calm?”

Blinking, he searched for an appropriate answer.

It was because Lisithea was much older than the others—already eighteen.

And because she was the type who barely flinched at most things.

Even as he thought this, he couldn’t bring himself to say it aloud.

The words felt pitiful somehow.

“It’s almost as if you wanted this to happen to me.”

“……”

His mouth went dry. He glanced around the wrecked office.

Why had he lost his composure like that in the first place?

Like someone whose guilt had been pricked.

“I know that’s not true. You don’t care enough about me for that.”

Even hatred requires emotion.

To Eric Aster, Lisithea was nothing more than an annoying, burdensome piece of baggage.

There was no reason for him to invest any feeling in her at all.