Rejected by Daughter’s Second Male Lead Chapter 109

“What… does that… mean?”

Yuan, said to be so brilliant, tilted his head slightly as if he did not understand at all and asked slowly.

“So… you… never liked me from the start?”

“…That’s right. Ah, of course, it’s different now. I like you now. But you could just call it camaraderie.”

Is this the right thing to do? Even as he said it, Gillen felt that something was not right, but in any case, the words were already out.

Of course, it was more than camaraderie. Gillen, too, sometimes felt a flutter of excitement for Yuan. When he was intimate with Yuan, he tasted a desire, passion, and thirst he had never felt before.

Was that all? He was always worried about Yuan. And he found him cute. Everything Yuan said and did made him smile. When he thought about what Yuan had suffered in the past, he would get uncharacteristically angry, to the point of wanting to kill Marius. Yes, he liked Yuan. But that was all.

He liked him… but it didn’t seem to be love. Especially not a love so great as to block the path of a talented young man who was twenty years younger and had a future full of possibilities wide open before him.

“It was enjoyable and good to be with you. The more I got to know you, the more I realized how charming a person Yuan Hampton is. But that’s all.”

“That’s all? You said you liked me.”

“Yes, I just said it was good, didn’t I? I’m sorry to have made you misunderstand, but when I said I liked you before, it was in the same context as what I just said. At my age, one doesn’t place great meaning on such expressions of emotion. You’re still young, so you wouldn’t know, but—”

“What is it that I don’t know because I’m young? I am a genius who appears perhaps once in a thousand years. I know far more than you do. The truths of the world and magic that you do not know, the principles of nature, and even human thought! I am a once-in-a-generation genius who can predict the future with near-perfect accuracy!”

Yuan was almost screeching. It seemed that now, complete fury was the only thing that governed him. Aggressive pheromones flowed from him in waves. Gillen calmly accepted those pheromones.

“You did it to stop me from getting together with Cecil? For that to be the reason, you flirted with me! Do you know how many men like that I’ve dealt with? They’re always similar. They leave themselves an escape route and toss out words playfully, but when you actually point it out, they put on a straight face and pretend not to know. Their gaze, their voice, everything was already insidiously implying such things—”

“Yuan Hampton!”

This time, Gillen’s expression hardened fearsomely.

“Do not put me on the same level as those bastards. That was your misunderstanding, was it not? To me, that is a tremendous insult.”

“Didn’t you do something to deserve being insulted?”

“I can’t deal with this.”

Gillen stood up from the sofa. The kind face that had been feeling apologetic just a moment ago was now contorted.

“Other criticisms, fine, feel free to make them. But this… this one thing I cannot accept. I am someone who despises the sort of ilk you just mentioned. I am constantly striving to protect children and those with secondary genders from people like that.”

Contempt was evident in Gillen’s eyes and voice. Yuan, who sensitively detected it, also rose from the sofa. Incredibly sharp pheromones were being emitted between Yuan and Gillen.

“I told you countless times how unpleasant I found it at first. Think about it, a man twenty years your senior, and on top of that, your future father-in-law, taking his prospective son-in-law out on dates and making passes at him with every word. Can you not understand the revulsion I must have felt? I find it amazing how lenient I’ve become with you. Back then, you were truly no different from a criminal to me!”

“As I said, that was your misunderstanding—”

“From your perspective, it would have been! You must have found me ridiculous, seething with anger over a misunderstanding and a mistake, and wondered what was wrong with me! But I really hated you! It was dreadful! Don’t you understand that? You said you despise that sort of ilk? I truly despised you, too!”

The veins on Yuan’s neck stood out. Having lost his reason and shouted, he took a breath to calm himself, then continued speaking again in a slightly calmer voice.

“You must have felt wronged, thinking of yourself as a misunderstood saint, but in that case, why didn’t you speak clearly from the beginning and clear up that misunderstanding? To me, from the very start, you were ‘that sort of ilk.’ I consistently told you that I disliked you. And you, Your Grace, were the one who laughed off and ignored my words as if they were absurd.”

Anger crept back into Yuan’s voice. It seemed he was having trouble suppressing his emotions, no matter how hard he tried. Of course, the same went without saying for Gillen, who had heard his words.

