Chapter 52. Don’t Mess With Me
“I can’t help but think of her as a strange woman.”
Elle said this with an uncomfortable expression. They had finally shaken off Keena’s attempts to follow them to the Achilles Mansion. Leticia, who was walking beside her, only smiled awkwardly.
“So you should be careful too. I keep thinking she’s trying to trick you.”
“Okay, I’ll be careful.”
“I knew my sister was too pretty for her own good.”
Somehow the whole world seemed to be after Leticia, so Elle walked with her arm around her shoulder.
“Elle is the only one who likes me.”
“You’re saying that again, there’s someone over there who likes you too.”
“Huh?”
Leticia didn’t understand what she meant. She blinked and turned her in the direction Elle was pointing.
There she found Enoch standing at the entrance, and a big smile spread across Leticia’s face.
“Lord Achilles!”
Perhaps it was because she’d only been getting brief glimpses of his face every morning, but today she felt even happier to see him.
Leticia couldn’t hide her happiness, and ran towards Enoch.
Maybe it’s because she was rushing, and not paying attention. She stepped on some uneven ground and stumbled. Leticia closed her eyes tightly as she was about to fall forward.
What she felt wasn’t the hard ground, but a warm embrace. She could tell without looking who it was.
He barely managed to catch her and stop her from tumbling to the ground. Unlike Leticia, who was sighing in relief, Enoch’s face was slightly stiff.
“If you run like that, you’ll fall.”
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“It’s so good that… Ah…”
Leticia shook her head with a short gasp. She belatedly realized what she was about to say.
Thanks to this, Enoch’s stiff expression became more relaxed.
Embarrassed, Leticia squeezed Enoch’s arm and looked up at him with a sharp look.
“Why is it so hard to see your face these days?”
Her tart words seemed strangely loving, and a smile spread across Enoch’s face.
“There was some work.”
“What’s going on?”
Leticia asked him what it was. Instead of answering, Enoch gently stroked her hair. Leticia grabbed hold of his arm harder. Her heart was feeling ticklish even though all he was doing was patting her head.
“I won’t be busy anymore, so you can relax.”
Leticia didn’t hear anymore of his soothing words. Instead, she buried herself in Enoch’s chest.
“Um, actually…”
She’d missed him.
She wanted to say these words, but strangely, the words were stuck in her throat and she couldn’t seem to get them out.
The beating of her heart seemed audible to her ears, so Leticia stopped talking and took a deep breath.
Just as she was about to try and say she missed him again.
“I missed you.”
Surprised by the words, Leticia’s eyes widened and she looked up at Enoch.
“How did you know I was going to say that?”
“What? I was just saying what I wanted to say.”
“What? Ah…”
Leticia’s face began to turn red, she couldn’t believe she thought that he knew how she was feeling and said it. She was so ashamed that she wanted to turn around and run away.
As if he’d noticed, Enoch leaned back and met Leticia’s gaze.
“Did you miss me?”
The sweet voice that reached her ears began to make her face unbearably warm. Eventually, Leticia tucked her face down to hide how red it was.
The more she did this, the closer Enoch got.
Even without looking, she could feel his gaze looking straight at her. Leticia touched her fingertips together nervously.
“I think you’re too close now.”
“Well, I can’t hear you.”
Leticia was unable to bear the words, and she tried to back away. Before she knew it, she saw a large hand take hold of both wrists. It was such a weak grip that she could slip out at any time with a little effort.
If she didn’t like it, she could easily push him away.
‘Really, this guy is…’
Even at this moment, his touch was being considerate of her. She tried to swallow her overwhelming emotions. Leticia bit her lip and looked up at him.
As soon as their gazes intertwined, as if waiting for this, Enoch said.
“I missed you so much.”
His eyes were full of longing.
Leticia tried to tell him that he wasn’t the only one feeling that way, that she also wanted to see him.
“Oh, my God. My eyes are burning!”
With an expression of disgust, Elle went into the mansion first with a click of her tongue.
Only then did Leticia and Enoch realize that she was still around.
***
“Young Master, welcome back…”
The butler greeted Emil as he entered the room, but Emil pretended not to hear him and sat roughly in a chair.
His head was filled with conversations between his academic colleagues that kept coming up.
