Chapter 62
Naturally, she assumed the question would be about her own body, but when she heard an unexpected name, Chloe scrunched up her eyes.
“What do you mean by that all of a sudden? Asking if we’re really friends?”
“To my eyes, you didn’t look like friends. Rather than friends…… hmm, what should I say? Should I say it looked like someone you aren’t particularly fond of, but have no choice but to protect?”
It was an observation so accurate that a fortune teller would weep over losing their livelihood; Chloe flinched in surprise and cast her gaze downward for a long moment. She pondered deeply over what Mars might have seen to harbor such suspicions, but nothing came to mind.
“What is it? Judging by your reaction, my guess must have been right?”
“R-right about what! You’re completely wrong!”
“It lacks credibility when you get all worked up like that while denying it.”
As her brother teased her, asking if she didn’t even know that much, Chloe threw a cushion with all her might. Of course, as always, Mars dodged it with annoying ease.
“Anyway, so you’re not friends with that woman, right? Then why are you helping her? Did she catch you on some weakness?”
“What weakness. It’s nothing like that.”
“Then what is it?”
Since it seemed he wouldn’t listen even if she kept saying no, Chloe answered with a sense of resignation.
“We just…… made a bit of a deal.”
She couldn’t tell the truth, so she expressed it in a roundabout way. Even though it was a unilateral deal she never agreed to, no other word came to mind that was more appropriate to describe the relationship between herself and Bianca.
“What on earth are you getting in return that you’re helping that woman so diligently even while you’re sick?”
“There is something. Confidentiality is the basis of a deal, so don’t try to know too deeply. Knowing won’t do you any good.”
“Is that why you’re keeping it a secret from Young Duke MacMilden, too?”
“Why is Ian’s name coming up here?”
When Chloe asked, dumbfounded, Mars shrugged his shoulders.
“Just because. Earlier, when the Young Duke was asking this and that, I could see you struggling desperately to avoid answering, so I asked.”
She didn’t know if she had struggled desperately, but it was true that she had acted more forcefully than usual because she didn’t want Ian to discover her secret. The reason she had to hide it was, naturally, the same as with her family.
If Mars felt that way, then it must have been severe. Her conscience pricked her, feeling that she had pushed Ian too hard when he hadn’t done anything particularly wrong.
“……Do you think he was hurt a lot?”
Hearing Chloe mutter to herself, Mars chuckled.
“You headbutted him hard enough to turn his forehead red, and now you’re worried?”
“That was unavoidable! And I hurt a friend, so of course I’m worried!”
“Is it simply just that?”
At the returning question, Chloe narrowed her eyes and glared at her brother.
“What are you trying to say? You aren’t suspecting anything between Ian and me too, are you?”
“No. It’s not that.”
He, too, had no objections to the fact that Chloe Elena and Ian MacMilden were friends.
The only slight problem was that the Young Duke MacMilden’s gaze as he watched her turn away after saying goodbye was so wistful that one couldn’t help but root for him without realizing it.
* * *
“Bianca Lloyd was carried out on Ian MacMilden’s back?”
Ian was a guy with no blood or tears, who wouldn’t even give a glance if someone was stabbed and collapsed right in front of him.
Yet, hearing his secretary say such a thing, the Crown Prince asked back, slightly surprised. The secretary nodded and repeated the report he had already given.
“Young Duke Ian MacMilden carried the unconscious Bianca Lloyd on his back and left the tea room. He headed straight for Viscount Lloyd’s mansion, but met Young Lady Chloe Elena on the way and handed Bianca Lloyd over to her.”
“Bianca Lloyd was unconscious, but Chloe Elena’s consciousness just happened to return at that moment…….”
Rubbing his chin in deep thought, the Crown Prince’s lips tilted crookedly.
There is something there. Antonio, muttering soundlessly, told the secretary he could leave now.
After the secretary left, the space was filled by a man holding a cane embedded with a ruby larger than a man’s fist. The Crown Prince tilted his head back to look at the man standing behind the sofa.
“What do you think?”
“Since Your Highness the Crown Prince’s thoughts are my thoughts, is there a need to ask for my opinion?”
