Chapter 112

“Why?”

Out of the blue, Knox was the one who interrogated her instead.

“Why did she run away? Were you the one who ordered her to run away?”

Forgetting the fact that he should be acting like a gentleman, he strode close to Alexia before asking her in a fuming voice.

“No.”

“If not, why did she run away?”

Alexia, however, wasn’t someone who would get easily discouraged by him. In fact, she just snorted before leering at Knox.

“I’d also like to know why she ran away too. She even left the money which I’ve already given her.”

“Money……?”

“I gave her a bit as a compensation for being a stand-in.”

“Young Lady Britton—you ought to watch your own mouth better.”

“It’s perfectly fine even if you were to be disappointed in me. After all, we didn’t really get engaged because we wanted to ourselves, right? I heard that it was you who first approached my family with such selfish intentions, sir.”

Alexia reached out before poking his shoulder with her forefinger.

“We would have just been a show-off couple anyway, therefore why are you so angry? Wasn’t that what you had hoped for in the first place, Your Highness? Even if it wasn’t me but another mere substitute, what you’re hoping for would still be exactly the same, Your Highness.”

“That……”

He couldn’t easily answer Alexia’s direct statement.

Surely, he had chosen a family with such similar interests. He was very determined to no longer be someone who would be disdained by others more than he had been. For that reason, he had pushed forward the engagement even without meeting her entirely.

Alexia’s statements weren’t wrong at all. In fact, all nobles had acted like that. Only for the profit of it, they would meet and marry the one whom they had never loved. In the end, wasn’t marriage just another part of business as well?

Everyone had done so and Knox merely imitated what he had seen before. It was just like that.

He didn’t know what he should be doing with this feeling of his. His heart felt so stuffed—like it was blocked off by something.

“…Do you happen to know where she had run off to?”

“Why are you even curious about her whereabouts?”

“Tha-that is……”

Knox instantly felt like he had been stripped naked by Alexia’s gaze. Needless to say, it was right for him to get angry since she had not only insulted him, but she looked down on him as well. Nevertheless, even within that rage, unpleasant feelings still kept on creeping up on him.

Perhaps it was also due to the fact that he couldn’t forget about her, who had disregarded all those rumors as she only looked at him. Since there was no other way to express his feelings properly, he felt like he was going crazy at that moment.

“Shouldn’t you be proving yourself whether you’re lying or not, Young Lady Britton?”

“Is that so? If so, then this will be a bit of regrettable news for you, Your Highness.”

She removed her hand that was still pressing onto Knox’s shoulder.

“I’ve no idea where she is now. She didn’t even tell her own closest friend and concealed it thoroughly, so there’s no way for me to know of it.”

“No way.”

Knox immediately denied Alexia’s statement. Since she had deceived him once, it wouldn’t be hard for her to deceive him again. If it wasn’t the case then, there was no reason for her to leave him and run away like that.

“Aren’t you just hiding her away because you feel guilty?”

“Why should I even hide her from you, Your Highness? When I’ve already told you everything.”

“But didn’t you say earlier that you know how to hold onto your own life? One could never know if someone with an ulterior motive would lie again or not.”

Knox’s continuous denials eventually made Alexia shrug her shoulders.

“Then, you can just keep on thinking like that, sir.”

“Young Lady Alexia Britton.”

“What kind of story would you like to believe in, Your Highness? A story of me, myself, getting jealous of a mere stand-in who gets along well with you until I ultimately sent her off that far away?”

“………”

He couldn’t say anything.

He was furious, but everything was just like she said. He, himself, wasn’t able to understand why he had pressed on her this much.

‘It must be because she had deceived me.’

‘Even if she did deceive you, what are you going to do once you find her? The ideal spouse material whom you’ve always wanted is just right in front of you.’

Knox lifted his dizzy head before looking straight at Alexia. Her face, which he had hoped to see so badly before, seemed less impressive now than he had thought of. What was it that he really wanted to say to her in the first place?