“I, too, consistently said no from the very beginning! You were the one who didn’t listen to a word I said.”

“But you hid the real reason! Isn’t it only natural for me to think you were making excuses after I rejected you? If from the start you had said, ‘I don’t approve of you as Cecil’s partner, get lost,’ then… I would have never even looked at you. To an old man like you… I would have never had the chance to get to know you. Then things wouldn’t have come to this, this kind of state…”

At the end, Yuan looked as if he was about to cry. Gillen flinched when he saw tears welling up in Yuan’s jewel-like eyes. It was because a corner of his chest ached so much it was piercing.

“Yuan…”

“Don’t say my name anymore. I… will no longer be calling you by your name, either.”

After saying that, Yuan vanished with teleportation. Left alone, Gillen just stood there motionlessly. Yuan’s anger-filled pheromones still billowed in the air. But it wasn’t just anger that was there. Sadness, shame, betrayal…

Gillen collapsed into a seat. He rubbed his face with both hands. He had expected there would be conflict. That it would be hard for Yuan to accept. But he seemed to have been hurt far more than he had thought. Moreover, Gillen hadn’t known just how dreadfully Yuan had thought of him at first.

What have I done? Gillen bent his body forward. The area around his heart hurt so much he couldn’t straighten up properly. Heat rose to his eyes, hidden behind his palms.

But… it was all over now. The contract with Yuan was terminated, and Yuan knew the whole truth. That Gillen did not love him with the same kind of heart that Yuan loved Gillen, and that the only one important to Gillen was Cecilia.

He was sorry, but this was the right thing to do. He regretted it, but it had to be done this way. Gillen repeated this to himself over and over. But for some reason, he felt he would not be able to sleep peacefully tonight.

More than two weeks had passed since Yuan and Gillen had last met. At first, people didn’t notice. Preparing for Cecilia and the Crown Prince’s wedding was such a huge event that everyone’s attention was focused on that.

The wedding was now exactly two weeks away. Everyone agreed that it was the first time an imperial wedding was happening so quickly. There was a lot of talk, wondering if Cecilia was pregnant before marriage, or if the two had imprinted, but after it became known that Crown Prince Hexion had officially said, “I want to welcome Cecilia as my wife as soon as possible, even one day sooner. If it were up to me, I’d just call any priest and hold the wedding today,” the idle rumors died down. There was just a bit of new concern about how much of a fool in love Hexion would become.

During that time, Duke Blake, Gillen, did not go out. The servants thought he was shocked and saddened by marrying off his precious daughter. So they deliberately did not disturb Gillen, and even Navard did not speak to Gillen unless it was absolutely necessary.

However, Gillen was actually fine. At least, that’s what he thought. He was just in his office, taking care of backlogged work. There was a mountain of work that had piled up while he was on his nationwide tour.

He worked and ate as usual. He attended nobles’ meetings and went to salons. He also went to the Blake Academy for an inspection and checked on the Marian Orphanage construction site in person. He was very busy and living just as he always did.

The strange thing was, wherever he went, he heard similar things.

“Your Grace the Duke, is something the matter?”

“Are you sick somewhere?”

“Your Grace the Duke, please eat more. Should I perhaps bring you something easy to swallow, like porridge?”

“Oh my, I’m sorry for disturbing you.”

Gillen was just sitting normally. He was eating the same way, and talking with people, but everyone was either worried about him or suddenly apologizing. Why are they acting like that? Gillen had been puzzled for the past two weeks.

Then today, the day came to visit Cecilia, the Crown Princess-to-be. An invitation had come from Cecilia a few days ago, and it was a day he could see his daughter after a long time.

He was excited and got ready from the morning, waiting for time to pass quickly by aimlessly strolling in the garden. And when the appointment time was almost near, he hurriedly got into the carriage. He wanted to see his cute Cecilia right away.

And when he arrived in front of the Crown Prince’s Palace and got out of the carriage, he found a beauty standing gracefully in a golden dress.

“Cecil!”

Gillen ran towards her with a broad smile. But Cecilia’s expression was strange. She was looking at Gillen as if she had received a great shock.

“What is it, Cecil?”

“Dad…”