Antonio, pleased by the answer that was both arrogant and loyal, chuckled. Unlike his eyes, which were full of mirth, the gaze looking at the chandelier adorned with hundreds of crystals was cold.
“It seems I will have to meet Lady Chloe Elena in person.”
* * *
It was around 11 o’clock that night when Chloe became Bianca Lloyd again. Considering that the time she returned to her original body was roughly 4 o’clock, she had held out for a whopping seven hours.
The longest she had lasted until now was just over four hours, so seven hours was astonishing. Curious about what wish had been granted, she looked for Bianca’s diary, which she hadn’t opened in a long time.
[Holding hands with the Prince.]
“This must be it.”
She had shaken hands with Ian in the tea room as a gesture of asking for a favor, and it seemed that counted as a wish.
If that were the case, she thought she had held hands with Ian a few times before, so why hadn’t it worked then?
Chloe was puzzled but didn’t dwell on it for long. Everything related to Bianca Lloyd was already a question mark, anyway. Adding one more wouldn’t make much of a difference.
However, she wanted to know why holding hands had made her last for a whole seven hours, so Chloe looked down at the separate bucket list she had organized and pondered deeply.
“Is the effect better because it’s a wish related to love?”
It was plausible, as there were commonly recurring tales where princesses and princes defeated evil witches who used dark magic with the power of love.
Wait a moment. Does that mean I have to grant all the wishes related to love to return completely to my original body?
“Hiiik.”
Chloe, who inadvertently read the wishes classified under ‘Love’, gasped and turned her head away in horror. Words like kiss and s*x, which she had briefly skimmed over, were now floating in the pitch-black world, embedded in her vision.
Conceding a hundred, no, a thousand times, she thought she might be able to manage kissing Ian, but s*x was absolutely out of the question.
“I can’t do it. I absolutely cannot!”
It was an impossibility even if the sky were to split in two, so Chloe shook her head violently and shouted. Her disheveled hair flew wildly.
But what if, really what if, there is no other way to break the dark magic……. What do I do?
Do I have to live as Bianca Lloyd for the rest of my life?
Right now, granting a wish lets me return to my original body for a little while, but eventually, even that will become impossible…….
The anxiety creeping up created courage she didn’t have before. Chloe took a deep breath into her diaphragm, tightened her jaw, and opened Bianca’s diary.
Most of the entries where wishes related to Ian MacMilden were written contained Bianca’s delusions. It seemed she had written them down, letting her imagination run wild about how she wished the wish would come true.
That meant granting the wish exactly as Bianca had written in her fantasies would be the most accurate way.
It would be troublesome if the wish didn’t come true because she tried a different method, so it was right to follow the entries as closely as possible.
“I wish you wouldn’t use your imagination so uselessly in places like this…….”
A deep sigh was pulled up from her core. She found the page containing the wish [Having s*x with Ian], but Chloe hesitated, unable to bring herself to read it.
Other diary entries were at most two pages long, but this one was four pages. Without any explanation of how they got to the bed or took off their clothes, it started with them completely naked, making it even more embarrassing to read.
And what? Take Ian’s p***s in her mouth and lick it?
“Ugh, I can’t read anymore.”
Chloe, who had been reading one sentence and closing her eyes, then reading another sentence and closing her eyes, finally waved the white flag. The intensity was too high right from the start. It seemed right to start with low-intensity actions and gradually move up.
“Would a kiss…… be okay?”
She had already held hands. Hugging could be done any number of times. Still, just in case, she checked, but Bianca’s fantasy wasn’t written on that page.
There was definitely a fantasy written on the kissing page, though. Chloe immediately opened that page.
Perhaps because she had just seen something so intense that she couldn’t look at it with her eyes open? The action of merely pressing their lips together and rubbing their tongues felt like child’s play in comparison.
Of course, the thought of actually kissing Ian made her face flush with heat. It was even more embarrassing because she had vividly experienced what it felt like in a dream.
“Do I really have to do this?”
Chloe, who was covering her face with both hands and seriously contemplating, accidentally dropped the diary.
“Oops.”
Just before stepping on the diary, Chloe realized it, bent down to pick it up, and then paused.
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