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Chapter 04
Thanks to Winter, who looked straight at Rowell and began questioning every detail of the contract one by one, Rowell could not hide his nervousness.
It was the first time he had ever seen Winter with such a calm yet arrogant look in his eyes.
Normally, the negotiation would have ended with Winter flipping the table, but since it was continuing longer than expected, Rowell began looking for a way to provoke him.
“I hear Lacround is famous for its cigars.”
Hayel made a small gasp and quickly covered his mouth with his hand.
As Rowell said, Lacround was famous for its cigars, but only nobles enjoyed them.
At first, Winter had thought about learning to smoke cigars so he could join conversations with nobles. But he soon became fed up with the dozens of old-fashioned rules and etiquette involved, so he gave up learning.
After that, he never paid any attention to cigars.
Rowell said,
“I’d like you to introduce me to some. What do you say?”
“Certainly.”
Why would you agree to that, sir?!
Hayel desperately swallowed the words that almost came out.
If Rowell started making sarcastic comments about cigars, Winter would get angry, and the business deal would eventually turn in Rowell’s favor.
This was a contract for an enormous amount of coffee beans that would be supplied to all the hotels in the company.
Every single change in the numbers could mean a huge difference in profit.
Meanwhile, Winter wrote several things on a note, held it between his index and middle fingers, and handed it to Hayel.
Hayel had no idea what it meant, and even the handwriting was unfamiliar, so he read the note far more carefully than necessary.
When Hayel didn’t move, Winter asked,
“Do I have to go buy them myself?”
“N-No! I’ll be right back!”
Realizing from the context that the note contained the names of cigars, Hayel hurried out.
He went to a nearby specialty shop, bought the cigars and tools written on Winter’s note, and returned.
Winter took a Belicoso cigar from the box and lightly pressed it with his fingers.
W-Wait, aren’t you not supposed to press it like that? It’s expensive!
While Hayel nervously watched, having no knowledge about cigars himself, Winter checked that the cigar had no damaged spots and handed it to Rowell first.
“These are cigars that used to be supplied to the royal family. I hope you like them.”
Rowell accepted the cigar without knowing what to say.
Winter took out one for himself, cut off the head, and lit it.
Even Rowell, who had been looking down on Winter because of his own sense of superiority, could find nothing wrong with Winter’s textbook-like manners.
He looked like someone who had been taught every movement properly from birth.
In the end, determined to achieve his goal, Rowell made another unreasonable demand by holding out his cigar.
“I’d like someone of lower status to light it for me.”
The moment Hayel heard that, he quickly stepped away from the table.
This time, he was certain that Winter was going to flip the table.
But Winter only tilted his head in confusion, as if he didn’t understand.
That was because the person inside Winter’s body was Violet Lawrence.
Even though the royal family had disappeared and she had been treated with contempt for the past three years, the word “princess” still caused her stress.
But she had never heard someone refer to another person as being of “lower status” like this.
After thinking for a moment, Violet answered,
“I suppose I am definitely younger than you.”
“No, I’m not talking about age…”
“By the way, I didn’t realize you were so unfamiliar with cigars that you even had trouble lighting one. I should have explained it to you in more detail.”
She wasn’t making fun of him.
Violet had genuinely understood “someone of lower status” as a comment about age rather than social rank.
She felt sorry because she thought Rowell was unfamiliar with cigars and was asking her to light one for him because of his age.
However, Rowell took her words as mockery, and his face instantly turned bright red.
Violet misunderstood the reason his face had become red, but decided to pretend she hadn’t noticed and continued speaking.
“If we have to introduce you to several kinds while continuing the meeting, this is going to take quite a while.”
Hayel finally managed to smile again.
With a huge grin, he showed Rowell the various kinds of cigars he had been told to buy, one after another.
“That’s right. There are quite a lot.”
This time, Rowell’s face turned pale.
He instinctively felt that if he smoked all of those, one of the two of them would die from nicotine poisoning.
And he would be the one to lose.
***
After being kept almost under house arrest for forty-seven hours, Rowell finally gave up.
