Pedro looked at the calendar and thought.
His birthday was coming up—what gift would he get this time?
‘Last year, I got a sword.’
It was a master-crafted sword containing over 20% meteoric iron.
A sword so valuable that even if he sold his homeland, the Saxony estate, he couldn’t have afforded it.
Such an item wasn’t just about the price—ownership required status, and a lord of a tiny fief at the far edge of the Empire could never dream of it.
Even though Seiana had obtained such a treasure for her fiancé, Pedro, he didn’t particularly feel grateful.
She had upended his life so completely that he hadn’t been able to have what should have been rightfully his.
When the land he considered his by birthright passed to his younger sibling, the sense of loss was indescribable.
It was all Seiana’s fault.
If only she had quietly married him like any other noble lady!
Instead, a girl who was nothing without her family’s power crushed him with that very force, humiliating his pride.
So he deliberately showed her contempt.
As a child, more than valuing the benefits her family brought, he just wanted to make Seiana, who had ruined him, suffer.
No matter how much he mocked her and treated her cruelly, Seiana never fought back against Pedro.
The more she flinched, the better Pedro felt.
It made him feel powerful, controlling the beloved daughter of the Estarote Count, who otherwise oppressed him.
‘I couldn’t inherit the estate because of you.’
‘If you hadn’t been so greedy, my life wouldn’t have twisted like this!’
Every time he said such things, Seiana, burdened with guilt, tried to make it up to him in any way she could.
Accepting it as a given, Pedro even came to look down on the Estarote family.
As long as Seiana was in his grasp, they couldn’t do anything to him.
If there was something unchanging in the world, he thought, it was Seiana’s devotion to him.
Seiana had pale silver hair with a faint sky-blue tint and deep, dark blue eyes.
Her overall icy appearance made her seem cold, but before Pedro, she melted like cotton candy under a spring rain.
Sometimes, he was tempted by that face.
But since his superior—and Seiana’s second brother, Halo—kept a watchful eye, he couldn’t lay a finger on her.
So he turned to other women.
That had been two years ago.
‘Too easy, no fun.’
Just like Seiana, women were too easy.
Sweet words and a little kindness, and they would fall for him.
The chase was fun—after that, he quickly lost interest.
‘I played with her for too long. She was too naive, not knowing anything.’
Eventually, his mistress bore his illegitimate child.
Pedro hadn’t planned to get involved with a child, and although he was shocked, he couldn’t make a big scene since he wasn’t yet married to Seiana.
‘I’m not yet an adult, so I can’t legally marry. Let’s wait until I come of age.’
With such whispered promises, he bought time, but he never seriously intended to marry a commoner woman.
He wasn’t crazy enough to abandon Seiana, who came with everything.
Pedro had shaped Seiana with cruel words and blows to make her into a woman perfectly suited for him.
Her constant longing for his affection was annoying, but the wealth she would bring made it tolerable.
Still, she was like a forbidden fruit—something he couldn’t touch until next year.
He was already growing bored of his current mistress and needed a new thrill.
Recently, a new maid had caught his eye.
Unlike the previous one, she wasn’t easy to tame, which made it all the more exciting.
He was eagerly anticipating the challenge when he heard a commotion outside.
“What the hell?”
How dare someone cause a racket when he was in the house?
Pedro felt extremely irritated.
He was about to storm out and yell when—
Bang!
The door burst open right in front of him.
Had he been a step closer, he might have been seriously hurt.
A chill ran down his spine.
“W-what… Seiana?”
Standing in the doorway was none other than Seiana, the legal owner of this mansion and Pedro’s fiancée.
The girl who normally wouldn’t even make loud footsteps in her desperate bid for his affection had violently kicked open the door.
‘Am I dreaming?’
There was no way lovely Seiana Estarote would do something so reckless.
But it was far too early in the day to be dreaming. Realizing it was reality, Pedro scowled.
“What the hell are you doing?”
“What do you mean? I just opened the door.”
Seiana, who usually panicked even if he just frowned, was now talking back.
Pedro’s mood worsened by the second.
Had he been too lenient lately, making her forget who was in control?
“Oh? Just opened the door?”
It wasn’t just opened—the door lock was broken, and the hinges were hanging loose.
