The Male Lead Is Trying To Tame Me With Money - Chapter 98

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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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98.

“I didn’t mean it with bad intentions.”

Uncharacteristically for Casian, he blurted out an excuse first.

As if he thought I would be angry, he looked at me like a puppy that had caused trouble.

“I was just asking because I was curious.”

“…Really?”

He looked somewhat surprised, which made it even more absurd.

“Then why did you watch me while thinking it would make me angry?”

I had only asked if he’d been watching me all this time, but seeing him react so defensively made me suspicious.

“Don’t tell me you were trying to spy on me—”

“No, Rose!”

Casian answered hastily to my words.

With a shallow sigh, he roughly rubbed his dry face.

Then, unusually, he couldn’t speak right away and showed an embarrassed expression.

It wasn’t the usual shameless, wicked boss who only thought of ways to tease me, but a boyish appearance.

Something in my heart tickled strangely at that face.

Could it be that I felt regret?

About barely seeing Casian’s teenage years while destroying the original story?

Is that why whenever he acts clumsy like this in front of me or shows weakness, I feel a strange sense of satisfaction that even I find peculiar?

“You really won’t get angry?”

“Let me hear it first?”

“Your words changed—just a moment ago you acted like you wouldn’t get angry.”

Then he showed his disappointment while grabbing and fidgeting with my hand.

“You even changed how you address me after just a short vacation.”

During this conversation, was he planning to stop playing the role of my boss and the annoyingly perfect Second Prince?

I couldn’t help but laugh at his expression that showed his emotions so openly while grumbling.

“Does that upset you?”

“Yes.”

Casian lifted my hand that he was holding and kissed the back of it while gazing intently into my eyes.

“I thought I had been granted permission for our first meeting not to be when I was twenty-one.”

Slowly adjusting his grip to intertwine our fingers, he spoke to me earnestly.

“It sounds like you’re saying it’s not a connection that continued from then, but just something that passed.”

It was an excessively honest statement.

On the other hand, I could understand how significant those events from when he was around eleven were to him.

Of course, for me as well.

‘To say it was simply because of guilt…’

I was gradually finding it difficult to deny that those memories were far too special.

For an entire season, I had frantically tried to save him with just a nine-year-old body, somehow avoiding my parents’ eyes.

From the moment I saw him struggling desperately to live, my desire for young Casian, who bore all that pain, to be happy grew stronger than my thoughts of hiding myself.

Perhaps it was impossible to keep denying those emotions I had tried so hard to hide and cover up for fear of being swept away by the grand flow of events.

After all, from the moment I came to the capital and saw him, I had been quite weak when it came to him.

Moreover, as time went on, rather than finding him impressive, I only found his boyish complaints directed solely at me increasingly endearing.

“I’ll make sure you’re not upset.”

How could I not grant such a small wish?

“But, Ian.”

“Yes?”

At the name I called him, his face brightened and he drew a gentle smile.

But even so.

“I think you called me ‘Your Highness’ when we first met?”

I believe we first met when you were seven years old?

Of course, that was in Casian’s memory, not mine.

He looked momentarily caught off guard.

However, that lasted only an instant, and soon he returned to the mischievous face I knew well.

“Then should I call you beautiful messenger of death?”

He counterattacked as usual.

See, he never just gives in.

Despite having such petty thoughts, I soon burst into laughter.

And while holding his unsuspecting hand, I asked again.

“So from when exactly have you been watching me?”

You didn’t think I’d fall for it if you acted cute and wheedling, did you?

At my response, Casian drew another beautiful arc with his eyebrows before letting out a deep sigh.

Unusually, the area under his eyes and near his ears turned reddish.

*

While I was on vacation, Francis and the other administrators had worked so hard that there was enough leisure time for Casian and me to share old stories.

With a very reluctant expression, he began to tell me his story bit by bit.

“Well, I found out Rose was a child of Salice Baron when I was still at the cottage.”

“What…?”

“I followed you.”

When I looked at him with slightly cold eyes at those words, Casian pouted and muttered that this was why he didn’t want to talk about it.

“If you thought that way, at least you’re being honest now.”

“If I lied about something like this, I feel like Rose really wouldn’t forgive me.”

I was truly glad he understood that well.

Honestly, it was creepy, but knowing about Casian’s childhood, I could make allowances.

Wasn’t that a situation where he could only see people trying to kill him?

Moreover, the place where he nearly died was somewhere the Emperor, his father, had sent him.

In such circumstances, someone who saved me without asking for anything in return.

Just as I had mistaken Casian’s letter offering to repay his debt as voice phishing, he too must have had no choice but to be suspicious.

Especially if it was a child younger than himself, it would have been reasonable to think that some wicked adult behind me was trying to make him let his guard down.

“…Rose seems to be having strange thoughts again.”

“What?”

I was kindly trying to understand your actions, and you’re being too harsh.

When I looked at him with slightly narrowed eyes, Casian raised the corner of his mouth crookedly.

“I was just curious because Rose was cute.”

