I Just Needed Someone to Hate - Episode 9.3

The minister’s eyes, seasoned with experience, scanned his son. There was no expectation in his gaze.

“I heard it was around the time when my father’s first term as minister had a year left.”

The wrinkles around the minister’s eyes tightened slightly, as if he knew what was coming next. Edmund’s words flowed out calmly, containing the expected content.

“I heard you issued unofficial directives through the Crime Information Bureau under the Minister of Internal Affairs. I believe you remember it as one of the few times you directly used several agents of the bureau.”

A deep furrow formed between the minister’s eyebrows. He spat out coldly, “You must see this empire as a land of peace.”

“Historians call my father’s Daatro that, though.”

“Nonsense. Daatro was invaded from the bottom up. Economic exploitation and the violation of the right to enjoy security.”

The minister’s voice deepened further.

“It may be hard for you, a member of the privileged class, to realize, but I am in this position because I can. I don’t know why you’re bringing up useless past events now, but get to the point.”

As the minister was lost in thought for a moment, his son’s voice continued, calmer than ever.

“I heard that one of the agents who approached Vivianne Mergoville back then was my double.”

“……”

“I heard the disguise was so perfect that there was no room for doubt that it was me, but I suddenly became curious.”

The veins on the back of the minister’s hand, which was holding a pen, bulged. Edmund’s voice continued.

“Weren’t you trying to deceive them by saying that you could immediately give them the Senate seat that the Mergoville family once coveted, using your authority as minister? I know there was no one as good as me as a messenger. You were planning to exchange it for information that the Mergoville side would present, right?”

Whether he should take it as good news that his only son wasn’t just playing around in the Duchy of Senovick.

His judgment of people had never been wrong. He was definitely a tiger cub.

“But, why me and not my other cousins?”

After a brief silence, Edmund’s words continued.

“I’m asking why it was my double.”

The answer was obvious.

Only his only son, who was staying in the Duchy of Senovick, was not in the capital at the time.

So, there was no chance that Edmund would run into his double and ruin the plan.

The fact that Edmund had almost no external activities was also a factor.

His son, who couldn’t possibly not know that, asked with such a relaxed face.

“What do you want?”

The question should have been asked by the minister. The son he looked up at seemed like an endlessly upright young man of the empire.

Behind him, his younger self and his son Edmund’s face looked surprisingly alike.

“Did it succeed?”

His arms were hidden behind his back, and the face with one corner of his mouth raised was impossible to guess what he was thinking.

There was a strange glint in his blue eyes that couldn’t be dismissed as childishness.

The minister was somewhat afraid to dismiss those eyes as not belonging to the son he once knew, so he muttered as calmly as possible.

“It’s none of your business.”

“Then I can only gauge the outcome of my bet after seeing the announcement party of the Mergoville heiress’s engagement in person.”

As Edmund bowed his head and replaced his greeting with a splendid smile, the minister opened his mouth.

“Good-for-nothing.”

After all, he was just a naive young man who enjoyed betting with his uncle over state secrets.

Edmund, who was about to turn around and leave, turned his head to look at the minister as if he had just remembered something.

“Ah. But if my double was walking around the capital a year ago. So if a fake minister’s son approached Vivianne Mergoville.”

“……”

“…Were there any letters from the Mergoville heiress addressed to me?”

“No.”

At the firm answer, Edmund nodded and turned around.

“It seems he wasn’t a very capable agent, then.”

Knowing how Project Hyde ended, the minister thought, recalling his son’s middle name. His wife’s grandfather, that nasty old man, if there was a breed of snake that he thought of when he cursed his son, it would be a sly smooth snake.

Norman escorted Edmund with his eyes. Looking at the place where he disappeared, there was a picture of the minister’s younger days not far away. Norman sighed inwardly.

They were alike after all.

That was what people said. But something was different.

A person’s atmosphere speaks of the times they have lived through. The young minister in the past photos looked like a typical upper-class youth who had lived without any shortcomings. He was upright and arrogant. Faces that could easily be seen at prestigious boarding schools.

