Chapter 6

The Male Lead and Female Lead Broke Up

“That bastard of a Duke…!”

“Dear!”

As Father’s words became increasingly harsh, Mother warned him again.

“Ahem… Even so, breaking off the engagement is out of the question. I’ll speak with the Duke and resolve this matter myself, so don’t worry about anything.”

The moment Father said he intended to undo the broken engagement, I came to my senses.

No, we can’t have that.

How hard had I worked to get this broken engagement?

And this was my diamond mine!

This matter absolutely could not be reversed or brought up again.

“…I don’t want him anymore either.”

“What?”

“What did you say?”

Both of them stared at me in surprise at my declaration.

“I don’t like him anymore either! For more than ten years, I’ve been the only one who loved him, the only one who desperately chased after him, the only one who kept looking at him. But now, how long am I supposed to endure loving a man who says he loves another woman? When he told me he wanted to break off our engagement, I cried and begged and made a huge fuss, saying I couldn’t accept it. But the Duke didn’t budge at all. So I told him I understood. I told him I’d let him go and agree to the breakup.”

As I said that, I threw myself down onto the sofa and buried my face in my arms.

Then, just as I had done in front of Kane, I secretly jabbed my fingers into my eyes like crazy.

Come on, tears… Come out…!

Fortunately, since I poked the same spot I’d irritated earlier, tears quickly welled up.

I began sobbing loudly enough for my parents to hear.

“Sniff… I don’t want to do this anymore… I’m tired of loving him. My heart hurts so much that it feels like it’s being torn apart. I wish I didn’t have a heart at all… It’s so miserable, Mother, Father. The fact that I’ve been treated like this by the person I’ve loved all this time is so horrible and heartbreaking.”

As I delivered the lines I had carefully prepared earlier, I immersed myself even further in my acting.

“Bellita…”

Mother called my name in a voice filled with sorrow as I broke down in a storm of tears.

“Don’t cry, Bellita…”

“My heart has already been shattered completely. I don’t want to see him anymore.”

“Bellita, stop crying and get up… It hurts us so much to see you cry.”

“Mother, Father. Please tell me what I’m supposed to do. What should I do? How am I supposed to live from now on? Sniff…”

I cried with all my strength, determined to show them just how sad, empty, desperate, and devastated I was.

That was when it happened.

Father, who had remained silent the entire time I cried without stopping, finally opened his mouth.

“You did well. So stop crying, Bellita.”

At his words, I raised my tear-filled face and looked at my parents.

It was sudden praise, completely different from everything he had said until now.

Father’s expression was cold and serious in a way I had never seen before.

Looking at his face, I could tell that his words weren’t something he had said casually.

“Father…?”

“Dear?”

“I’ve always thought that our daughter was far too good for that bastard. You did well, Bellita. So stop crying.”

Oh…

Bellita’s—no, my father—was a much more reliable and decent man than I had expected.

Until now, I had thought of him as someone who simply acted according to his emotions.

But somehow, I was beginning to see him in a completely different light.

Judging by the situation, it seemed I didn’t need to cry anymore, so I raised my arm and casually wiped away my tears.

“Thank you, Father. And I’m sorry… I’m sorry I’m so weak. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry…”

However, if my expression suddenly improved too much, they might become suspicious.

So I continued maintaining the appearance of a woman devastated by having her engagement broken off.

“Bellita.”

Mother stood from her seat, came over to me, and pulled me into a tight embrace.

“Mother, I’m sorry…”

I apologized to her as well.

I wanted to show them just how deeply devastated and distressed I was over this broken engagement.

“You have nothing to apologize to us for, Bellita.”

“That’s right, Bellita. We’re your parents. We have no intention of ever forcing you to do something you don’t want. So don’t feel sorry toward us.”

Judging by the situation, I could truly feel how much they loved Bellita.

And the more I understood my parents’ feelings, the more my conscience pricked me for deceiving them.

But I soon pulled myself together, telling myself that I had no reason to feel guilty.

