I’m Done With Unrequited Love - Chapter 32

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 32
In the original story, Diego Leonard had been Fidelias’s husband, and he was now my former fiancé and a nobleman of the Duke’s House by birth—though presently he worked as a lawyer.
Aristocratic youths who didn’t inherit a title often found professions like Diego had. The amount of inheritance they received was another matter entirely.
“Work? I find it quite fulfilling.”
For people like him, work wasn’t about accumulating wealth for survival.
“It’s rewarding. And genuinely enjoyable.”
Diego possessed considerable pride in his profession.
As the Duke’s House second son, he’d received a modest inheritance and could have lived his entire life idle—yet he’d chosen to be a lawyer.
“That’s fortunate. I’ve been curious how you’ve been getting on since then.”
By “since then,” I meant our Public School days. We’d been classmates there.
“To be honest, I haven’t been managing particularly well.”
Diego removed his Silver-Rimmed Glasses and pressed his fingertips against the bridge of his nose.
The dark circles beneath his eyes stood out starkly now.
“Is the work too demanding? Even though you find it satisfying?”
“I suppose it is. But even when I’ve tried to take on fewer cases, I find I can’t manage it.”
“Why is that?”
“It seems I’ve become accustomed to a certain workload. Anything less makes me unbearably anxious.”
“I see.”
Diego was a classic workaholic.
That Fidelias in the original story had never borne children stemmed from much the same reason.
How could one even discuss having children if the husband barely came home?
Diego spent far more days outside the house than in it.
Here’s an astonishing fact: in the original story, Fidelias had inherited her father’s Title and was already the Family Head of the Jonas House.
My father, Marquis Jonas, had made his intentions known long ago.
“Upon Fidelias Jonas’s marriage, I shall transfer the position of Family Head to her.”
Looking at my current life—unmarried and still living as Lady Fidelias—one can gauge just how drastically the original timeline has warped.
In any case, I’m explaining this because in the original story, Marquis Jonas—”Fidelias”—needed an heir.
“But her husband, for all he was worth, failed to fulfill that duty…”
What choice was there?
“Adoption became the only option.”
That’s how Kiara came to be adopted.
And perhaps because of that very fact, I harbored complicated feelings toward Diego.
A foster father who neglected his household while pursuing his career had wounded Kiara deeply.
Yet if he hadn’t possessed that workaholic nature and had instead had children with Fidelias, the unfortunate Kiara would never have become the noblewoman she is now.
“Diego was…”
For Kiara, both fortune and misfortune.
“Well, he’s irrelevant to my life now, at any rate.”
“So, what brings you here today?”
“As I mentioned when we arrived, my purpose is to have you take on this gentleman’s Custody Dispute.”
With a gesture of great deference, I pointed both hands toward Ernan seated beside me.
Then, without thinking, I turned my head to look at him.
Ernan stood with his arms crossed, staring at me intently.
“…?”
It seemed he’d been doing so for quite some time.
But somehow…
“He looks displeased?”
At that subtle shift in atmosphere, Diego’s deep green eyes—which had been fixed solely on me until then—gradually shifted as well.
Behind his pale, expressionless face, his Silver-Rimmed Glasses were back in place.
His gaze finally locked onto Ernan.
“That’s impossible.”
“I beg your pardon?”
The refusal came in less than a tenth of a second—so adamant that I found myself questioning him reflexively.
“Why…why not?”
“My apologies to His Excellency—I confess I failed to recognize you until just now. The lawsuit Count Flora brought against Your Excellency over custody is already well-known. I regret to say I do not take on cases of such magnitude.”
“…”
My heart sank.
“…Well, I suppose I should have anticipated this to some degree.”
Diego’s cases typically involved ordinary common folk rather than the nobility—people struggling by in straightforward poverty.
But still!
“Rene isn’t a nobleman. He’s an illegitimate child of the nobility, raised in abuse his entire life. Would you at least hear his story?”
“…….”
Rene’s circumstances seemed to catch Diego off-guard; he fell silent. I decided to press my advantage.
“Diego Leonard, if nothing else, think of what we once meant to each other.”
He opened his mouth to reply, then let out a hollow breath and laughed bitterly.
“……Yes. You were my classmate at the Public School. And beyond that……”
“We were engaged, weren’t we?”
The engagement had fallen through, but we were tangled up in each other’s lives nonetheless.
“I hope you’re nothing like your friend Siren, who shuns every connection imaginable. And I hope you’ll accept us based on that history we share.”
Diego pressed his temples as though his head were splitting.
“I’m aware you were Siren’s partner at His Majesty’s coronation ceremony. And now you’re invoking not only that period, but your very connection with Siren.”
His steady gaze fixed on me.
“You hope I’m the opposite of a friend who despises nepotism. That sounds rather like asking me to betray him.”
“Surely not.”
I simply laughed.
When there’s nothing left to say even with ten mouths, a hollow laugh smooths over half of it. I turned away from the pangs of conscience needling at my heart.
But there was a reason I had to hold onto Diego like this—a reason that hadn’t existed before, but had just come into being.
As I spoke with Diego, I recalled our days together at the Public School.
‘He was such a brilliant student.’
Diego was a prodigy.
‘And now, as a lawyer, he’s remarkably capable.’
I’d recommended him to Ernan because he was the only lawyer I knew, but thinking it over carefully, this was truly fortunate.
That the only lawyer I knew was this competent was no ordinary stroke of luck.
Help me out, ninety-percent win-rate workaholic attorney!
And so, with Ernan’s tacit approval, I exercised what one might call meddling. I laid out to Diego exactly one hundred and one misfortunes that would befall Rene if he didn’t take our case.
His already pale face drained of what little color remained.
It didn’t take long for him to raise the white flag.
“Fine, yes, I understand. I’ll do it. Please, I beg you, let me take the case. How could you possibly know that I can’t simply walk away from a story like this……? Did Siren tell you?”
“No.”
“Ah……”
Diego bent forward until his head nearly touched the table, clutching his hair in both hands.
I was reminded of Siren tearing at his hair in the café.
Is that what friendship does?
‘Their mannerisms are oddly similar.’
I shook my head and found my gaze meeting Ernan’s, who had been watching me all along.
He’d kept his eyes on me from well before this moment, through my tearful appeal to Diego and right up until now.
He seemed almost amused by it all.
Where had that inexplicable irritation from earlier gone?
“Why are you staring at me like that?”
“From the look of things now, it seems you’re my lawyer.”
“You have a talent for making meddling sound rather noble.”
“Meddling? Lady Fidelias is merely exercising a right that is rightfully hers.”
“You really think so?”
“Of course. Fidelias Jonas—what you possess is Rene’s.”
Rene’s?
“The qualification to be her savior.”
“……”
Ernan stated it plainly, as though explaining an obvious fact, then tilted his head toward Diego, who was straightening up with a slight groan.
“……Well then, shall we begin the consultation?”
Soon enough, Diego collected himself and steered the conversation to the heart of the matter, and the formal consultation began.
“So he’s not the biological father, you said?”
Diego expressed surprise repeatedly as he listened to my tearful account, even though he already knew these facts.
And then.
“……Do you have any intention of winning?”
He murmured this.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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