I Was Tricked into This Fake Marriage!

Chapter 7

My sudden exclamation triggered another coughing fit from the man.

“What?” he spluttered. “What did you just say?”

“How soon can I meet him?”

“So you’ve made a decision? Just make the call, and the candidate can be brought here within the hour.”

“Then bring me Baronet Kell-ard,” I said.

“You got it...” The man stopped short as he rose from his seat. “...Who?”

I threw open file number four and triumphantly gestured at the tantalizing visage of this Adonis, the god of wine himself.

“This one!”

“...Kellard?” the man repeated.

“Oh. Is that not how it’s pronounced?” I asked. “How am I supposed to say it?”

“Uh... I thought this one wasn’t your type?”

“He totally is!”

“We just included that one on a whim.”

“Why? Is he not eligible to make a deal with? Does he not exist?”

Just my luck. There’s no way someone this perfect could actually be a real person.

“That’s not it... I’m just having a hard time seeing what you like about him.”

His face? His hobbies? His special interests? What’s not to like about any of them?! But then I belatedly remembered I had a reputation to uphold as the Countess of Efran.

“He looks really nice. Just like a nice, kind person.”

The man stood puffing at his rolled smoke in stunned silence, then suddenly let out a short, barking laugh.

“Didn’t you say earlier that ‘nice’ is the same as ‘handsome’?”

Dammit. He already knew too much. Fine, I might as well embrace it.

“Fine. He’s handsome.”

“...You like his face?”

“Yeah! I love it.”

“How much?”

“A lot! So much! I’m totally obsessed!”

“I’m honored.”

“Huh?”

“Since you’ve made your choice, the files will have to be destroyed. You’ve viewed all four of them... Which means you owe me forty pieces.”

He moved to collect the files, but I clutched at file number four pleadingly.

“No, wait a second! Give this one to me!”

“No.”

“I’ll buy it from you!”

“Not a chance. No.”

“Don’t be such a killjoy! What about just the last page?!”

“The last page is exactly why I don’t want you to have it.”

“Come on, you wet blanket!”

Struggle as I might, the file was plucked out of my grasping hands. The man snapped his fingers, incinerating all of the files to ash.

“Noooo!”

How... How could he...? That work of art...?!

The man extended his palm.

“Now, the cash.”

I loosened the pouch sitting on the tray next to the table and grabbed a handful of gold coins. Begrudgingly, I placed them on his outstretched hand.

“What are you doing?”

“You’re seriously such a spoilsport. Those drawings were a masterpiece, and you know it. Plus, there’s no way he’s actually as good-looking as his portraits, anyway...”

I carried on grumbling as the man stacked the coins one on top of another on the table. That was when I realized there were only thirteen of them. Whatever, I didn’t care.

That’s how I feel about you, you jerk! You’re the absolute devil!

“What are you trying to pull here?”

The hostility in his voice compelled me to stack the remaining coins due to him on top of his pile.

“I’ll give you half for now. You’ll get the rest later once the deal is done.”

“Do you even have the cash?”

Annoyed by his misgivings, I dumped another handful of coins on the table.

See? There’s still plenty more where that came from, you dingus. The pile looked about the same size as the first one.

“That’s it? That’s only thirteen pieces of gold again,” he said.

“Really?”

I counted out the pieces. He was right. I produced the remaining number of coins and faced the man squarely.

“Now bring me my suitor.”

“You look a little intense right now.”

Me? Why? What made him say that?

“The thing about this candidate... Did you even read all the details about his side business?”

“I did.”

I mean, it obviously stands to reason that he probably owned a famous patisserie or restaurant in the capital, right?

“It’s called the Nine Nights.”

Huh... That kind of sounds like a nightclub.

It wasn’t a business in the red-light district, was it? I mean, he did have a rather sexy look about him...

Omigosh, no way! He’s not... Is he...?!

“Baronet Kellard isn’t gay, is he?!”

The man seemed at a loss for words.

I weighed it in my head for a second. Him being gay didn’t really bother me either way. It was a marriage of convenience, after all, and we were only going to be together for a year.

It was probably why he was looking to get married in the first place. To find a beard!

It made sense, since an unmarried 26-year-old bachelor with a great government position and a side business would no doubt attract a lot of rumors and gossip in the empire. Anyway, why did that name sound so familiar? The Nine Nights?

Wait a minute.

“Nine Nights? Did you just say the Nine Nights?!”

I leapt from my seat, and the man let out a deep sigh.