“…What?”

Cu, cute?

In that harsh situation, you followed someone for such a simple reason?

No matter how I think about it, my reasoning seems much more reasonable and less creepy.

When I made a shocked expression with those feelings, Casian looked at my face and let out a deep sigh.

“As you know, until I met Miss Rozelita, I wasn’t particularly cunning or shrewd.”

“Ah.”

“Wasn’t it natural to be curious about who the cute and lovely little lady was who came and fed me completely burnt soup and messed-up egg dishes?”

“Hmm…”

Though I felt somewhat less sympathetic, I decided to pretend to agree.

“This is why I really didn’t want to talk about it more—I knew my young heart would be completely crushed.”

I felt even more wronged by his gaze toward me as if he were hurt.

What did I even do…?

A person can be a bit dry sometimes!

“Anyway, I definitely wanted to meet Rose even after growing up, not when I was a mess like back then.”

In an instant, his boyish gaze was withdrawn.

The Casian I knew well appeared before my eyes again.

“When I can properly face you.”

He took my hand that he had released again and bowed his head.

Beneath his slightly closed eyelids, his pale eyelashes held light like dewdrops.

“That you saved me, so I could grow up straight like this. That I was able to come this far without foolishly losing what was mine, just as you wished for me.”

Silently, his lips pressed against the back of my hand.

That lingering kiss was composed only of sincere emotions, unlike any other time.

Perhaps this very moment was the one he had been longing for ever since we reunited in the capital.

“So I watched over you, from when the Imperial Palace could no longer treat me like I didn’t exist.”

Casian slowly raised his head and looked at me with warm eyes.

“Even so, I was only able to properly station my people near Salice Barony around the time Rose had about a year left before her debutante ball.”

That meant it was when I was around seventeen years old.

He spoke with a very regretful expression.

“Before that, I could only occasionally hear news, so unfortunately I didn’t know.”

“Know what?”

“That you had become friends with a cute boy named Wesley Morel.”

His free hand came toward me, caressing my cheek and ear area teasingly.

“Or that after making Paul Terodima cry, you steadily put him to work and raised him into a good heir to the Terodima County.”

“…Paul was raised by the Count and his wife.”

That poor boy is already pitiful for being single, so if you change his primary caregiver like that, Paul will feel even more heartbroken.

Though I’d enjoy watching that.

Casian laughed softly.

“But what I regret most is actually something else.”

“What is it?”

“That I couldn’t see with my own eyes the adorable little lady of Salice Barony growing into a sharp and capable lady.”

I felt like he had struck my heart with a thump.

Since I too had been regretting not being able to see much of his teenage years.

Casian looked into my eyes and smiled with satisfaction, as if he had read my thoughts again.

“So please forgive me, Rose. For looking after you out of curiosity about how you were doing, without even asking for your consent.”

Even as he said this, there was earnestness mixed in his tone.

At that voice that seemed to say he had only sincere intentions, please understand, I simply laughed.

“That’s why I said it was just curiosity.”

It might be different if he had actually properly investigated our family.

He really had just been curious about my well-being, even from afar.

More than anything, the fact that he was curious about me was honestly—

‘…I like it.’

Just like how I had been curious about how Casian was growing up while struggling to escape from fate.

It felt like suddenly facing the fact that despite wanting him to pass by, despite thinking it would be better if he forgot me, my true feelings were different.

I really was greedy and contradictory.

“So it’s not a matter of forgiving or not forgiving, and I’m not upset either.”

I told him there was no need to feel sorry and to shake off those feelings.

“…I’m really worried.”

“Pardon?”

“What if Rose follows a bad person who offers her money?”

Casian completely shattered my sentimental mood.

“…Is this revenge?”

For breaking his pure childhood emotions?

And my superior, with a bright smiling face.

“How mean, I’m saying this because I’m really worried about Rose.”

He spouted a shameless lie.

*

As full spring arrived, various flowers in the Imperial Palace garden began to bloom and fall.

That didn’t mean the work at the Winter Palace decreased though.

When I often gazed longingly out the window while working in the office, Casian handed me some documents.

“Rose, go visit the First Consort.”

The path to the First Consort’s palace was the most beautiful of the year, with flowers in full bloom.

“At times like this, I really feel like I chose a good superior.”

“I wish you’d always think that way?”

Casian showed slight dissatisfaction but readily sent me off.

From the Winter Palace to the First Consort’s Pansy Palace was quite a distance—though that was true for any palace—but the scenery was so pretty that it was worth the walk.

The atmosphere of the maids and servants should be as good as this beautiful scenery,

‘…Hm?’

Shouldn’t it?

As I approached Pansy Palace, I could sense people subtly watching me.

Usually they only gave me looks like that when I was about to dump a pile of administrative work on them…

The moment I stepped inside, puzzled,

Crack—!

Along with a sharp sound.

“You suspect me without evidence, Fourth Consort?”

I was forced to witness a confrontation between the First Consort and Fourth Consort.

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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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