Please Lend Me 50 Million - Chapter 29

The grip tightening over her flesh made her strength fail for an instant, nearly causing her to spill everything inside. Asha rebuked him in a small voice, but Harriet merely offered a feigning smile. Since he knew the eyes of the public were following him, his gaze remained fixed straight ahead.

He gave a sly smile and swept his hand down Asha’s waist, as if to show that his hand was right here. It was impossible to tell when her husband had become this cunning. Everything was going smoothly, except for the round things filling her inside and his lewd touch.

Noblewomen who didn’t have their own box seats would fight fiercely to book a ticket, but Count Bellstein was the owner of a box in this theater. With his wealth, he could have bought every box seat in the building, but he hadn’t gone that far as he felt no need for it. However, exceptionally, he held three boxes. Not two, but three.

Asha had never looked closely into his assets, so she didn’t find this fact strange. No, did she even know he had three boxes to begin with? Two were boxes Asha had used before. Both were open seats where one could view the opera from the front and also see the audience sitting in other seats. Harriet and Asha, who didn’t care much for the gaze of others, enjoyed dates or invited outside guests to converse in those boxes.

Asha moved her feet, naturally assuming he would lead her to the first box they usually went to. However, Harriet began to lead Asha in a different direction.

“Hmm? Harriet, did you book a different seat?”

“I have prepared a seat that you will like even more, my lady.”

Asha stopped in her tracks like a cow being led to a slaughterhouse, but she had no choice but to move her feet reluctantly at Harriet’s beaming smile. A desire to scream and tell him to just drag her like a dog surged up, but she couldn’t ignore the gazes around her. Moreover, Harriet, who was looking down at her while subtly stroking her side, made her feel a wordless pressure. It made it seem as if she was the one being strangely stubborn!

Eventually, the two arrived at his third box. It was a plain-looking box seat, nothing special. While she wondered why he had come to this box of all places, Asha felt inwardly relieved because it didn’t seem particularly unique.

At Asha, who let out a sigh of relief without hiding it, Harriet let out a low laugh.

“You seem to have been very tense.”

“Because since the contract, you’ve been plotting many things.”

“Why do you think it’s only been since the contract?”

Asha, who was sitting down in the chair, whipped around to look at Harriet. He, who had sat down languidly before she knew it, was looking at Asha with eyes full of mischief. His relaxed appearance was like a black panther basking in the afternoon sun. He was clearly pulling the corners of his mouth up into a smile, but she couldn’t shake off a chilling sensation. Asha, who was about to rebuke him playfully, read his aura and shut her mouth.

Is he hiding something? Just as she parted her lips to speak, he quickly cut off the end of her sentence.

“Harriet….”

“It’s a joke.”

“A joke?”

When she opened her mouth with an absurd expression, Harriet personally closed it for her.

“Because you’re acting so much like a rabbit, I wanted to tease you.”

“You startled me. I thought you were plotting something else….”

“You know that whatever I plot, it’s not something that would harm you.”

“I know that, but—”

“I haven’t plotted anything that would harm you.”

The actors began to take the stage as if to announce the start of the opera. Because the audience area had grown dark, it was difficult to see what kind of emotions were dwelling in his green eyes. While she turned her gaze toward the actors on stage, a low voice brushed past Asha’s ear.

Clap, clap, clap—

“As for the ‘harming’ part, that is.”

“Pardon?”

Due to the simultaneous sound of applause, she failed to hear his words properly. She looked at Harriet with an inquiring gaze, but he merely shrugged his shoulders. Pointing forward as if telling her to focus, Asha buried her body into the sofa and cast her gaze toward the stage.

Despite it being her first time sitting here, the view was good.

On the stage where Asha’s gaze landed, Lopheus—the protagonist of the opera <Lopheus’s Triumph>—and the Saintess, a child of God, appeared. It was a classic opera—pious, virtuous, and patriotic—perfectly suited to commemorating the birth of the Saintess. Since it was such a grand event, several believers had exceptionally been given seats in the theater.

Even though only the people filling the seats had changed, a holy and solemn atmosphere settled over everything, so Asha couldn’t shake a sense of strangeness. While looking around the structure of the box, Asha suddenly discovered a structure installed on the outside of the box. The structure was a large mermaid statue, and its position was clever, making it difficult to look inside from the outside.

Wait a minute, it makes it difficult to look inside from the outside?

The moment Asha gained a bolt-like realization, Harriet’s touch reached her shoulder. How is it that an ominous premonition is never wrong?

“My lady, then it is now time for the homework check.”

A chill brushed her nape.