Imprinted with the Obsessive Male Lead - Chapter 47

What did I just hear? Was it because the room was dark that my senses were off, and I had heard nonsense? I looked at him with flustered eyes. But the man who had just said something outrageous looked completely unfazed.

“You told me not to show my legs. I can handle something like this myself. So…”

“Stay still, even if you don’t like it.”

Chase only said what he had to say and lifted my leg onto the bed. Then he raised my skirt up to below the knee.
When I drew my leg back, he pressed it down slightly, as if telling me not to move.

“I’m not thinking of anything strange, so don’t move.”

“That’s not what I meant…”

It was an instinctive reaction. When the hand that had been holding my ankle let go, I drew my leg back again. This was different from when I had been trying to prove I was fine.

“If you want to see me think about strange things, keep moving.”

After hearing that, I couldn’t move. It would mean I was asking him to do something strange. My body stiffened completely. Letting out a small chuckle, Chase opened the case as if it were his own. Then he began spreading the translucent ointment over the wound.

“I…”

At the short, cut-off words, my gaze, which had been on the wound, turned to his face. With his eyes lowered loosely, Chase was focused on treating it.

“Once something is in my hands, I never let it go.”

The red lamplight flickered over Chase’s black hair.

“Starting tomorrow, you’ll belong to Heinrich. That means you’ve come into my hands.”

“I know. Thank you.”

I smiled brightly. It was what I had wanted. It had taken some time, but I had taken the first step toward escaping that terrible future. But after finishing applying the ointment, Chase closed the case and asked again,

“Did you understand what I said?”

“I did.”

“Doesn’t seem like you did.”

“I understood it properly.”

Chase’s eyes narrowed, as if doubtful.

“It means I can stay in the Grand Duke’s castle now, right?”

I had no intention of going back anyway. My name would be erased from the Grace family, and I would be able to stay in the Grand Duke’s castle. For now, that was enough. Once Michael was dealt with, I would be able to carve out a new life. I looked at him and smiled brightly.

***

At dawn, when the wind and rain had subsided, a smooth smile spread across Chase’s lips as he remained seated on the sofa in Nita’s room.

‘If you keep staring at someone like that, they can’t sleep. I’m more sensitive than I look, you know?’

Thinking that, Nita had widened her big eyes and tried her best, but she had fallen asleep in an instant. No matter how sensitive she was, if she was this exhausted, she had no choice but to fall asleep.

The immense mana, whose scale couldn’t even be measured, had been completely purified. It was something unbelievable. He told her to “try it”, but he had never imagined she would actually purify all of it.

While everyone there had been blankly focused on the sight of the mana disappearing, Chase had been the only one looking at Nita. And at the very moment all the mana vanished, he had ordered everyone to turn around before running toward her.

Whether her robe had come off, her white dress had been soaked by the rain, revealing everything beneath it clearly. Fortunately, he had covered her before the subordinates could see, but for a moment, he had been flustered. The fabric clinging blatantly to her chest. The skirt pushed up above her knees by the wind.

The moment he saw that, the back of his head felt like it was burning.

In the end, it was fortunate that no one but him had seen it.

Chase slowly lowered his gaze to check the time.

Five in the morning. Rising from his seat, he walked toward Nita. Then he pulled up the blanket that had fallen down below her shoulders. Nita let out a faint groan, slightly furrowing her brows, then soon fell back into a soft sleep. From her skin came a scent, a soft powdery fragrance mixed with the cherry scent of her hair.

No matter how he thought about it, it was absurd. At Anthony’s words that she might develop a fever after being caught in the rain, he had only intended to watch for a moment, yet he had ended up staying until this hour.

Chase’s gaze fixated on Nita.

‘Just what am I doing?’
He kept asking himself. Still, there was one thing he had finally come to realize.

His mind had become at ease.

The unpleasant feeling that had surged whenever he thought about sending this woman away had disappeared.

‘Did I make the right choice?’

A different light flickered in his blue eyes as he quietly looked down at Nita. Even after slowly organizing his thoughts, it wasn’t such a bad outcome. With this, he had even gained a weakness of Felix Grace.

No, more than that,

‘I understood it properly.’

What did she understand properly? It didn’t seem like she had. What I said was no different from saying that you would never be able to leave my side for the rest of your life. Does she even realize that?

Chase raised one corner of his lips crookedly, then lightly tapped Nita’s forehead before leaving the room.