[I mean, Ian Achilles. How did he even get past the first round?]
One of his academic colleagues asked with an inquisitive look when they were talking about how to do well on the second round of exams.
[Oh, that’s because a professor wrote a letter of recommendation.]
[Which professor was it?]
Emil was listening into the conversation while pretending disinterest, he secretly smirked and drank his tea. It was obvious he’d bribed one of the money-crazy professors to write him a letter. If he found out who it was, he was going to turn him into a test administrator right away.
However, Emil’s prediction was a mistake.
[Professor Warner Russel wrote the letter of recommendation himself.]
[Wow, didn’t he reject your request?]
[Of course, you know how much Professor Russel hates expediency and cheating.]
[But isn’t this the first time Professor Russel has written a letter of recommendation?]
It was at that moment that Emil’s expression cracked while he was drinking his tea leisurely.
‘Warner Russel?’
Emil clenched his teeth.
The fact that he wrote a letter of recommendation for Ian Achilles while rejecting his recommendation was a blow to his self-esteem.
In the end, Emil couldn’t contain his anger and swept everything off of his desk. His quill pen, ink bottle, and various books rolled onto the floor, but his mood didn’t clear up so easily.
“How dare he write a letter of recommendation to someone who’s not even comparable to me? What a stupid professor!”
The more he thought about it, the more his temper flared and he couldn’t bear it.
As he clenched his fist to calm down, his eyes met with the butler who was just quietly watching him.
“Come to think of it, I don’t think there’s been any reports about my first sister lately. Am I mistaken?”
“That’s… The situation has gotten worse.”
Emil paused, surprised by the butler’s words.
The feeling of having fallen into the abyss began to cool down.
“Tell me the details.”
“So…”
The butler was wondering how to say this, when he carefully began to explain.
Until a few days ago, the rumor around Leticia that she would make you unlucky and unhappy was spreading around quite virulently. At some point it turned around, people started to talk about how Leticia’s cookies were causing good things to happen, just like the words inside her cookies.
“With all due respect, I don’t think anything bad will happen around the First Miss.”
The butler said these words without realizing it and quickly shut his mouth.
But Emil had already heard him.
“If it’s not bad, then what?”
The butler said reluctantly, Emil’s stern expression urging an answer.
“It seems like something good happens often…”
“What?”
“I’ve investigated and found that since the First Miss entered the Achilles household, only good things have happened to the Duke of Achilles.”
The butler looked troubled as he said this.
Emil clenched his fist while staring at him, an uneasy and ominous feeling was growing in his chest.
“What exactly, for example?”
“Recently, Young Master Achilles passed the first round of exams… Ahh…”
“….”
It wasn’t a good idea to use Ian as an example, the butler let out a short sigh.
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Fortunately, Emil’s was already distracted elsewhere.
“It’s not a bad thing…”
Emil had been standing there with a blank look on his face, he then sat weakling into a chair.
He thought there would only be bad things. No, there had to be only bad things. Emil wanted to believe that, even though he knew it wasn’t true.
Because he had to.
It would ruin his family’s reputation if they’d condemned an innocent person.
But…
‘Only good things have happened…?’
He couldn’t believe it, he didn’t want to admit it.
In retrospect, everything had been going horribly well for that family since Leticia entered the Achilles’ mansion. When the bet was made with his second sister, Diana, Elle Achilles wishing bracelets had an explosion of popularity. Then when Ian Achilles failed the first test, Warner Russel wrote him a letter of recommendation.
‘Come to think of it, the Duke of Achilles became an Imperial Knight after meeting her.’
He was disqualified previously for ridiculous reasons, everyone was saying he’d fail again.
There was even talk about pink diamonds, which had not been seen in ten years, appearing again.
‘So the pink diamond is real, too?’
Emil sucked in a breath with a pale face.
“No, no, no, no… That’s too impossible to be true… That can’t be true…”
What should he do? Where could he even start? Where on earth should he start and how should he fix this situation?
He heard a knock on his door as his mind ran around in confusion. A maid hesitantly stepped in the room when he called for her to enter.
“What’s going on?”
“You have a visitor.”
“Who’s the guest?”
“The Duke of Achilles said he really wanted to see you today.”
