No One Ever Loved Me - Chapter 60

Left alone, Ricardo buried his face in his hands. A tremor of exhilaration ran through his whole body.

“Ah… Lia…”

The tension he had been holding in to maintain his composure now clawed at his muscles. Even the pain that followed was welcome.

She was going to get a divorce.

No—what mattered wasn’t the divorce itself.

What truly thrilled him was that Cecilia had, at least on the surface, accepted him.

Ricardo thought back to when he’d first heard rumors about her.

It was right around the time he discovered the secret of his own birth—that he was the illegitimate son of Duke Bastian.

The Duke’s response upon meeting him for the first time was blunt: go collect signatures from the nobles agreeing to accept a bastard as the heir.

That was their first and last real conversation.

The Duke clearly resented Ricardo. Eventually, Ricardo realized it wasn’t the Duke who wanted him to be heir—it was the Duchess.

He never even got a chance to meet her.

His birth mother wasn’t the type to let opportunities slip by. She gladly signed the papers agreeing to never meet her son again if it meant securing her place.

Ricardo had long since given up expecting anything from his mother… but even so, something in his chest ached—just a little.

With her formal abandonment, he lost his right to go back.

Duke Bastian didn’t allow him into the family estate. Ricardo was housed elsewhere, in a manor the Duke had prepared. Compared to the mold-ridden one-room shack he had grown up in, it might as well have been heaven.

There were more than enough servants to do his bidding with a snap of his fingers.

Still, everything felt like a dream to Ricardo—not a pleasant one, but a hollow one.

Even this comfort couldn’t fill the emptiness that had long settled inside him.

So he followed the Duke’s instructions without resistance.

Convincing the proud noble houses to accept a bastard heir? It was nearly impossible.

But Ricardo did his research. The more someone had, the more vulnerable their weaknesses.

He threatened, persuaded, seduced. He even used the face his mother had given him as leverage.

Then came Count Linton.

But Edgar Linton didn’t have any clear weakness. Most spoke well of him.

Though his affair had begun not long after the wedding, he made no secret of it. After all, Cecilia—the Countess—was “mad,” people said.

She clung to her husband with no pride, no dignity.

In aristocratic society, where marriage was just a contract between houses, her behavior became easy fodder for gossip.

Ricardo didn’t pay her much attention at first. He was more focused on figuring out how to persuade Edgar.

On the surface, Edgar looked like a proper noble. Born into privilege, raised with poise.

But Ricardo could see the struggle beneath the calm surface—Edgar Linton was fighting to maintain his reputation.

The Linton name had barely survived three generations. The previous Count had been a gambling addict and nearly destroyed the family.

Edgar had salvaged it through shrewd business acumen. But rebuilding fortune was easier than rebuilding reputation.

He had restored some honor by fulfilling the terms of the Rosette Count’s will.

Marriage between the Linton and Rosette families had been a transaction. The Rosette line had no male heir. Without support, their name would eventually vanish.

Edgar Linton accepted the unfavorable match.

Afterward, news of Cecilia’s “scandals” began to spread.

Despite having a mistress, he never discarded his wife. And his mistress? None other than Elodie, a musical genius.

In the end, Edgar Linton’s image was upheld—built on the sacrifices of two women.

Did Ricardo feel anything about that?

Not exactly.

He had known for a long time that something was missing in him.

His mother had loved him—but only because he was a tool to fulfill her goals.

And he had used her in the same way—to survive.

Edgar Linton, too, was a man who couldn’t go against the tide.

He wouldn’t be hard to persuade. Once Ricardo presented a list of signatures, Edgar would fall in line like everyone else.

The only thing that bothered him… was Cecilia.

He wished he didn’t have to meet her.

A woman rumored to be madly in love with her husband—he instinctively recoiled at the thought.

Ricardo was wary of people who had what he didn’t.

To put it harshly, he resented them.

He had accepted that he’d live like this for the rest of his life. Misunderstood, alone, tormented by emptiness—liberated only in death.

He gathered the documents. Becoming the Duke of Bastian didn’t matter to him, but it gave him something to do. Something to keep the emptiness at bay.

And then, he met her.

Cecilia Linton. The Countess.

At first, he denied what he saw.

The woman said to be madly in love with her husband had the same eyes as him.

Eyes that said: Nothing in this world matters to me.

She looked surprised when she saw him—but Ricardo knew instantly.

She was someone who had mastered the art of pretending to be human.