But Edmund Hiad Colt was different.

He had a lot he could have, but he didn’t seem to have the desire to grasp it. That ease seemed arrogant on the one hand, and also jaded.

‘Has such a person shown interest in something, or rather someone, for the first time?’

The reason he came here was ultimately to notify them that he would attend the engagement announcement party of the Mergoville family. With a valid reason, too.

Turning his head, the minister had risen from his seat and was looking out the window with his hands behind his back.

Two small black dots moved beyond the window. It seemed his successor was escorting Count Colt to the vehicle.

Did that man receive the letter?

Vivianne thought of the boss of the underworld reading her writing. And the opposite case as well.

What if the new maids in the mansion were actually the minister’s people?

If the minister saw that letter, he would think of her as his deceiver and imprison her. There was no prosecutor’s office in the Daatro Empire, so the Central Metropolitan Police Agency of this place had tremendous power that encompassed various rights that a prosecutor’s office would have in other countries, and the level of their interrogation was unspeakable.

But what she feared was not the people of the Metropolitan Police Agency. It was that situation where she would reunite with the agent in her memory when she became insignificant and worthless.

To him, she had to be a woman who sold the underworld to the minister in order to have her. She had to be an infinitely noble and perfect being, at least to that agent.

“Where are we going now?”

Vivianne, who had been scanning the scenery outside the car window, said to the knight driving Langston.

“…As your ladyship’s father instructed, to the Salenner Hotel.”

“Well. It doesn’t seem like this is the right direction to me. Don’t you think?”

“……”

The driver did not answer. It had been an unspoken rule until now that he would drive the car so that she would arrive at the meeting place a little later, according to her father’s orders.

“It is the order of Marquis Mergoville. Nevertheless, if you wish, I will do as you please, but how about I take you along the same route as before today?”

“If it’s necessary.”

It was always like this.

Recalling what happened when she first met Ludwig Rex, Vivianne closed her eyes in fatigue. Was it in a suite at the Salenner Hotel?

“I asked if he could come to the hotel with the same conditions, but this one didn’t just come late, he pounced on me.”

Under his half-naked body, the blanket was swollen in the shape of a person, and soon a white, long-jointed finger went into the blanket and pressed down on something that was bulging out in a circle. It looked like a person’s head.

His languid red eyes scanned Vivianne.

“All I wanted from you, a noble, was to sit across from me and nod a few times, but you’re a defective product that can’t even find the way properly.”

The moment she heard the sound of someone being strangled, she unknowingly clenched her clutch tightly. The smell of lust she was smelling for the first time. Fishy. Her fiancé’s cynicism.

It was her first meeting with Ludwig Rex.

The knight’s voice pulled Vivianne out of her reverie.

“Then I will take you directly to the appointment. Please tell me if you want me to park the car at the back gate. These days, there are many reporters targeting your ladyship, not Ludwig Rex, as a scoop.”

Words she didn’t mean. Vivianne sneered inwardly and drew a perfect smile on her face.

“The back gate. Then it wouldn’t be any different from my fiancé’s mistress.”

Around that time, Vivianne recalled why her parents had tolerated this whole situation. Her father was initially embarrassed that she was becoming a hot topic in the newspapers as a strategist for the underworld, but now he was enjoying it more than anyone else. After all, the nominal marquis family, which only relied on her daughter’s fiancé’s family, had no ability to silence the media.

‘It’s because there’s one more thing to show off to the Rex family.’

He couldn’t stand the fact that his daughter was being treated as more important than the second son of the Rex family. That’s how the truth of the incident itself became irrelevant quite a while ago.

In that atmosphere, Vivianne endured in silence, planning how to get the ‘proposal’ she had in mind a year ago to the head of the underworld, waiting for her influence to grow, even if only superficially.

In this situation, there was no reason for the Mergoville family’s knight to avoid the main gate. Nevertheless, the reason he asked was probably to pressure her into breaking even this order.