“….”
“He’s waiting for you in the drawing room.”
As soon as the maid finished her message she bowed her head and left the room.
“Ha…”
Emil swept his hair back with an irritated look.
He didn’t feel good.
.
.
.
Arriving at the door to the drawing room, Emil sighed.
Somehow he was nervous and his mouth had dried up. He quickly regained his composure and opened the door.
Leisurely looking out the window, Enoch slowly turned his head at the sound of the door opening.
“Welcome, Duke of Achilles.”
“You don’t seem to treat guests well here.”
“What?”
“Well, I didn’t really expect it.”
At the same time, he glanced at the table.
Emil belatedly realized it was a rebuke for not serving him a cup of tea while he waited, and with a calm face, asked for simple refreshments to be served.
‘You came here without giving notice.’
It was a family as ill-mannered, as they are unlucky.
He wanted to kick him out as soon as possible, but he was faced with Enoch’s relaxed expression.
“You should come another day, Father isn’t here currently.”
“I don’t have to.”
“What?”
“Young Master Leroy, I’m here to see you.”
He couldn’t understand why someone, who he’d never had contact with before, had come all this way to meet him.
He knows that my family hates the Achilles family.
It was clear to him that whatever Enoch was about to say was not going to be good.
“Do you know about the rumor spreading about your eldest sister?”
His expectation did not go astray.
Emil shook his head in wonder at Enoch’s words, which came out just as tea and refreshments had even been served.
“Well, I’m not interested in rumors.”
“If you don’t know, I’ll tell you.”
Enoch, who was currently sniffing the tea with an expressionless face, said calmly.
“When you’re around her you’ll lose all your luck, become unlucky and be unhappy.”
“….”
“Someone deliberately spread this rumor, with malicious intention of dragging her down.”
“….”
“Thanks to that, she almost gave up on her first dream.”
Enoch’s eyes didn’t fall off of him the whole time he was talking. Emil felt a feeling creep up his spine, his gaze seemed to know everything.
Emil put a sad look on his face.
“I’m sorry to hear the bad news about my eldest sister.”
“Sorry? Oh, you’re sorry…”
Unlike his blank expression, his eyes glowed fiercely.
Under his stare, Emil felt like a small animal caught in the jaws of a large predator.
“Don’t you wonder why I’m saying this?”
“Do I have to be curious…?”
Fortunately he didn’t stutter, but his voice cracked slightly.
Enoch raised the corners of his mouth mockingly at Emil.
“I heard you were smart, but I don’t think you’re as smart as you think you are. Is it that hard to understand what I’m saying?”
“You don’t think I started the rumor, do you?”
“Then, what?”
Emil had known from the start what Enoch was talking about, but was trying to avoid the topic. He turned his gaze, and faced Enoch head to head.
“So do you have proof that I did it?”
There would be no evidence that he’d been spreading the rumor anywhere. He’d given orders to his butler directly, so he was confident he would never be caught.
Enoch let out a cold laugh, without a sign of unease.
“Yeah, I didn’t expect you to admit it easily.”
The purpose of the visit lay elsewhere, so Enoch managed to swallow down his rising anger.
“Don’t bother Leticia.”
A warning that he wouldn’t stand back next time.
“I hate people who touch what’s mine.”
“….”
“If you ignore this warning, you’d better be prepared.”
Enoch laid down his teacup with a calm expression and gave a twisted smile.
“I’ll make you realize what a living hell is.”
He really wanted to show him right away, but he was willing to let it go just this time.
Enoch’s attitude irritated Emil, he clenched his jaw and asked.
“Are you threatening me?”
“Threatening? No way.”
“What is this, other than a threat?”
“Do you have proof that I threatened you?”
“Wha… What?”
Emil had not expected his words to be returned to him like this and burst into hysterical laughter.
Enoch was not finished talking.
Enoch was turning his teacup with a slight frown.
“I guess the Leroys only drink cheap tea? Or is it because I’m the guest?”
“What?”
“Why don’t you serve decent tea to your guests? What if there are rumors that you treat your guests poorly?”
Emil thought Enoch was really worried with the tone of concern in his voice.
However, his smiling eyes seemed to swell with murderous intent.
“It might make you look bad.”
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