Although it was Seiana’s property, Pedro lived there and thought of everything in the house as his own. His rage hit the ceiling.
Seiana glanced briefly at the broken door but didn’t seem to care.
“Well, it was a bit rough. But so what? It’s my property. Whether I break the door or burn down the house, it’s my business, isn’t it?”
Her voice was calm, but her eyes flashed dangerously.
Pedro realized something was very wrong.
‘Is this because I didn’t reply when she was sick last time?’
He thought, if anything, he should be the one receiving thanks.
He had generously overlooked her missing a meeting he hadn’t wanted to attend anyway.
Still, since he was merely a fiancé and hadn’t yet married into her wealth officially, he decided it was better to placate her for now.
“Haha, Lovey. You seem really upset, huh?”
“Me? Do I seem that upset? Why?”
It was as if her sharp, piercing gaze was asking, ‘Guilty about something?’
Pedro tried to brush it off with a smile but got the feeling that she wanted him to apologize.
Hold it in.
Hold it in.
Pedro repeated in his mind.
Just one more year till marriage—then he would show her.
He was grinding his teeth, about to open his mouth to apologize, when—
“Oh, but that’s not important. Right.”
“Happy birthday, Pedro. I brought you something you’ll really like.”
Pedro’s eyes lit up.
If it was a birthday gift, it had to be the purebred horse from Selvia he had been longing for.
His anger completely melted away.
Seiana, whom he usually found exhausting, even looked pretty to him today.
“I was going to give it to you on your actual birthday, but I got it a little early. I couldn’t wait.”
“Haha, that happens. I understand.”
It didn’t matter if he got it now or later—it was going to be his anyway.
The thought of showing up tomorrow riding the prized horse, making his fellow knights green with envy, made him grin uncontrollably.
“So, should I come down now?”
“No. No need. I’ll have them bring it here.”
“Huh?”
Bring it inside the mansion?
What the heck was she talking about?
Pedro, confused, looked at Seiana—
Ana turned pale at the sight of someone appearing stealthily behind her.
The person who emerged from behind her was none other than Pedro’s mistress — and she was even holding a child.
Pedro trembled uncontrollably.
‘Was I caught? Since when? How did that idiot find out?’
Pedro had been confident that Seiana would never catch him.
They had never even met once at the mansion, and when he spent time with his mistress, it was always indoors at her house rather than out in public.
To the woman who wanted to visit Pedro’s house, he had lied, saying the estate was too far away, and that he was staying at the knights’ barracks, making it difficult to bring outsiders in.
Because of that, his mistress didn’t even know that Pedro was actually living in a townhouse.
Seiana hardly ever came to the capital, so Pedro thought the chances of them crossing paths were practically zero… But how on earth?
Pedro, who had been dumbly opening and closing his mouth, came to his senses.
If he admitted it here, he would lose everything.
“This is…”
“And who is this?”
At Pedro’s evasive reply, Seiana, the mistress, the guards Seiana had brought, and even the servants sneaking peeks at the scene all looked utterly dumbfounded.
Is he insane? — their expressions said it all.
Pedro cursed inwardly and tried to feign ignorance as casually as possible to wriggle out of the situation, but he couldn’t completely hide the slight trembling of his lips.
“I… I don’t know her? So who is this? Who did you bring here, Lovey?”
At Pedro’s blatant denial, the dumbfounded faces of everyone shifted into expressions of utter contempt.
The mistress, seemingly shocked by the betrayal, teared up.
Seiana snorted at how things were playing out.
“You value bloodlines so much, but you don’t seem to care about the child who carries your blood?”
“That—”
“Oh, is it because the bloodline is too shabby? I suppose it makes sense, since the Saxen family is nothing to boast about.”
“What did you say? How dare you! …Argh!”
Pedro, who had lunged at her in a rage, was quickly subdued by Seiana’s escort knight, his arm twisted painfully behind his back.
Despite being a knight of the imperial palace, he looked utterly pathetic.
‘There’s no way that idiot Seiana figured it out by herself. I don’t know how she found out, but it must be that lowly woman whispering to her, knowing I wouldn’t marry her.’
Pedro was convinced that as long as he could smooth things over with Seiana, he could still get out of this situation.