He shouted that they could do whatever they wanted and returned to his bedroom.
Violet also left the meeting room.
Cigars and the bottles of alcohol they had been drinking throughout the meeting were scattered across the table.
Violet felt extremely sorry for having used Winter’s body so much.
But she thought that a man who loved money so much that he couldn’t even spare one day for his wife would probably be happier knowing that the contract had been completed properly.
Violet handed the contract, stamped with Rowell’s seal, to Hayel.
It contained exactly what Kanix Company wanted.
Hayel asked, looking completely unable to understand what had happened,
“What on earth happened to you?”
“Sorry, but I don’t know what you mean.”
After exhausting her body for more than forty-seven hours, Violet was already half asleep.
She went straight to the bedroom.
Hayel followed her inside, but she was now too tired to care.
When he closed the curtains and the room became somewhat darker, Violet fell asleep with a deep sense of accomplishment.
If being crazy is like this, maybe it wouldn’t be so bad to live like this.
***
For the first time in his life, Winter Blooming thought it was difficult to wake up in the morning.
That was when he realized that this was not his body.
“Damn it, what the hell…”
He barely managed to sit up.
From the bedroom he was in and the voice coming from his throat, he immediately realized that he was inside his wife’s body.
He clicked his tongue once and quickly adapted to the situation.
Winter had once entered a damn dwarf village and been forced to work as a giant slave for an entire month.
He had also been kidnapped by a crazy female mage and used as an experimental subject.
Compared to those experiences, this wasn’t even particularly strange.
Especially when he had more than enough people he wanted to kill.
Perhaps the servant bell was broken, because no matter how many times he pulled it, no maid came.
Impatient as always, Winter got out of bed.
His foot touched an empty champagne bottle and a bottle of medicine.
So much for the elegant princess.
It seemed that the way she lived wasn’t any different from his own.
He opened the door and went outside to find someone.
But his body was trembling badly.
“Damn it. What kind of useless body is this?”
Winter cursed as he left the room, but he staggered and collapsed onto the floor.
His headache was so severe that even taking one step was difficult.
Still, his obsession with coffee was enough to make him crawl his way down the stairs.
Whatever had happened, he had been in the middle of a contract negotiation and somehow ended up here.
No matter what condition his body was in, he had to return to his hotel immediately and finish the contract with that stingy bastard from the Baidellin Mountains.
And if he had really switched bodies with his wife, he had no idea what the princess, who had probably never seen anything dirty in her life, might have done.
As he struggled to make his way down the stairs, Rickman came up from below.
Rickman had been the Blooming family’s doctor since before Winter had entered the household.
In the beginning, Rickman had looked down on Winter because he was an illegitimate son.
So Winter had never treated him like a proper person either.
But right now, he couldn’t have been happier to see someone who was actually qualified to be a doctor.
“Rickman! Good timing. Examine me.”
“Pardon? Yes…”
Rickman was confused by Violet’s unusually warm welcome, but followed her into the bedroom.
Winter collapsed onto the bed and leaned against the pillow.
His tone was commanding.
“My headache is terrible. Find out what’s wrong with me. Quickly.”
“As I told you yesterday, there is nothing seriously wrong with you.”
“What do you mean, nothing is wrong? My body feels like garbage.”
“G-Garbage? That’s a bit harsh.”
Even while speaking, Rickman began examining Violet’s condition.
After Violet had disappeared from the party the previous night without saying goodbye, both the Duke and Duchess of Blooming, as well as their legitimate son Diev, had been furious and were determined not to let her get away with such disrespect.
Rickman assumed she wanted him to confirm that she was truly sick today.
He only half-heartedly pretended to examine her while complaining.
“How long are you going to keep pretending to be sick? Even if you are a princess, behaving this unreasonably is…”
“Little Madam!”
Rickman suddenly stopped talking.
Winter had grabbed him by the collar and threatened him.
“I told you I’m not feeling well. Who gave a quack like you a medical license and made me listen to this nonsense first thing in the morning?”
“Made me?”
Winter ended the sentence that way because he guessed Violet would probably have spoken like that.
