Chapter 18
“I’ll do it myself.”
Taking the silver utensils that still faintly held her warmth, Bjorn waited for her to return to her seat.
However, Leila did not move according to his wishes this time either. She even took another sudden action that made his heart drop to the ground.
“When food gets on the corner of your mouth, you should dab it off gently with a napkin, like this.”
And as if to demonstrate, she reached out and wiped the corner of his mouth herself. Bjorn froze like ice.
“This might sound silly, but… Sir Bjorn, you’re perfect even when you have something on your face.”
Her shyly murmured words did not help him in the slightest.
In the end, Leila sat beside Bjorn and matched his pace until he finished his meal safely.
It seemed the first plan had completely and utterly failed.
* * *
The stage for the second plan Allen devised was a dim, secluded alley slightly removed from the bustling streets near the restaurant.
After the meal, Bjorn planned to escort Leila and lure her straight there.
Even as they left the restaurant, he did not forget to continue his attempts to lower her affection towards him.
“I’m sorry, but could you cover the tab, Miss Leila?”
This too was part of Allen’s coaching. Of course, enduring the urge to crawl into a mouse hole the moment he said it was Bjorn’s burden to bear.
A man asking a woman to pay during a date. Could there be anything more pathetic than that? It was something he had never even imagined doing until Allen suggested it.
“This place is far too expensive compared to my salary. As you know, a knight’s pay isn’t very high.”
When he added that as if to drive the point home, even the server holding the bill made a visibly disgusted face. He expected Leila would react the same way.
In truth, the Temple Knight Corps’s pay was fairly generous. With ample bonuses from the holy war and almost no expenses until now, Bjorn’s assets were quite substantial for his age. Of course, they could not compare to those of a noblewoman like Leila, but…
Bjorn, who had unconsciously begun checking his own finances as if making excuses, snapped back to his senses. He hoped Leila would stiffen and turn her back, saying she could not tolerate this any longer.
“Sir Bjorn, what exactly are you saying right now?”
When the incredulous voice he had expected rang out, he felt the same mixture of relief, ‘finally,’ and disappointment, ‘so it comes to this’, as before. It was hard to say which weighed more.
In any case, if Leila gave up here, the second plan could be scrapped. Just as Bjorn was about to send a message through divine power to call off the plan, her next words made him stop short.
“When you meet with me in the future, I hope you won’t worry about money. I can pay as much as needed. Ah, of course, that’s only if you intend to continue meeting with me.”
That last line struck him where he least expected it, attacking even his conscience.
Perhaps because she kept defying his expectations, irritation began to well up inside him.
He did not know why, but the uncomfortable feeling scraped sharply at his insides, and Bjorn forgot to control his expression, deeply furrowing his brow.
Why was this woman volunteering to make herself a fool like this? Did it make any sense that she could calmly finish a meal with a man like him and even be fine with paying for it herself?
She had already been like that from the start, chasing after him without a clue, liking him without any substance, but Leila Bailey clearly had her standards for men buried in the dirt.
Pointlessly furious, Bjorn grabbed the woman’s wrist rather roughly after she finished signing the bill and led her outside.
Being naïve and innocent had its limits. This time, she needed to be burned properly. She needed to learn how futile it was to harbor fantasies about men, and just how petty and miserable creatures those with a pathetic appendage really were.
‘After that, she won’t go around swallowing anything that comes her way.’
Everything was for Bjorn’s own sake, but perhaps it could also be an opportunity to teach Leila a lesson.
Thinking stubbornly along those lines, Bjorn strode toward the secluded alley where Allen and Todd were hiding. When he sent the signal that he was heading that way, a response acknowledging it came back immediately.
It was time to repay Leila for her etiquette lesson.
Discussion
0 CommentsReactions
No comments yet.