“And I think I should leave a proof photo that I was here for my father and mother as well.”

Whether Vivianne’s guess was correct, there was no answer. And soon, the car drove into a dazzling cluster of lights as if it had never considered heading to the back gate in the first place.

Yes, it was such a short distance.

Flashes went off like crazy, illuminating the damp world with light alone. The car window looked like a frame that contained the light.

Vivianne turned her head, not even flinching at the familiar world. In the mirror of the car window, a woman smiling more splendidly than ever flashed and disappeared.

“I didn’t just come here to meet my fiancé, did I?”

At the same time as that voice, the wheels of the turning car stopped on the red carpet.

As the doorman hurriedly ran out and opened the door, the quiet world was instantly defiled by the voices of many people.

“Is it true that Miss Vivianne Mergoville will soon hold an engagement announcement party with Ludwig Rex?”

“Do you love him?”

“I’m curious if Carolina Russella’s statement is true. Miss Mergoville! Miss Mergoville!”

The secular questions that had been poured out without hesitation even towards the imperial family flew and stuck to her as well. As the valet who had approached in the meantime drove Langston away, the man who had gotten out of the driver’s seat followed Vivianne.

All these people gathered here to see her.

“What do you think about the minister’s re-election?”

“There are many who suspect that your ladyship is a strategist for the underworld forces. Would you like to say something about this?”

People flocked to where she was like a swarm of bees and poured out questions.

Vivianne raised her head stiffly and moved her steps. The steps that seemed like they would never collapse stopped in front of the hotel’s main entrance.

“It’s Ludwig Rex!”

“It’s a scoop! Qu, quick, take a picture!”

Vivianne raised her hand as if looking for the strap of her pochette for a moment.

Leaving her awkwardly lowered hand as it was, she took a step with her other hand holding the clutch more tightly, and then the monster with a beautiful appearance that seemed to steal people’s hearts, her endless nightmare, the perfect fiancé that the media was talking about, appeared before her eyes.

She wasn’t ready yet. Not yet.

Her father’s subordinate, who had been guarding Vivianne’s side, bowed and moved his position.

Standing alone in the crowd, Vivianne suddenly had this thought.

Even if she had been there, her fiancé had never been there. Not even once.

Had the letter been delivered to his boss?

The questions that were poured out with only the subject changed paralyzed Vivianne’s thoughts.

“Mr. Ludwig Rex, is it true that you will hold an engagement announcement party with Miss Vivianne?”

If that were really the case.

Then.

“Is Carolina Russella’s statement true? Mr. Rex!”

What suppressed Vivianne’s hyperventilation that was about to begin was her fiancé’s hand. The hand, which was always large and solid, was squeezing her back as if embracing it. In an instant, her waist was wrapped around his arm. They would have looked like a painting from afar.

She had to smile.

When Vivianne raised the corners of her mouth, her fiancé didn’t look at her for even a moment.

An unfamiliar and cool scent resembling sandalwood rushed in. At that time, the flash went off once again. The reporter raised his voice.

“Do you love her?”

It was the same question that Vivianne had received.

At that question, her fiancé smiled. It was the first time he had shown his face.

Instead of answering, he slowly lowered his head. His other hand gripped Vivianne’s chin as if to crush it.

Vivianne did not close her eyes as if she had put the bright light in her eyes. Even when the sound of low laughter touched her cheek.

He lightly bit the tip of Vivianne’s nose. The flash went off. The murmuring grew even louder.

By the time Vivianne barely exhaled, he tilted her gaunt body, supported her with his hand, and covered her with his body.

When the noblewoman was being cheered on almost like a monkey in a zoo, the breath that burst out of Vivianne’s lips tickled Ludwig Rex’s chin. Their eyes met.

Instead of kissing her, her fiancé lowered his head and kissed the tip of her chin. His lips brushed the same spot several times.

“You’re on time today.”

His hand strokes her head.

Vivianne lowered her eyes and took a breath. When he grabbed her shoulder and pulled her instead of asking for an escort, Vivianne looked ahead and moved her steps, thinking.