“What the...! He runs it? He runs the Nine Nights? Does that make Baronet Kellard your boss? Or your guild master?”

“It’s me.”

“It’s you? So, he’s not your guild master...? Um, I mean... What the... I beg your pardon?”

“I am Baronet Kellard.”

His words hit me like a splash of cold water to the face. I started grasping, tugging at my hair in frustrated confusion.

“But you don’t have dark hair?” I said.

The man, or rather, the self-proclaimed Baronet Kellard reached for his hood at my words.

My enthusiasm was flatly extinguished. I slumped back into my chair.

I could just see it now, some lowly artistic grunt squeezing every ounce of creative passion they had into depicting the likeness of their own guild leader.

That was probably why he wanted them destroyed, because he knew he’d be catfishing me with them. My spirits dampened as I fully expected to be completely underwhelmed.

I looked on with resignation, bracing myself for what would surely be abject disappointment. He’d have eyes, a nose, lips, and a face, of course. What more can you ask for, really?

The hood fell away, and I held my breath.

His face was languid... and hot.

The smoke from his sedative gave a dreamy, almost vacant quality to his face. He slowly blinked his languorous eyes and focused his gaze on me.

“Whoa... what?”

His inky-black hair was carelessly tousled from the hooded robe he had been wearing. He reached up with his long white fingers and raked back a few errant strands from his face.

And then he smiled. Or, more accurately, he smirked, raising the corner of his mouth in a way that was now familiar to me. But why did it look so different this time? So... innocent?

Good heavens.

Was this what people had felt when they saw Helen of Troy?

My knees would have gone weak if I had been standing. He had a high forehead and a pair of neat, strong brows. His sensuous, double-lidded eyes were rimmed with lashes so long and dark that I couldn’t help but stare.

His pouty lips were almost red in contrast to the paleness of his skin. His piercing dark features were strong and robust, yet somehow breathtakingly harmonious in their savage innocence.

I take everything I said about the portraits back. The artist came nowhere close to portraying this man in all of his beauty. Their portraits rightly deserved to be burned to ash.

“Why would you run a guild when you have a face like that?”

With looks like his, he could practically take over the world...!

He blinked at me slowly. I stared, transfixed by his irises, the color of the sweetest of strawberry jellies. His eyes fluttered open and closed.

“Then what should I do?” he asked.

“Uh, world domination would be a start...?”

“I’ve already done that.”

Oh. That’s right. He literally has.

This was the head of the Nine Nights, an intelligence guild that dealt information to the emperor himself. The devastatingly handsome Kellard placed another rolled smoke between his lips. I stared longingly as he squeezed and curled his lips together, slowly working the smoke to the center of his perfect mouth.

I felt nauseous. It was almost too much to bear. His beauty was so overwhelming that it felt almost obscene, and I was suddenly filled with the urge to spank him like a naughty boy.

...No! What am I thinking?!

It wasn’t me who was thinking these impure thoughts, I swear! This was all his fault! He was just too good looking!

“Are you sure that’s just a sedative? There’s no way it has any hallucinogenic properties, right? Like making people look more attractive than they actually are, or something...”

He snapped his fingers to light his smoke and fixed his dreamy eyes back on me. He smiled.

Omigosh, he’s smiling at me!

“Are you asking me if I think you look pretty right now?”

Was that what that sounded like?

My gosh. Please, be still my heart. I am so, so sorry, Mother! Please forgive me! I can’t believe it! I’m a dirty-minded pervert just like anyone else!

I buried my steaming face in my hands.

“What’s wrong?”

“Are you seriously going to make a deal with me?” I asked.

“That depends on your deposit.”

Oh my lord... I had to be mad. I must be absolutely stark raving mad to make a deal with this glistening Adonis before me! But no matter how much it made me cringe in embarrassment, I knew what had to be done.

I presented him with the contracts I’d rewritten over and over again while waiting restlessly for the guild to reach out. I had two contracts in total.

The first was your standard marriage contract between nobles outlining which household the firstborn would go on to inherit, what would be passed on to the wife and the wife’s family and how much, and so on and so forth.

The other contract outlined the stipulations for divorce in a year’s time, along with the duties and obligations that would be performed as a part of married life.

“It’s a first draft. By the way, I’ve been wondering. Don’t you already make gobs of money supplying information to the emperor? Why do you like money so much? Don’t you already have enough?”

“I think gold coins are pretty to look at.”

No, you’re even prettier, you stupid, beautiful man!

“I’m curious. Is that how you’re going to act from now on?” Kellard asked.