Perhaps it was self-justification.

But in any case, by possessing Bellita’s body, I had been able to save the lives of many people.

In the original story, Bellita tormented Adela and eventually tried to kill her.

Instead, Bellita herself was killed.

That incident then escalated into a war between the two families, and the Heitz Ducal Family was destroyed almost overnight.

The Heitz Ducal Family wasn’t a house that could be defeated so easily.

But because the Maxius and Bayon families attacked them together, the Heitz family had no choice but to be helplessly overwhelmed.

What horrible people.

It was Bellita’s fault for trying to kill Adela, the woman who had taken her fiancé away.

But honestly, even if I were Bellita, I could never forgive those two.

Nevertheless, Bellita’s greatest mistake had been continuing to love Kane to the very end despite the fact that he had deceived her and broken his promise.

That was why she never touched Kane at all and instead tormented Adela relentlessly.

And because of that, she was ultimately killed by Adela’s younger brother.

Come to think of it, I saved this family, didn’t I?

If I hadn’t possessed Bellita, this family would eventually have been destroyed.

Fortunately, I had prevented that tragedy.

“It’s true that the Maxius family was the one that asked to break off the engagement first, right?”

“Yes, that’s right…”

“I see. Then that’s enough.”

Judging from Father’s eyes as he answered, I had a feeling I knew exactly what he was thinking.

Regardless of how much he loved his daughter, he was the head of one of the largest ducal families in the empire.

He was a nobleman to the very core.

It seemed he was already calculating what he could obtain from the Maxius Ducal Family in exchange for his daughter’s broken engagement.

“Actually, there’s something else I need to tell you…”

Having understood Father’s intentions, I hurriedly brought up what I had gained from the broken engagement.

“What is it?”

“The Duke agreed to give me compensation for breaking off the engagement.”

“Compensation? Of course he should.”

Father looked at me as though I had just said something completely obvious.

Father, it’s not just a few coins.

If I told them that I had obtained a diamond mine, both of them would probably be shocked.

I continued without hesitation.

“I’ve been promised the territory where the Maxius family’s diamond mine is located.”

“What?”

Father’s eyes widened in astonishment at my words.

“If it’s the diamond mine, you mean Grens?!”

Grens was the name of the territory where the diamond mine I had claimed today was located.

“Yes, that’s right.”

Father was so shocked that he could hardly close his open mouth.

“Really? Really?”

Even though the information had come directly from me, he seemed unable to believe it and asked me again.

“Yes, it’s true. It’s only a verbal agreement for now, but the Duke promised that he would definitely give it to me. So all we need to do is prepare the documents and send them to the Maxius family.”

A verbal agreement was still legally considered a contract in its own right.

Yet both of my parents continued looking at me with expressions of disbelief.

“Good heavens. The Duke actually gave up that mine so easily…”

I could understand their reaction.

No matter how much I thought about it, there was nothing ordinary about Kane giving me a diamond mine.

I had asked him for the diamond mine as compensation for breaking off our engagement, but even I hadn’t expected him to hand over the entire mine so easily.

My initial plan had been to make an outrageous demand and then negotiate from there.

That was the basic principle of negotiation, after all.

But he hadn’t given me merely a portion of the mine.

He had willingly handed over the entire territory to me.

His love for Adela must be that deep.

He loved her enough to think that giving away a mere diamond mine was preferable to making Adela suffer because of my existence.

Then the two of them can love each other for a thousand years.

Well, the ending of this novel was a happy one anyway.

Even without me worrying unnecessarily about them, the two of them would surely live happily ever after.

“Grens… Grens. Bellita, you’ve really accomplished something incredible.”

I was brought out of my thoughts by Father’s emotional voice.

At his praise, I proudly lifted my shoulders and lowered them again.

After that, Father and I began discussing in greater detail the compensation we would demand from the Maxius family.

But all the while, I could feel Mother quietly watching me.

Her gaze began to bother me, so I stopped talking to Father and turned my attention toward her.

“Is there something you want to say to me, Mother?”