Imprinted with the Obsessive Male Lead - Chapter 41

How could people raised in the same household be this different?

Chase stared for a moment at her confident, relaxed smile, then replied stiffly.

“It’s fine. This is our first meeting, and we’re not close enough to be exchanging greetings from that distance, are we?”

“Did you already know who I was?”

“I would think there isn’t a single person at this party who doesn’t know you.”

At that, Vivian let out a small laugh.

“That makes sense. For a similar reason as why I knew you, Grand Duke.”

“So, do you have something to say?”

“How is my younger sister doing?”

Chase’s lips stiffened for a moment before he slowly spoke.

“…Your younger sister.”

“Yes. Nita. I heard she went to the Grand Duke’s castle not long ago.”

Without a word, Chase waited for her to continue. Vivian hesitated, as if unable to understand his silence, then added,

“I heard it’s a cold place, so I’m worried.”

‘Worried.’

At that moment, a faint sneer slipped across Chase’s lips. There was not a single trace of concern anywhere on this woman’s face. Wearing a beautiful dress, smiling brightly with a face full of happiness, and yet claiming she was worried about her sister.

“Do you not know the reason why your sister went to the North?”

“Didn’t the Grand Duke request our Nita?”

Our Nita?
Chase suppressed another laugh that threatened to escape.

“Are you pretending not to know, or do you actually not know?”

“What do you mean?”

Vivian asked back as if she truly knew nothing. However, seeing the tension in her lips, Chase realized it was a lie. The reason she was pretending not to know was obvious.

Image. That damned “upright and spotless” nonsense.

Rumors aside, she was part of the Grace family. There was no way she was any different from that bastard Felix. It wasn’t a baseless assumption. Every circumstance pointed to it.

“Grand Duke?”

Vivian called him, as if displeased by the silence.

“You seem quite worried about your sister.”

“Yes. She’s frail, and the North must be unfamiliar to her. I’m so worried I can hardly sleep.”

“Ah. I see.”

As if acknowledging it, Chase gave a short nod, then stepped forward and passed by her, speaking as he did.

“Then why didn’t you come yourself?”

“…What?”

At the low, provocative remark, Vivian Grace seemed to turn back, but Chase headed for the stairs without hesitation.

A heavy perfume. It’s nauseating.

“Anthony. Check the list of those who were in that room earlier.”

“Yes, understood.”

Sending Anthony off, Chase headed toward the hall on the first-floor lobby. As he stepped down the stairs one by one, the music changed, and new dishes were placed on the long table stretching across the center of the hall. His gaze drifted there without thought.

There were cakes, far more splendid and elaborate than the raspberry cake he had given Nita the night before. He found himself thinking that if Nita saw them, she might let out a cry of delight.

She had been that happy even with just a cake topped with a few raspberries and white cream.

Each time his long legs descended a step, the image of her smiling as she praised how pretty the cake was, and her clear face as she said it was delicious, came to mind. And then Felix’s words from earlier.

Making her crawl between his legs, throwing cake and forcing her to lick it off the floor…

Chase’s brows furrowed as those vivid words surfaced without effort.

That they had sent an incompetent one because they didn’t want to send the mage he had requested, that much had been expected. The problem was that there had been too little falsehood in Nita’s words.

‘Please let me stay here. I… I really want to live!’

That voice kept echoing in Chase’s ears as he sank into thought. By the time he stepped off the last stair, the sensation of the hand with which he had held her the previous night came back vividly.

Thin fingers. A slender waist. A small chin. The scent of cherries lingering from hair that hadn’t fully dried. Pink eyes blinking wide between neatly fallen bangs. Even the faint tremor of her legs beneath his thigh.

Though she had put on some weight, she still seemed so fragile, as if with a bit of real force, something might easily break. He didn’t particularly like thin bodies. And yet, the eyes that met his, the fingers that intertwined with his, the chest pressed against his. He couldn’t bring himself to let them go.