Act how?

I looked up in a daze from the rolled smoke between his perfectly formed pink lips, suddenly aware of how horribly dry my mouth was.

S-stop! He’s so sexy I can’t stand it!

“That’s stiff. And boring.”

The way his rakish ebony hair tumbled over his eyes was so striking and seductive that it would put any femme fatale to shame.

I remembered how much it seemed to amuse him when I’d stopped putting on airs...

Was that a red flag? Oh, well. Nobody’s perfect. Even if their face happens to be the very definition of perfection itself.

“Why are you so into it when I... talk like a cretin?”

I fumbled over my words. I was going to say “forget my manners” but decided against it last minute. Baronet Kellard cocked his head to the side. His lips curled upward into a surprisingly dirty smile, and I felt the blood rush to the top of my head.

“Because it’s refreshing?”

And just like that, completely unconcerned by the fact that he had just given me such a head rush that I had nearly gone tripping over myself, Baronet Kellard started skimming through the contracts.

Good lord, was I still breathing? Based on how hard my heart was pounding, I must be.

I watched him with rapt attention as he read through the documents, then cautiously spoke.

“There’s supposed to be a huge backlog of civil cases. Even if we sign the deal right now, is it even possible to get it registered and filed in time? What if we’re too... late?” I asked.

“Forget about the civil office. I could get this stamped and officiated by the emperor himself if I wanted to.”

Duh, of course. This was the Nine Nights guild master I was talking to here.

I was nodding to myself in acknowledgement when he pointed to an item in the standard marriage contract.

“What’s this? You want us to share the same bedroom?”

Oh, that... I had indicated that as a married couple we would share our living quarters in accordance with Efran tradition.

“It’s okay if you don’t come to bed because you’re busy tending to... other matters. But in my kingdom... I mean, in Efran, a married couple shares their living quarters. We should at least keep up appearances.”

He stared at me for a moment before moving on.

“So we share the same bed, but intimate activity is strictly prohibited?”

I had added that clause to prevent my potential contractual husband from... forcing the issue.

“It’s not a real marriage. Is that so strange? Why? You won’t agree to that?”

“I think it would be strange if anyone could,” he murmured under his breath, his eyes still studying the contract. “And a ten-percent deduction from the allowance for each infraction?”

“Oh, uh... That’s right.”

“And I assume that initiating intimacy is prohibited for you as well?”

It stung to hear those words for some reason. It was obvious and more than fair, but I still felt like I was somehow getting the raw end of the deal.

But why? My face stony, I forced myself into giving an affirmative nod. Then, as if convinced, Baronet Kellard pushed the marriage contract back toward me.

“This lifestyle allowance. I want you to quadruple it.”

“What?! You want four times the amount?!”

This terrible beauty had just demanded the cost of a high-rise building in metropolitan Gangnam as payment for a year’s salary!

“Once this deal is signed, any and all information about Efran Manor, its countess, and her husband will naturally be obliterated by the Nine Nights Guild. Well, for a year at least. It’s quite a fair price, if you think about it that way.”

Fair? I might be better off just selling that information myself at that rate!

I think I’d done quite well with making sure there aren’t any skeletons in my estate’s closets...!

I tried my best to steady my trembling hand and asked with as much calmness as I could muster, “I’m sure you’ll want something in return for the contract’s completion as well, right? In that case, I...”

“Turtle Hill off the Sear Coast. That’s what I want.”

He was referring to a scenic little coastal hill not far from the Efran summer home in the south. It was a beautiful piece of property, probably perfect for building a little cottage getaway. But it was little more than that.

The area was a place of little material value. The terrain was hilly with no proper roads. And being the Efran estate’s private property, there was little to no chance of anyone even entering the place, let alone developing it.

I had expected him to ask for something grander. In fact, in addition to the alimony for fulfilling the contract, I had been prepared to pay him ten percent of the wheat harvest from the western plains for the rest of his life.

Compared to that, the inflated lifestyle allowance he was asking for the duration of our marriage was a pittance. I had no obligation to pay him anything once the contract’s terms were up. Nothing but a little coastal hill with a nice view.

“That’s it? You won’t get an allowance anymore after the divorce.”

Baronet Kellard nodded firmly. I suddenly wondered what his reasons were for entering into this contract. Maybe he really was gay and needed a beard?

I just had to get through a one-year contract until the heir to the Efran estate was formally presented to the imperial court.

Leaving the fields for the name of our yet-to-be-adopted child blank, we both signed the adoption consent form and the divorce agreement.