ICPTD 02

Chapter 2

An Old, Bitter Connection

“No! I’m going to see the shameless tramp who sent this damned letter with my own eyes. How dare she…!”

The provocative letter that had caused this entire mess was crumpled tightly in the woman’s hand. The folds were worn and frayed, as if she had opened and reread it dozens of times.

It was a letter Violeta had already read herself.

A brazen declaration from the other woman, claiming she had fallen in love with the recipient’s fiancé and demanding they break off the engagement. As if that wasn’t enough, the mistress had even taunted her to come to Amor Park on the weekend afternoon if she doubted it.

Silence should have been answer enough.

But despite Violeta’s attempts to stop her, the client insisted on responding to the provocation.

Haah…

A worried sigh slipped through Violeta’s lips.

Unlike consultations, her investigative jobs ended once she gathered proof of a lover’s infidelity on the client’s behalf. It was the moment when the expertise she had developed over years of witnessing her former lovers cheat truly shone.

What happened afterward was entirely up to the client.

Some continued their relationships even after confirming the affair.
Some cheated in return.
Some grabbed the mistress by the hair.
Others quietly broke up and plotted vicious revenge.

Everyone dealt with betrayal differently.

As someone who had seen—and experienced—most of those outcomes, Violeta knew the cleanest solution was to end things the moment the cheating was confirmed.

If only this client would do the same.

“My lady…”

Violeta gently wrapped her hand around the letter the mistress had practically handed over as evidence herself. Beneath it, her client’s hand still trembled.

Hope that it wasn’t really cheating.
Fear that the relationship was ending.
Anger toward the partner.
And eventually, the self-blame that made it all feel like one’s own fault.

All those emotions tangled together into anxiety.

Seeing it made Violeta feel as if she were looking at her past self.

Trying to calm the young lady down, she looked around for another topic. Her eyes landed on the stack of newspapers tossed carelessly beside her. She had bought the morning paper from a newsboy before getting into the carriage.

“Have you seen this, Miss Sierra?”

Scanning the front-page headlines, Violeta deliberately raised her voice after spotting a juicy piece of social gossip likely to catch the lady’s attention.

“The scandalous princess of high society causes another uproar—Princess Erika…”

And of all people, why did it have to be her?

At the appearance of someone she absolutely did not welcome, Violeta’s eyes narrowed.

They went way back.

No… perhaps “an old grudge” was the better phrase.

Quickly smoothing over the darkness that had crossed her expression, she turned back to her client.

Miss Sierra, who had been dabbing her tear-stained eyes with a handkerchief, immediately showed interest. Then she saw the bold print in the newspaper and gasped.

“Good heavens, the princess again?! Even though she’s engaged!”

The young lady gently tugged the newspaper from Violeta’s hand so they could read together. The article unfolded limply as she read aloud.

“According to reports, the man involved in this latest scandal is the second son of a viscount’s family, and last night…”

Her head suddenly snapped toward Violeta.

“Oh my! They entered a hotel alone together!”

The newspaper had now completely passed into the lady’s hands. Filled with either curiosity or secondhand outrage, she hurriedly continued reading.

“The imperial family dismissed the rumors, stating that ‘they are merely friends,’ and—”

“….”

Friends.

At that all-too-familiar and unwelcome word, Violeta frowned.

The young lady’s animated voice continued.

“And Duke Otero, the princess’s fiancé, reportedly responded with an indifferent attitude, saying, ‘It’s for the princess to handle herself’! Even I’m getting angry reading this!”

As if it were her own problem, the lady crumpled the paper angrily.

But then, for a few seconds, her gaze lingered on the illustration of the duke printed in the article. After reconsidering something, she pursed her lips and added:

“Well… Duke Otero’s rumors are something else too. They say he was born absurdly handsome…”

Violeta had heard those same rumors countless times from gossip-loving clients.

They said he inherited the bloodline of the previous duke perfectly—that he looked so magnificent it was as though he glowed day and night. Yet he was also a man who almost never appeared in high society. The only things that spread were the awestruck testimonies of the lucky few who had seen him.

And humans always desired mirages they could never quite grasp.

Women dreamed up their own ideal versions of the duke, even collecting illustrations pieced together from various eyewitness accounts.

‘No matter how handsome he is, he’s still a playboy.’

Worse still, high society had a bizarre habit of condemning blatant affairs while quietly ignoring carefully hidden ones. Thanks to that twisted culture, his taste for secret lovers somehow escaped moral criticism.

“Gasp! Then maybe the princess is cheating out of revenge?!”

Eyes wide, Miss Sierra covered her mouth dramatically. For a moment, she even looked as though she could understand the princess a little.

But Violeta’s gaze turned colder than ice.

“No. That’s not it. And even if it were, it still wouldn’t make it right.”

Cheating out of revenge?

Impossible.

Princess Erika’s affairs were purely for amusement. There was never any desperate love or aching vengeance involved.

Just entertainment.

And out of all those countless “amusements,” four of them had been Violeta’s former lovers.

