And Now, It’s Time to Break Off the Engagement

My mother, who had entered the parlor at the same time I had, sat down next to my father. Naturally, that meant that I had to sit next to Lord Phillip. After I did so, I took a small breath and then poked his shoulder. He immediately turned to face me, holding me in his bright amber gaze.

"Um, thank you so much for the lovely flowers. I never imagined you'd be so handsome, Lord Phillip... My heart won't stop racing." I shifted in my seat shyly and smiled at him.

He didn't say anything in response and simply looked away. Upon seeing that reaction, I internally raised a fist in victory. He never liked it when women praised his looks. To tell the truth, acting in this way was so embarrassing that I wanted to die. But, knowing that everyone thought I was a completely different person because of the amnesia, I barely managed to keep my sanity in check.

This was the perfect plan. I would act like an idiot and make him have a terrible impression of me, which would then lead to him breaking off the engagement. I only needed to do one more thing to seal the deal.

I reached out for his large hand, which he'd been resting upon his knee, and gently placed my own hand over it. Surely he would think I was shameless for touching a man that I'd basically just met. This was definitely the type of woman he hated. Since this all happened underneath the table, my parents couldn't see what was going on.

More importantly, Lord Phillip despised being touched by women. No matter how beautiful a noblewoman was, if she so much as brushed up against him, he would seriously lose his temper. Even when he had escorted me, he never touched me more than necessary. Like I'd expected, he quickly removed his hand from underneath mine. However, that was about the only thing I'd predicted right.

Huh?!

But for some reason, the hand I thought he'd moved away turned and held mine in a tight grip. I jerked my head up to stare at Lord Phillip, but he was staring straight ahead with his usual cool expression. I had no idea what was going on in his head.

Just what was he thinking? No matter how much I racked my brain, I couldn't come up with an answer. As my hand continued to stay enveloped in his warm and slightly calloused one, my heart started beating faster and faster.

I'd accidentally lost my composure, but in any case, we had to continue with our discussions. With my eyes, I signaled at my father, who was sitting across from me, and he cleared his throat. It looked like he figured out what I was trying to communicate. My father turned to Lord Phillip with a serious expression and opened his mouth.

"Lord Phillip, as you can see, my daughter doesn't have any of her memories. She truly has no idea about anything. The doctor said that there's the possibility she'll never remember who she was, and she'll likely have a hard time appearing before members of high society like this. We plan on discussing this more with Duke Lawrenson as well, but we believe that it's necessary to reconsider your upcoming marriage."

My father was completely on my side. I'd sobbed at him, "I don't know what's going on at all, so I'm terrified of going outside! I don't understand any complicated matters either. I wish to stay at home forever, father!" Upon hearing that, he'd suggested breaking off the engagement of his own accord.

As a result though, that made it more difficult to come clean to my family about the fact that I was merely faking my amnesia. So I would have to pretend that I recovered my memories later. I was truly learning that you had to weave a web of lies in order to prevent a previous falsehood from unraveling.

I swore to myself that I would never come up with a lie as severe as this again and mentally apologized a thousand times to my parents. I'm so sorry for being such a terrible daughter. But in any case, I absolutely must pull off this plan.

If Lord Phillip said, "I understand" here and now, then it'd all be over. That was what I was thinking. And yet...

"Viola, may I speak with you in private?"

Upon hearing him make that request, I felt a bead of cold sweat gather on my brow. Why wouldn't he immediately agree to our suggestion? In the end, I couldn't say no to him, so we decided to move the conversation to my room.

As I stood up, I tried to remove my hand from his grip, but for some reason, he held on tight, with no indication of letting me go. I hesitated, confused, but Lord Phillip didn't pay me any mind as he pushed himself to his feet and led me out of the parlor. Uh, why was this happening?

I had no idea that my parents and the maids warmly watched over us as we left the room together, hand in hand.

***

Lord Phillip walked in silence as he continued to pull me along by my hand. When we eventually got to my room, he went straight for the love seat instead of where we usually sat with a table in between us. He sat down and looked at me, his eyes silently ordering me to sit as well. I truly had no idea what he was thinking about.

In any case, I obediently sat down next to him, our hands still entwined. It wasn't a very big sofa, so our shoulders naturally pressed against each other.

And then, we spent the next twenty minutes sitting together in silence. At this point, we could consider this our specialty. It'd seemed like he had something he wanted to talk about, but in the end, we spent time like we always did. I'd kept my foolish look affixed upon my face the entire time, but even I was on the brink of losing my patience. Right when I was about to say something, though, Lord Phillip opened his mouth.

"Do you really not remember a single thing about me?" he asked, as if trying to confirm the truth with me.

"Yes. I honestly can't remember anything... I'm sorry."

"I see."

He slowly squeezed my hand in his and then looked me straight in the eyes. Our faces were so close that our noses practically touched. In his clear gaze, I could see myself and my own idiotic expression. Even at point-blank distance, his visage was so beautiful and flawless that, for some reason, it made me want to cry.

"I have no intention of breaking off our engagement."

The shock of those unexpected words was akin to being punched in the face. What in the world could he mean? Lord Phillip himself had said that we weren't a good match for each other and that he hated me.

"Why?" I asked in a trembling voice.

In response, he gave me a smile so beautiful that it took my breath away. Then he said, "It's because we were in love with each other."

A few seconds passed as my brain parsed his incomprehensible claim. The idea that I was pretending to be an amnesiac completely slipped my mind as the word "Wha—?" came out of my mouth.