Normally, he would have slammed Rickman onto the floor.
But he couldn’t do that with this body.
Suppressing his anger at being unable to overpower even such a weak-looking man, Winter said,
“You know your salary comes from the money I earn, right?”
“N-No, Little Madam. It comes from the Little Master!”
“Whatever. We’re husband and wife, so whether one of us earns it or gives it, it’s basically the same.”
“Well…”
“So if you don’t want to lose your job, from now on, tell me only what I want to hear. Understand?”
Rickman, who had been grunting while a woman held him by the collar, finally escaped her grip and straightened his wrinkled shirt collar.
Meanwhile, Winter motioned for him to follow and left Violet’s bedroom.
He walked toward his own bedroom.
When they entered, Flip, Winter’s favorite servant, was sweeping the floor.
He politely bowed and asked,
“What can I do for you, Little Madam?”
“You. I need you to go to the capital right now…”
Winter suddenly staggered again from another terrible headache.
Flip was startled and reached out to support her arm, but then awkwardly pulled his hand back.
Winter grabbed the bed to steady himself.
“Bring me some coffee. Very hot.”
“Yes, Little Madam…”
“And give me a massage.”
“Y-Yes? What?”
Flip’s eyes widened, but since it was an order, he left the bedroom to get the coffee first.
Meanwhile, Winter opened the safe.
Rickman, who had been standing some distance away, flinched.
He was Catherine Blooming’s eyes and ears in the mansion where Violet and Winter lived.
All he had seen was the couple’s relationship getting worse and worse.
So seeing Violet open the safe was shocking.
To Winter, money was like his life.
He was the kind of man who might even kill someone for money and feel proud of himself afterward.
For a man like that to give his wife the combination to his safe was almost the same as entrusting her with his life.
The fact that Violet’s attitude had suddenly changed and that she knew the safe’s combination was definitely something Rickman needed to consider.
But Winter didn’t care.
He casually crumpled a bundle of banknotes and shoved it into Rickman’s pocket before lying down on the bed.
Then he looked at the stunned Rickman and asked, as if testing whether he remembered the lesson he had just taught him,
“All right, Rickman. What did I tell you earlier?”
“To give the answer that Little Madam wants to hear!”
“I’m going to the capital as quickly as possible, so do whatever it takes to make that happen. If I pass out on the way, I’ll…”
He corrected himself.
“No, my husband will cut your head off.”
He was planning to fire him anyway once he got his own body back, but for now, he needed Rickman’s help.
Even getting this angry had made his head spin.
Fortunately, Flip returned with coffee and sugar.
Winter poured sugar into the coffee without stopping and drank it all at once.
After that, Rickman finished examining him and left to prepare some medicine.
A little while later, Flip returned carrying a bowl of lukewarm water.
Winter sat on the edge of the bed and pointed toward his feet.
Flip hesitated for a moment before kneeling down at his feet.
He gently held the Little Madam’s small, white feet with both hands, placed them in the water, and slowly began massaging them.
Flip was barely applying any pressure.
Winter became irritated.
“Did you suddenly become an eighty-year-old man?”
“Pardon? Ah… I-If I press harder, it might hurt you.”
“What the hell are you…”
Winter was about to kick the bowl away when his eyes slowly moved toward Flip’s hands.
The scene was extremely strange.
Flip’s face was bright red, and he couldn’t even raise his head.
He was afraid that applying too much pressure might hurt her, so he could barely even hold her foot properly.
Of course, Winter was the one inside the body right now.
But Flip didn’t know that.
Winter spoke in a cold voice.
“…Get out. Don’t ever come near me again.”
“Th-Thank you!”
Flip answered in a voice louder than Winter had ever heard from him before.
He immediately grabbed the bowl and ran out of the bedroom.
Winter clicked his tongue and irritably ran his fingers through his hair.
Then he suddenly stopped.
He turned toward the mirror and noticed that Violet’s hair had been cut to shoulder length.
Winter stared at the mirror for a long time before murmuring,
“…You cut it late.”
He remembered a conversation he had with Violet the previous winter.
