In This Life, I Will Be The Lord - Chapter 261

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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This Life, I Will Become the Clan Head

 

Side Story Episode 4

 

I could feel Peres’s breath completely against my exposed skin.

 

I secretly bit my lower lip, then turned around and spoke nonchalantly.

 

“Peres, be honest with me. You like surprising me, don’t you?”

 

“You caught me.”

 

Peres chuckled lowly.

 

Where did that dignified His Majesty the Emperor from the meeting room earlier go?

 

His faintly smiling face even had a hint of mischief.

 

I gently cupped his cheek and said.

 

“Peres.”

 

I’m so glad you can smile like this now.

 

“Why did you look like that in the meeting room earlier?”

 

“Ah…”

 

Along with my question, Peres’s face became gloomy again.

 

“Yes, that expression. Is something wrong?”

 

“Your finger is empty.”

 

Peres’s somewhat rough and firm fingertips rubbed my fourth finger.

 

“Where’s your engagement ring?”

 

“Ah!”

 

Only now did I realize.

 

The red diamond ring that should naturally be on my left fourth finger was missing.

 

“Oh, right?”

 

“…Did you lose it?”

 

“No, I didn’t lose it. I just took it off briefly while bathing this morning and forgot to put it back on.”

 

Honestly, I couldn’t remember properly, but I made up an excuse for now.

 

But even so, my mind was busy.

 

Where did I put that ring?

 

“It’s okay. Even if you lost it.”

 

As if reading my thoughts completely, Peres briefly kissed my empty fourth finger with a low voice.

 

“I’ll give you another identical one. Even a hundred of them.”

 

“…I didn’t lose it. It’ll be there when I get home.”

 

“That’s a relief then.”

 

Though he spoke casually, Peres’s face was still gloomy.

 

“I always wear what Tia gave me like this.”

 

Peres showed the emerald ring on his left fourth finger.

 

Since our engagement period was two whole years, he said we needed a token of our promise to cherish during that time, so I gave it to him.

 

I thought he just meant anything would do, but surprisingly he specifically requested a green emerald.

 

His reason was that it was the color that reminded him of my eyes.

 

So I asked Croily Grandfather’s workshop to make a ring with platinum and emerald.

 

And from the day he received it, that emerald ring never left his fourth finger.

 

“…I’m sorry.”

 

What more excuses could the person at fault make?

 

I held Peres’s hand tightly as I spoke.

 

“Ahem.”

 

…Something’s strange?

 

When I looked up, I saw him covering his mouth with a slightly clenched fist.

 

“You… again!”

 

Ah, I was fooled again!

 

“Stop teasing me! Where do you keep learning these weird things!”

 

“Sorry. Tia was so cute I couldn’t help myself.”

 

“Who is it? Who taught you this stuff! Is it those Academy classmates again? It’s Lignite Ruman, isn’t it!”

 

“Haha.”

 

Peres laughed loudly watching me interrogate him in anger.

 

Then suddenly he lifted me up and began walking with large strides.

 

“What, what!”

 

Startled, I wrapped my arms around his neck, and after a moment, I found myself sitting on a very soft sofa.

 

“The meeting room chairs are quite uncomfortable.”

 

Peres matched my eye level and smiled brightly.

 

“That’s true. But how do you know that?”

 

The seat Peres occupied in the meeting room was a very cushioned chair.

 

It was like that when he was Crown Prince, and even more so now as Emperor of the Lambru Empire.

 

Such a person would never have had occasion to sit in the hard chairs the nobles used.

 

Then a thought suddenly crossed my mind, and though I doubted it, I asked.

 

“Did you perhaps try sitting in my seat?”

 

“…”

 

Instead of answering, Peres slightly avoided my eyes.

 

It was the expression he made when my questions were difficult for him to answer.

 

“Why my seat?”

 

“…I was curious about the view Tia sees, so occasionally.”

 

“Occasionally?”

 

“Occasionally when I think of it.”

 

I don’t think ‘occasionally’ is really occasionally.

 

“Since I can’t go see you whenever I think of you.”

 

“Ah…”

 

It couldn’t be helped.

 

Peres was the Emperor and I was the Lord of Lombardi.

 

So we couldn’t spend time together often like ordinary lovers.

 

I swallowed the sigh that was about to escape and said.

 

“Well, to be curious about even something like that.”

 

How embarrassing.

 

When I added quietly, Peres reached out his large hand.

 

Then he tucked my hair that had fallen to the side behind my ear and said.

 

“I’m curious about everything about you. Whether you ate plenty of strawberries you like for breakfast this morning, what dreams you had last night.”

