I Only Want Your Child - Chapter 41

* * *

“Good day, Madam.”

I glanced at Layla as she greeted me in a businesslike manner, then lowered my gaze back to the documents in my hands.

“I came to collect next month’s estate management budget proposal.”

I had been reviewing the banquet preparation list, and at Layla’s words, I immediately handed her the neatly organized documents beside me.

Layla accepted them without another word.

If that room really was Layla’s, then it was true that I had entered an occupied room without permission. What exactly the room was used for wasn’t particularly important to me.

Still, I needed to know for certain what that room was.

“The room at the very end of the third floor.”

Layla looked puzzled at my words.

I met her gaze and continued curtly.

“Is that the room you use, Miss Layla?”

Only then did Layla seem to realize which room I meant, and her expression stiffened subtly.

“Why do you ask?”

“I entered it while looking around to check the empty rooms. I didn’t know it belonged to someone.”

Layla seemed to think for a moment before giving me a strange smile.

“I see. I’m fine with it, Madam. It’s a room Lord Kallion treasures more than I do.”

She neither confirmed nor denied my question about whether the room belonged to her, but if I had to choose, her answer sounded closer to a confirmation. She had even added that Kallion treasured the space they shared.

Of course.

Compared to a newlywed bedroom shared with a wife he didn’t care about, the room of the mistress who was always by his side would naturally be far more precious.

I forced myself to ignore Layla’s meaningful smile and focused on the documents.

The banquet was next week, so there was a great deal to take care of.

* * *

As Kallion returned to the estate after attending to business outside, his gaze fell on Juliana sitting on the garden terrace.

She was wearing a long-sleeved dress, but the glimpse of her exposed wrist revealed a dark blue bruise.

Kallion’s brow furrowed slightly at the sight.

No matter how much she was the daughter of an enemy house and a woman with nothing about her that he liked, the fact that he had used force against a woman still left him uneasy.

That didn’t mean he regretted dragging her out of the room.

Right, this was all that woman’s fault.

Why did she have to do things no one had asked her to do?

The moment he saw the door to his mother’s room open, a room even he rarely entered, his mind had gone completely blank.

He hated anyone entering that room so much that even the maids were allowed inside only at regular intervals for cleaning.

The mere fact that someone from House Heister, the enemy responsible for his mother’s death, had entered that room had stirred both his anger and his trauma.

Just then, his deeply furrowed gaze met hers.

Upon seeing him, she gave him the same look of disgust he was giving her, then indifferently turned her head away as though she had seen something unpleasant.

At once, the guilt he’d felt over the bruise on her wrist vanished.

‘It seems she still doesn’t realize what she did wrong.’

Kallion entered his office irritably and dropped into his chair, glaring out the window in the direction where Juliana was.

Just then, the head butler entered after a knock.

“The head of the house has sent a letter.”

His father had sent a letter?

Kallion frowned, then indifferently accepted it.

“How are the banquet preparations?”

As he asked while breaking the seal on the letter, the head butler answered with a bright expression.

“They’re proceeding very smoothly thanks to the Madam.”

Kallion’s gaze shifted toward the head butler, looking somewhat surprised.

‘I thought she would’ve left everything to the head butler and Layla, but apparently not.’

Growing indifferent again, he began reading the letter, and the head butler continued talking without even being asked.

“The estate has been looking much better lately. The worn-down areas have been renovated to look like new, and thanks to her attention to the servants’ work clothes, everyone has been much more motivated these days.”

Kallion looked at the head butler again with puzzlement.

Juliana had done all that, not Layla?

He had been disappointed in Layla over what happened at the orphanage, but he still acknowledged how meticulous she normally was at handling work, so he had naturally assumed she’d done it.

“These days, the Madam has even been personally inspecting the unused rooms and ordering renovations for the guest rooms and dining rooms. I hear she’s so meticulous that even the renovation workers are impressed.”

So that was why she’d been checking the empty rooms?

Thinking that he might have assigned her the work only to lose his temper without even listening to her explanation, just as she’d said, he felt a little guilty.

“Didn’t you tell Juliana about my mother’s room?”