She knew better than anyone.

‘Considering everything I’ve suffered because of her…’

Her heated lavender eyes trembled faintly.

Barely swallowing her anger, she spoke through clenched emotion.

“What if the person you cheat with already has a lover?”
“….”
“In the end, all you’re doing is passing your pain onto someone else.”
“Or…”
“…?”
“People like that simply belong together.”

The atmosphere instantly turned icy.

Miss Sierra laughed awkwardly.

“Oh, come on. Surely no one would knowingly cheat with someone who already has a partner…”

Violeta neither moved nor answered.

The lady darted her eyes around nervously before clearing her throat.

“A-Anyway… the princess and the duke really are a strange pair. They neither break off the engagement nor get married. They’ve been engaged for years already.”

Lowering her voice, she whispered:

“And it’s not even some emotionless political marriage. They say the princess tracks down every single woman connected to the duke and ruins them.”

But her expression quickly darkened.

“Still… I envy her for having that kind of power.”

Knock knock.

At that moment, the coachman knocked to announce they had arrived at the park.

Violeta looked steadily at her client before exhaling softly.

“We’ll get through our own problems our own way. Come on.”

With a small reassuring smile, she stepped gracefully out of the carriage.

But unlike her clear, gentle smile, the sky above was growing dark beneath heavy storm clouds.

“Why are you here…?”

Violeta found herself speechless.

The moment she discovered her client’s lover tangled up with another woman on the lakeside hill, she noticed another pair beyond them.

Faces she knew all too well.

They had apparently just finished boating and were stepping onto the dock, clinging tightly to one another with exaggerated swaying steps.

As they drew closer and finally noticed Violeta, the man’s face turned deathly pale.

“H-Hey, Vivi, I can explain everything. Really.”

The man calling her by her nickname was the second son of the Lopez viscount family—

And Violeta’s lover, Dante Lopez.

Without warning, the ugly memories of her previous relationships flashed through her mind.

Peter, the count’s son, who broke off their engagement and fled overseas right after her family fell into ruin.
Baron Terrence, whose unfamiliar traces of women’s perfume revealed he had been dating two women at once.
The painter Demion Verbray, whose excessive gifts had been apologies for cheating rather than signs of love.
Viscount Finn, who shamelessly asked her to tolerate his affair as her birthday present.

And the most unbelievable part?

All four affairs had involved Princess Erika.

Those men had approached her claiming they loved her for herself, not for her fallen noble status. Every time, she had risked her fears and opened her heart to their seemingly sincere love.

And every time, it ended in betrayal.

There had always been only one excuse.

‘The princess offered to invest in me, so I had no choice but to meet her. We’re just friends. Nothing more.’

That sickening sense of déjà vu crashed over her like a tidal wave.

The atmosphere was painfully familiar.

Like a stiff wooden doll, Violeta slowly turned her head.

And there she was.

The blonde woman she never wanted to become entangled with again.

“Princess Erika…”

The princess smiled at her with a vulgar little grin.

Exactly the same as before.
Just as chilling.
Like the nightmare that had haunted Violeta her entire life.

Trying to suppress the emotions surging inside her, Violeta clenched her fists tightly enough for her fingertips to turn white.

Then suddenly, the newspaper article flashed through her mind.

‘The second son of a viscount’s family. Last night. Alone at a hotel.’

The boiling blood in her veins turned cold.

‘So it was you.’

This was the man who had claimed he needed to leave Bern until the weekend because of business in a provincial estate.

She should have suspected it.

Like an idiot, she had trusted someone again.

“So this… is your provincial estate?”

Violeta looked at the young viscount who was about to become her fifth ex-lover.

Dante anxiously glanced back and forth between her and the princess.

“T-This is all a misunderstanding! Really, today was the first time—”

“Oh my, is it really a misunderstanding? That’s disappointing.”

Princess Erika’s nasal, mocking voice drifted across the rippling sound of the lake.

And she didn’t stop there.

Staring straight at Violeta, Erika slipped a hand inside Dante’s loosened poet shirt in a display so vulgar it bordered on obscene.

And her dress—how indecent it was.

One shoulder had completely slipped down, exposing nearly half her chest. Even the faint smell of alcohol drifted over.

Was she truly a princess?
Or some cheap courtesan?

But Dante, indecisive as ever, already seemed completely captivated by the princess’s cheap whispers. His reddened ears alone gave him away.

There was no reason for Violeta to stay here any longer.

‘Breakups… aren’t scary anymore. Think only about yourself. Only yourself.’

Repeating the words like a spell, Violeta forced down the nausea twisting in her stomach.

Miss Sierra was probably nearby.

She wanted to check on her client first and leave this place as quickly as possible.

So after offering the bare minimum courtesy, she hurriedly turned away.

At that moment—

“So I was right. You’re still running that ridiculous little consulting business?”

Erika’s sneering voice stabbed into her back.

“Whether it suits your pathetic level or not… maybe that’s why your parents died, hm? Violeta?”