 

His quiet voice relaxed my tension while my heart began pounding faster.

 

“What kind of people you met today, what thoughts you had. And…”

 

Peres’s finger that had been fiddling with my earlobe lightly slipped between my neck and hair.

 

“Whether you thought of me.”

 

His low voice came from very close.

 

“Tia, didn’t you perhaps miss me too?”

 

His lips approached in an instant.

 

Along with the sensation of mingling breath, Peres’s body heat was transmitted through tender skin.

 

“Haa.”

 

When I could no longer hold back my rapidly quickening breath, Peres lifted his body and came even closer.

 

Before I knew it, my body was deeply buried in the sofa’s backrest, and my head was tilted up as far as it would go.

 

All the outside matters that had been complicating my mind disappeared, and my world was filled entirely with Peres alone.

 

“Tia.”

 

In those brief moments when our lips met and parted, Peres continued whispering my name.

 

Ah, really.

 

I pulled the arm wrapped around his neck even tighter.

 

I should be used to it by now.

 

Every time Peres made that kind of masculine expression, he still felt unfamiliar to me.

 

As the kisses continued, our bodies gradually left no space between them.

 

Our body temperature rose even higher, making the dress feel unbearably cumbersome.

 

Oh, at this rate.

 

I gripped Peres’s shoulders firmly and managed to speak through the gap between his lips that refused to part from mine.

 

“Peres.”

 

I had only called his name once, but Peres seemed to understand the meaning and stopped moving.

 

But that was all—he exhaled heated breaths at a distance where he looked ready to pounce again at any moment.

 

From the way he hesitated several times, it seemed reason and instinct were fighting quite fiercely within him.

 

“Should we… move our wedding up by a few months?”

 

Peres asked me with eyes flushed red around the edges.

 

“You know we can’t… You know we can’t do that.”

 

“No, Tia. Maybe there’s a way. We always find a way, don’t we?”

 

Eyes burning red as coal gazed at every part of my face as if licking them.

 

“That may be true, but.”

 

Oh, should I just agree to it?

 

I pressed my lips together tightly while fumbling with the hem of Peres’s clothes still in my grasp.

 

Both Peres and I want this so much.

 

But in the end, reason planted the final flag.

 

I brought my forehead against Peres’s with a soft thud and said.

 

“Creny is still traveling, Peres.”

 

“Ha.”

 

Peres finally let out a deep, deep sigh and muttered through his clenched teeth.

 

“Creny.”

 

In the end, Creny had succeeded in graduating early last year as valedictorian of the liberal arts program.

 

Originally, my engagement with Peres was meant to be a grace period until Creny, who could help with the duties of the Lombardi family head, graduated.

 

I still can’t forget Peres’s face blooming brightly when he heard that news.

 

But the hesitant Creny had expressed his desire to travel for a year with his Academy friends.

 

Knowing how hard Creny had studied all this time to meet my expectations, I had no choice but to grant his request.

 

Besides, once he started working for Lombardy, a life where travel would be unthinkable would continue.

 

Creny, who had begun his journey through the Empire, was currently traveling through the Eastern Region, timing it with Larane’s wedding.

 

Ever since hearing that Peres had tried to issue a nationwide manhunt upon learning that Creny had left for a year-long trip, he hadn’t even come near the Central Region.

 

I wiped away my traces remaining on Peres’s lips with my finger and said.

 

“Let’s stay together on the cruise while traveling through the Eastern Region, Peres.”

 

“Ah, the cruise.”

 

When I brought up the Eastern Region travel, his face, which had seemed clouded over, finally brightened.

 

Then he moved his body that had been overlapping mine and plopped down beside me.

 

Though “beside” meant close enough for our bodies to touch, practically the same spot.

 

“But will it really be okay, Peres?”

 

“…What?”

 

He answered lazily while playfully intertwining his fingers with mine.

 

“Either way, you’ll be away from your position for several weeks. I don’t think anything immediate would happen, but.”

 

An emperor doesn’t move carelessly.

 

This was both for safety and for power.

 

Any vacant position inevitably creates a void.

 

Someone might covet that empty seat.

 

To my question, Peres blinked slowly and answered.

 

“I’m not such a lax emperor that problems would arise from being away briefly. It’s fine, Tia.”

 

Ah, right. That’s true.

 

I nodded, newly realizing just how powerful an emperor Peres was.

 

“Yes, you’re right. You’re amazing.”

 

I stroked his head with genuine pride in my heart.

 

Then Peres rested his forehead against my shoulder and chuckled softly like a shy boy.

 

Then he looked up at me and said in a low voice.

 

“You’re the one who made me this way, Tia.”

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