“Well, then the contract with the merchant group is done by the Duke… Are you doing that?”
“Hmm, no. I have nothing to do with this.”
“But with a woman named Dana… No, how does the Duke know her?”
Herman hurriedly made a slip of the tongue, and fortunately, the Duke did not take issue with it. However, he did not answer his words.
The Duke was the highest aristocrat in the country, and if it weren’t for Dana, he would never have been so close to them.
“Miss Dana, soon my son will come out.”
“Leon… You mean Grand Duke Tertius?”
“Yes, that’s right, he’s my son, but he’s a little blunt and maybe a little rude. Please consider that.”
“What are you talking about? The mere presence of His Grace in person is beyond the control of lowly men like us!”
Stein reacted excessively to the Duke’s words and made a fuss. As expected, Owen looked at Dana without even glancing at them.
The more I look at her, the more similar she is to Elisa of that time. She looks exactly alike.
Admiring inside, Owen tried hard to suppress his longing for those days. Owen was almost sure that Leon would eventually come here.
Leon was particularly weak against his mother, Sophia, and Owen knew that his disregard for Sophia played a part.
Meanwhile, Dana’s complicated mind was blank when she heard that Leon was really coming.
She really couldn’t think of anything.
He, he, will come. Leon…
Dana held her hands tightly to hide her trembling. She did not yet know whether this tremor was excitement or fear.
“Then, I’ll get going now.”
Owen wanted to bring Dana into the castle right away, but she came as a representative of the Deniz Merchants anyway and now he had to treat her like that.
“Goodbye, Duke Tertius.”
“We’ll see each other again, Miss Dana.”
As soon as Owen left, Herman grabbed Dana’s arm tightly and turned it around in a hurry, hurting her a bit in the process.
“You… That Duke and…”
He lowered his voice and tried to say something, then a door connected to the drawing-room slowly opened. Herman looked at the door. Slowly, he let go of Dana’s arm, and Dana hardened when she saw the person coming out of there.
“Leon.”
Her heart thumped and beat crazily fast. It was the reason why she came here, and she only caught his eyes enough to forget the people she came with.
“I mean, that person…”
The servants, who appeared in a hurry somewhere, hurriedly bowed their heads.
“Your Grace.”
Even after hearing the sound, Herman and Stein couldn’t even say hello, unlike Owen earlier. It was not because of the pressure of the country’s only Grand Duke position.
The expression of the Grand Duke was cold enough to freeze the surroundings, so they couldn’t open their mouths for fear of making any mistakes.
While Dana stared at him blankly, Leon approached them. Dana didn’t know what to say, so her lips were just chapped. She couldn’t talk, just like when she first saw him.
Among them, Herman came to his senses the fastest. But for him, it was bad news.
He touched her side with his elbow, and Leon noticed it, perhaps because Dana, who was standing still, was frustrated. Leon had also seen Herman holding Dana’s arm a moment before.
He spoke to the surrounding servants in a voice that showed no emotion.
“Cut the insect’s arm.”
“Yes, yes?”
While Herman was panicking and looking around, strong servants dragged him from both sides.
“Argh! Your Grace! What’s wrong with you? Your Grace!”
Without a word, he was dragged out and handed over to the soldiers.
Dana also shrank a little surprised, noticing Leon’s wit.
“Did you touch her too?”
“What? What? No. Not a single hair was touched.”
He didn’t know why the Grand Duke was like that, but Stein quickly lay flat on the spot and insisted on his innocence. But in Leon’s eyes, he was just the same piece of garbage. Leon already knew that he was not normal, but it didn’t matter.
Leon wanted to kill him just because he came with Dana. But there was something to find out about that bug.
“Lock him up.”
As expected, as soon as the words fell, Stein was dragged out.
The servants felt that the master’s mood was unusual and went out of the drawing-room. Only Leon and Dana remained in the drawing-room and stared at each other.
“Dana Deniz? Hah.”
“…Leon, that’s…”
“You know my father.”
“It’s… I’ve seen him once, so ah.”
While he was talking, Leon came in front of her. Suddenly, his body temperature and scent encompassed her, making her dizzy.
“Was it planned from the beginning? With my father?”
Unlike his hard voice, his fingertips carefully stroked Dana’s hair. As if to confirm her presence.
Dana shook her head excitedly at his question. However, Leon did not easily believe it. She was frustrated because she didn’t know why knowing and not knowing his father was essential to Leon.
“Sarah. No, it’s Dana.”
“No, Leon. I’m not Dana. Somehow…”
“No, you’re Dana Deniz. That’s how it should be.”
Leon had no reason to hesitate if she was Dana Deniz. Rather, it was a good thing.
The anger that he was infested with, thinking that Dana had run away, disappeared the moment he saw her, but the desire to hold her filled the position instead. His mind was intricately intertwined with desire and reason.
Leon’s hand naturally wrapped around Dana’s waist and buried his face in her hair, embracing her.
There were certainly many things he wanted to ask, why she came here as Dana Deniz and why she went out in the first place. However, as her sweet scent filled his lungs, rational questions subsided below the surface.