My Sister’s Man - Chapter 33

Aria finished speaking and bowed her head like a sinner.  Larne blinked her eyes slowly.  At the same time, her head pounded at the memory flooding in.

Her emotions at the time messed up her mind. Her heart beat erratically.

Besides, she didn’t know why Aria felt sorry.

Leandro might have wanted Aria, even if he had been offered Larne as his fiancée.

Didn’t Leandro do the same in the first place?  Wanting Aria…

When Larne first met Leandro at his mansion, she naively assumed he would recognize her.  Either that or she imagined someday he would recognize her aura and scent.

‘But he didn’t.’

Larne’s rationality grew colder the more memory came to her mind.

“I’m sorry, Rene, I wouldn’t have done that if I had known you and the Marquis of Cartel were like that.”

“No, no. No.”

If Leandro had known that Larne, not Aria, was the person he met at the masquerade ball, he wouldn’t have even treated her nicely from the start.  Aria’s apologetic voice was muffled.

Larne calmly took a breath, feeling her heart pounding.  She put on her sister’s shell at the masquerade ball, and she should be grateful that she received unconditional love that she never would have received.

Larne smiled bitterly, mocking herself.

“Don’t feel sorry for me, sister. I did a lot of wrong to sister.”

A cold voice escaped her lips.

“More importantly, when did you know I was dying?”

“….from the beginning.”

Larne thought she couldn’t get any more shock. She wondered if her sister felt sorry for her imminent death and accepted her as the loser she was.

“How old was that?”

“……The year I turned 7, when you turned 5, they called me and said that you might die soon. So don’t give you any affection…..”

Larne wanted to loosen the clothes that were constricting her body right away. The ghastly truth choked her.

…  In the first place, she was a child who would die, and they were going to throw her away. Since when the hell…

Larne recalled her kind parents who read her books and sang lullabies.  When her parents died, she couldn’t understand why she said such harsh things to them… Now she vaguely understood why she had said that.

“I see.”

Her heart was beating so hard it hurt. The heartbeat was so loud that she wished she could stop breathing. The world spun around to the point where she didn’t know how she was still standing.

“… Why didn’t Deron know?”

“Because brother has a soft heart.  So he was sent to the academy..… to keep him away from you, from getting close to you…”

Aria, who spat out the truth, sagged with guilt at the end of her words.

“So, to me…”

-knock.

At the sound of knocking on the lounge door, Larne moved her body slowly.  Her body shook so much that she didn’t know how she was walking.

“I want to rest a little, but can I go first?”

She didn’t hear an answer.  She left Aria in the lounge, and walked with the attendant who had come to get her.

As soon as she reached her room she became furious. She destroyed everything. Her dress was ripped and messed up in the process, but she didn’t care.

“Ha, ha……”

Her head buzzed and throbbed at the random memories that came to her mind in no chronological order. Larne let her mind wander. She wished she could just die like this.

***

When she first saw Leandro at the mansion, Larne felt like the world had stopped.  Her breath seemed to be caught in her throat when the unique soft scent spread throughout the space.  Entering the greenhouse on the 4th floor, Leandro looked flustered, as I’d he didn’t expect to see anyone there.  It was the same with Larne.

She couldn’t even imagine that they would be meeting like this. He was her sister’s fiancé, so she knew they would meet at the mansion someday, but she didn’t expect to see him so suddenly.

And to meet someone she liked in the greenhouse on the 4th floor, which she loved.

“Ah.”

Leandro’s expression stiffened slightly as Larne’s lips trembled. Immersed only in her own emotions, Larne could not check Leandro’s expression.

“Peace be upon you, I’m Larne Atrice.”

When Larne grabbed the hem of her skirt and greeted him, Leandro belatedly greeted her.

“Peace be with you, I’m Leandro Cartel.”

After a light greeting, Larne lifted her head and faced him, and she could tell that his expression was not very good.

What did she do wrong?

Larne looked back at her attitude and even her greetings, but she didn’t find anything particularly troubling.  In the first place, this was Larne’s space, and in a way, he was rude by entering without permission.

“What are you doing here?”

“Oh, because I’m waiting for Ria here.” (Leandro)

“Ah, my sister…  .”

Aria’s nickname was called softly made Larne’s chest tingle. Aria said they would forget about the masquerade, so when did they become close enough for him to call her nickname?

Larne stared at Leandro blankly.

“Please wait comfortably.”

She could see that Aria had called Leandro to the greenhouse for her.  It was Leandro who originally spent time with Larne at the masquerade ball, but it must have bothered Aria when Larne was forbidden from going to the ball anymore. So she must be trying to compensate for the time Larne had to spend with Leandro.

Because her sister was kind.

‘Sister is too kind.  Anyway, Leandro would think of what happened then as a memory with my sister.  I have to tell her not to do this in the future.’

It was a pity, but in the future Leandro would marry her sister. Seeing him stir the memory they had together. It was clear that avoiding each other was a better option.

In the first place, aristocratic marriage was something that could not be done only with feelings of love.

‘I don’t think my sister wanted to get married either.’

Larne collected her thoughts and looked up at Leandro.  He seemed rather uncomfortable with the situation. She had seen him at least once every 2 weeks.  She couldn’t help but notice that the emotion in his eyes was not favorable.  He even told her that he had been out on the battlefield for so long that he was not good at hiding his emotions.

“Perhaps I made a mistake?”

“……No. Not at all.”

It was clear that Leandro was uncomfortable with her.  Larne’s expression hardened slightly.

She only greeted him, so why?

Then, all of a sudden, she had a thought.

“Are you uncomfortable because of the rumors about me?”

Leandro did not answer.  However, she couldn’t help but know that the long silence was replacing affirmation. Leandro turned his head away, feeling uncomfortable with her gaze.

“Rumors have it that I will want to covet everything belong to my sister…..Are you worried that I’ll be greedy for you?”

Larne didn’t want anyone to recognize that she was the one Leandro was with at the masquerade.  However, she had no idea he would be so hostile because of a rumor.

“That wasn’t my intention.”

No, Larne was a little frustrated at Leandro’s reaction as if she had guessed right.

 ‘Even though you were having a hard time because of the rumors too.’

However, it was clear that Leandro was also judging Larne, relying only on the rumors. It was so unfair.

Larne felt like crying.

She bit her lip and bowed her head, holding the hem of her dress.

“Have a good time with my sister. You seem to be uncomfortable with me, so I’m leaving.”

She left the conservatory without hearing Leandro’s answer.

She didn’t know why she left as if she was running away and felt like crying. She then realized the fact that she was nothing to Leandro without the shell of Aria.

She couldn’t help but feel sad about that.

***