Chapter 253: The Illusion Of Choice
"...They had been watching you all along, hadn’t they?" It seems like my guess was right.
Because there’s no way such a powerful family would let their ’failed investment’ slip through their fingers so easily, especially when her ’price’ was skyrocketing nonstop.
"That’s right." She nodded, her expression bitter.
"Almost every move I made, every victory I thought I earned through my own cunning and strength..."
"They orchestrated it all. I even started to suspect that they were somehow controlling me, manipulating my very thoughts and decisions." Her hands clenched into fists. "I thought I had broken free from their control, that I had finally become author of my own story. But I was still dancing to their tune, just on a longer leash."
She won the game but lost the board; was that it? To change that much, to do all that in a short amount of time, she clearly fits the role of a protagonist.
"And of course," she continued with a sardonic smile. "They had already found another fiancé for me. Someone younger this time, more presentable to the public eye after the marquis scandal. They wanted to repeat that same scenario."
"You don’t mean that red-haired guy, do you?" I asked, the pieces clicking into place.
"Yes, it’s that guy, Thaddeus. Handsome, charming, politically connected, and completely unaware that he was just another pawn in their game, though perhaps a more willing one than I ever was."
Yeah, I could guess it as much. That guy wanted women, money, from what I heard and saw after all. He probably didn’t care who he would end up with as long as he was ’free’ to do what he wanted.