Cecilia Linton got frustrated, became flustered, and even showed fear at times—but at the end of it all, there was always a sigh.

She knew her limits. She understood that her imitation wasn’t perfect, and she had no means to make it so.

After securing Edgar Linton’s worthless signature, Ricardo immediately began looking into her.

A gentle stepmother and one younger half-sibling. Ricardo had been confused. That background didn’t explain the eyes she had—eyes like his.

Before becoming Countess Linton, Cecilia Rosette had been a shy girl, always reading the room and cautious of others.

To clear up his doubts, he lingered around her quietly.

When Edgar Linton started searching for a personal knight for her, Ricardo subtly recommended Matias Juan—an old connection from his days in the slums.

Matias Juan was firm but flexible, someone Ricardo could count on. Just as he hoped, Matias occasionally mentioned Cecilia during their occasional drinks.

To Ricardo, Matias was far too empathetic. He believed Cecilia was being mistreated by Edgar and openly worried for her.

Ricardo’s first real suspicion arose when he heard that Cecilia’s attitude toward her nanny had changed.

Cecilia Rosette had loved her nanny. She’d relied on her more than her stepmother. But now? She had brought the nanny back only to treat her like any other servant, keeping her at arm’s length?

That wasn’t just odd—it was unthinkable.

Even then, Ricardo wasn’t certain.

Human emotions were fragile. One moment they burned bright, and the next, they were reduced to ash.

It was entirely possible that this change in behavior was the natural result of Cecilia giving up on Edgar.

So, Ricardo continued observing her.

She was too driven, too active for someone who had supposedly gone into seclusion due to a breakdown. And yet, her eyes… remained vacant.

Ricardo paid attention to how she dealt with people.

Cecilia made deals—she set conditions, and fulfilled them. That was how she achieved her goals.

But what if someone asked her for something she couldn’t give?

That’s when Ricardo decided to test her—through Margaret.

Margaret, the illegitimate daughter of a low-ranking baron, was ruled by emotion.

The woman Cecilia now pretended to be—Countess Linton—was the perfect kind of figure to enchant someone like Margaret.

Just as he expected, Margaret grew attached to her.

She likely saw Cecilia as someone just like her—wounded, gossiped about, misunderstood. That only made her fall for her harder.

Ricardo kept testing.

And the darker Margaret’s expression grew, the more Ricardo’s heart thudded with anticipation.

Cecilia rejected Margaret’s offer of friendship.

Because she couldn’t give her what she truly wanted in return.

Ah… Ricardo still remembered how that moment had made him feel.

He returned to the estate provided by the Duke of Bastian. A servant approached and took his coat.

Inside, Ricardo leaned against the door and stood there for a moment.

“She was real.”

Did Lia know how afraid he’d been that it might all be a hallucination?

She probably didn’t. And even if she did—she wouldn’t care.

That alone made his blood race.

Even if she truly had been Cecilia Linton, it wouldn’t have mattered.

He had found someone like him.

And he knew he wouldn’t lose her.

Even if her transformation had come later in life, she was still the only lifeline Ricardo would ever meet.

But—

“She wasn’t even Cecilia.”

He didn’t believe in God. But right now, he could’ve fallen to his knees in prayer.

So he did.

There was no cross or altar in sight, so he offered his prayers to the warmth of her touch, the memory of her face, her voice.

“Lia. Lia. Lia.”

Her name alone became his prayer. The only truth worth saying aloud.

Lia had told him she would use him. That she would accept him—as a tool.

To someone so used to rejection, that one statement had been light in the dark. It had filled every empty space inside him.

Ricardo was no longer lonely. But he still loathed emptiness.

He knew—down to his core—that he could never accept it. Not even on the day he died.

But Lia was different.

She had swallowed that emptiness whole. What he had never dared to face, she had conquered without flinching.

A kindred spirit? No.

He corrected himself.

She was a queen.

Someone to serve. To follow. To revere.

And as long as he was by her side, he would never again fear being swallowed by the void.

It was fine if she saw him as a nuisance. Even that would be a reward—because she saw him.

And if someone as powerful as Lia—the one who had mastered the void—acknowledged him in any way…

…then what was there to refuse?

“There’s a lot to be done.”

First, he would put freedom in her hands.

Ricardo rose from his knees.

Tear tracks still clung to his face, but he didn’t wipe them away as he reached for paper.

It was time to devote himself to her.

And that devotion would last until the day he died.

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