Saving My Childhood Friend Through... Questionable Means... - Chapter 50
Her hands trembled with fury at the realization of being deceived. Seeing Seria’s face on the verge of exploding, Lucas finally opened his mouth, sensing he had to say something.
“Uh, well… about that, it’s, um… it’s slander.”
But his response was far too late. And the excuse he offered, dismissing the letter as nonsense, was laughable at best.
The flimsy excuse only darkened Seria’s expression further.
“Slander? Your face says it all—your guilt is written all over it!”
“No, it’s not like that! I’m just… not feeling well today, that’s all…”
Lucas feigned illness, shivering dramatically and even adding a few fake coughs for effect.
But his poor acting only infuriated Seria more. With a sharp motion, she snatched the letter out of Lucas’s hands, the sound of it being yanked reverberating through the room. Lucas, flustered, watched with his mouth agape as she confronted him.
“If you’re going to keep making lame excuses, we’ll go through everything line by line, won’t we? What’s true, and what’s not? Let’s see here. Third line: ‘Duke Lucas was actually in perfect health but still asked me to lie for him.’ That’s true, isn’t it? You haven’t done anything for days, yet you’re completely fine. If what the sorcerer said in the capital was a lie, then everything makes sense.”
“Well, uh… that’s…”
There was no room for excuses. Days of being distracted had caused him to forget to even pretend he was still cursed.
In truth, this entire scheme had been flawed from the beginning. Lucas regretted it deeply but knew it was too late now. The sorcerer’s confession in the letter had left no room to maneuver.
Running a hand over his face in frustration, Lucas cautiously glanced at Seria, hoping for some way to gloss over the situation. But the murderous look in her eyes made him recoil, so he hastily covered his face with his hands.
Seria, her temper rising further at his evasive behavior, began tearing the letter to shreds. The sharp ripping sound filled the room, and Lucas reached out in panic.
“Seria, wait! Let me explain everything—just hear me out. I was, it’s just… I panicked!”
“I don’t care! There’s nothing more to say!”
“Agh!”
She flung the shredded pieces of the letter at his face, glaring at him with fiery indignation. Then, breathing heavily, she stormed out of the office. The door slammed shut behind her with a loud bang, just as forcefully as it had been thrown open.
“God, what do I do now?”
Lucas buried his head in his hands, despair washing over him. The words of his friend, Cain—”Don’t wait until it’s too late”—echoed in his mind.
But he was terrified.
If he told Seria the truth, would she even accept it? Would she mock him, asking if this wasn’t the ‘cool and casual relationship’ they had agreed on? Or worse, would she see him as nothing more than a pathetic, s*x-obsessed man?
Yet, if he kept avoiding the issue, he might lose Seria completely.
It was time to make a decision. He couldn’t run away anymore. He had to be honest with her about his feelings.
*
Seria stormed back to her room, fuming.
‘When did Lucas become so shameless? Or has he always been like this, and I just didn’t notice? Unbelievable!’
She paced back and forth, her temper flaring. She had always prided herself on understanding Lucas’s personality, but she had never imagined he could be so brazen.
The shock of learning he had bribed someone to lie to her was one thing, but she had tried to rationalize it—tried to tell herself that maybe he had just been overwhelmed by their first time together.
After all, Lucas had been cursed, and the curse had initially driven him mad with lust. Perhaps that had clouded his judgment.
If he had just been honest and apologized, she might have been willing to let it slide, after some yelling. It wasn’t like it was unheard of to have a casual relationship these days in the capital. They’d already crossed that line, so a few more times wouldn’t have made her angrier.
But even when caught red-handed, Lucas had refused to apologize and had instead tried to weasel his way out with lies and excuses. It had pushed her patience to its limit.
‘Shameless. Absolutely shameless!’
For the moment, she couldn’t even bear to look at him. Normally, as his secretary, she had no choice but to see him every day, but now she decided that these were special circumstances. Surely Lucas had enough decency not to complain about her absence.
What frustrated her the most was that, even now, the thought of never seeing him again made her heart ache.
She had nowhere else to go if she left the manor. This dependency gnawed at her pride, but there was nothing she could do about it.
In her anger, she grabbed a cushion from her bed and began punching it. Imagining Lucas’s face on it, she pounded the pillow until it was completely mangled.