After all, the letter had not arrived at his boss, and she was paying the price for conveying the wishes of her family by meeting her fiancé’s mistress.

‘If the letter had arrived, he wouldn’t have played around like this in front of the reporters’ cameras.’

His organization has a strict chain of command. If what his boss wanted was a key ring that acted like a noble fiancée, this would have been a firing offense.

Even holding hands had to be done with gloves, but a fake kiss. He was reducing her status to just a laughing stock.

She remembered the conversation she had with Madison earlier.

“By the way, an actress came to the editor-in-chief saying she would sell a photo of you falling down the stairs? The editor-in-chief said he doesn’t handle such photos and chased her away, telling her to check with the yellow press. That woman is weird, right?”

Recently, Vivianne had met her fiancé’s new mistress.

She didn’t say anything great like she did with Watkins, but she was Ludwig Rex’s fiancée and she would soon be holding an engagement announcement party with him, so she asked her to meet him quietly for a while.

The woman said in a gentle voice, ‘Does Ludwig know about this?’, and Vivianne said she would tell him soon. Then the woman mentioned Vivianne’s reputation.

She laughed, saying that a vulgar woman who spread her legs to underworld men was treating someone as a mistress.

Vivianne was confident because she had never done that, but she smiled more wearily that day and got up from her seat.

“I thought it would be polite to ask for your understanding by looking at your face directly rather than conveying it through my fiancé. I guess I was wrong.”

And she walked out of the small villa that the woman had received as a gift from Ludwig.

At that time, the actress’s follower, who was coming up the stairs from the opposite side, found her on the stairs, scanned Carolina at the end of the stairs, and pushed Vivianne without hesitation. Vivianne was already weakened, so she rolled to the floor so defenselessly.

Her heart ached when her terrible appearance was photographed, but she didn’t cry. What people believed was not true, whether good or bad.

The really important person was not them, but the only person who had looked at her with warm eyes, that agent.

Only that man was kind in this cold world. She couldn’t forget how addictive that warmth was. In this pretense and hypocrisy, the man who saw her as Vivianne herself, not Miss Mergoville.

She thought she could endure these times if she could see him again. He was the only salvation that had come to her after Madison had left.

She didn’t care because there was hope that she could see him again. So, she was okay.

Then and now.

‘That incident must have been distorted and conveyed.’

In the words that flowed out of Carolina Russella’s mouth, Vivianne would have been a boring noble woman who was mad with jealousy, so with this much revenge, he had ridiculed her appropriately.

‘Then her fiancé’s taste must be a blonde, blue-eyed glamour.’

The smile of the world’s most popular talking movie actress came to mind. She had the opposite impression of Vivianne.

‘Too bad.’

Vivianne quickly regained her composure.

Vivianne Mergoville knew her essence well. And how someone in her position had to act to survive.

Smiling brightly. That’s winning. That’s enduring, and that’s what a truly mature person does.

Her fake life, which was now all that the media portrayed.

Fake fiancé.

Fake kiss.

Was that agent, that supposed son, also fake?

She remembered his rough hands, hands that seemed more suited for wielding a gun than for being raised nobly, holding out an ice cream cone. The chill was just like this. She had swallowed the slightly bitter sweetness while facing this much of a biting winter wind. Once, she had walked into this hotel with that agent. Surrounded by the most extravagant things, she hadn’t expected the meal that followed in the slightest.

Leaving behind the crowd of reporters, even her fiancé walked towards the reception, and no one’s gaze was directed at Vivianne.

A feeling, something akin to an emotion, that she didn’t recognize appeared on Vivianne’s face. A genuine smile.

But even this rare moment went unnoticed, simply passing by.

Ludwig Rex’s arm was still roughly wrapped around Vivianne’s waist, but Vivianne didn’t seem to feel any pain, remaining composed.

The relentless flashes captured the backs of those two.

That was the side of them that the camera would capture in its frame and place on the front page of the newspapers.

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