◊ Chapter 10 ◊
Prince Macaron’s Embarrassing History Increased by +1
“My wife is so dazzling that I can’t open my eyes.”
“…!”
“My wife, I’ll be disappointed if you keep looking somewhere else.”
“…”
“When will you finally look at me?”
Looking at his shaking eyes,
I came to one conclusion.
‘He… has… gone… crazy.’
The narcissistic prince,
who looked like he would only ever be obsessed with himself,
was now clinging to me.
The situation was both ridiculous and unbelievable.
His raw gaze,
as if he wanted to devour me,
slowly turned my confusion into fear.
But right now,
Macaron wasn’t the problem.
All my attention was on Coral.
‘They should be acting all sweet together… So how did things end up like this…? Our Coral would never act like this without a reason…’
When I turned my head,
Coral still looked furious at Kai.
People said nothing was scarier than being ignored.
Now,
Coral was treating Kai as if he didn’t even exist.
Watching her,
Kai’s face became paler by the second.
A family meal that happened so suddenly…
Kai was the one who suggested it…
I suddenly realized something.
‘Did Kai… pull a prank?!’
Kai trembled with a shocked expression,
while Coral glared at him fiercely.
‘First, I need to separate Coral and Kai.’
Just as I reached for Coral’s hand to take her outside—
“Madam, today Coral’s little sister—”
Before Macaron could finish,
I quickly covered his mouth and pulled the servant bell cord.
The moment Momont saw Macaron’s strange expression,
his face turned pale.
“Please take care of His Highness.”
Momont stared at me with a questioning look,
but I pretended not to notice.
For a brief moment,
his cold eyes seemed to suspect that I had caused all of this.
I wanted to shout that it wasn’t me,
but now wasn’t the time.
Momont tried to pull Macaron away,
but failed.
Soon,
Sir Aint was urgently called over.
Macaron,
who looked like someone who had fainted,
was dragged outside by Sir Aint without being able to resist.
‘Who would’ve thought our first family meal would turn into a battlefield…!’
After watching them leave,
I quickly took Coral back with me.
Even while leaving,
Kai couldn’t take his eyes off Coral and me.
But the moment our eyes met,
he immediately lowered his head.
Only after Kai disappeared from sight
did Coral finally calm down.
The dangerous look in her eyes disappeared.
Yes…
This was my daughter.
Only after returning to our room
did I ask her,
“Coral, can you tell Mom what happened today?”
That was how I finally learned the whole truth.
Kai had put an Ice Thorn Potion into Macaron’s soup,
and a Sweet Fool Potion into Coral’s soup.
He had done this little prank
to separate Macaron and me.
It must have been hard for Kai
to accept that his first love had become his sister.
The adoption…
The contract marriage…
Those were all part of my own plans.
Kai was still too young to understand them.
‘Kai… you adorable little troublemaker!’
Inside Macaron’s bedroom in the West Annex.
When Macaron opened his eyes,
the familiar ceiling and chandelier came into view.
His head throbbed,
as if he had spent the whole night drinking.
“Your Highness! Are you alright?”
“What happened?”
“It seems you’ve been affected by a potion.”
Macaron slowly raised one eyebrow.
‘That woman has started using potions now?’
He rubbed his head,
trying to remember what had happened.
But nothing came back.
“What was her goal?”
“…”
“She wouldn’t poison me as a joke.”
“There must have been a reason.”
“Well…”
Seeing Aint hesitate,
made his headache even worse.
“It’s alright.”
“Tell me the truth.”
“Miss Coral also seems to have been affected.”
Bang!!
Macaron slammed his fist onto the table,
making the entire room shake.
‘She even used her own daughter for something like this?’
Normally,
Macaron would never have missed something like this.
His sharp senses were far more developed than most people’s.
He had never overlooked anything before.
For someone to deceive him…
It meant they had hired an extremely skilled pharmacist.
He should have realized it
when he first saw how talented she was with documents.
Macaron frowned,
blaming himself.
‘So she really was someone else’s spy.’
There had been nothing about that in her records.
Trusting those records had been his biggest mistake.
“What about the antidote…?”
“Did Kai come?”
Kai possessed incredible healing abilities.
From the very first day Macaron brought him home.
If someone had truly poisoned Macaron,
Kai was the only person in the mansion capable of treating him.
Of course,
Momont could have hired someone from outside.
But then,
he wouldn’t have recovered this quickly.
At least,
that was what Macaron believed.
But strangely,
Momont hesitated.
“Well… Your Highness…”
Macaron looked at him,
telling him to continue.
“I believe… Young Master Kai was responsible.”
Macaron couldn’t speak for a moment.
He needed time to understand what he had just heard.
Even so,
Momont’s words alone couldn’t completely overturn everything Macaron had been thinking.
“Why would Kai…?!”
Watching the hesitant Momont,
Macaron quietly organized his thoughts.
It only took him a few minutes.
‘He still hasn’t accepted Calypse as his mother.’
‘But even so… Kai isn’t the kind of child who would poison someone.’
Macaron had watched Kai grow up.
That much,
he believed without question.
A heavy shadow covered his face.
“Are you saying Kai is the culprit?”
“Miss Coral told us.”
“But that isn’t the only reason.”
“We also found it written in the formula Young Master Kai prepared.”
Macaron’s face darkened.
“You’re saying… Kai made poison?”
His voice shook slightly.
He had always thought Kai was a mischievous child,
much like himself when he was young.
But never…
someone who could kill.
As Macaron hurriedly drank a glass of water,
Momont finally confessed.
“Well…”
“It wasn’t poison.”
“It was another kind of potion.”
Momont looked far more nervous than usual,
unsure how to explain it.
But Macaron was too serious to notice.
“Then what kind of potion was it?”
“It’s… an emotional potion.”
“It can make someone like another person…”
“Or hate another person.”
“I believe the one Your Highness drank… was the first type.”
Macaron let out a deep breath of relief.
Of course,
both were wrong.
But there was a huge difference
between deadly poison
and an emotional potion that would disappear after a few days.
“But why would Kai do something like that…?”
“It seems Young Master Kai has been following Miss Coral around.”
“At the Academy,
everyone knows about it.”
“They all call him Miss Coral’s ‘problem solver.'”
Macaron smiled,
finding it surprisingly interesting.
But another question,
one that only a parent would ask,
suddenly came to mind.
“What does Coral think?”
“Well…”
“It seems to be Young Master’s one-sided love.”
“…”
Taking Macaron’s silence as permission to continue,
Momont spoke again.
“There are many boys who follow Miss Coral.”
“Young Master is simply one of them.”
“But he’s by far the most active.”
“So everyone knows.”
Realizing he had probably said something wrong,
Momont quickly corrected himself.
“Of course,
Miss Coral also seems to care about Young Master.”
Fool.
Macaron swallowed the words he wanted to say.
Instead,
he remembered all the things Kai had done before.
Making one hundred paper flowers,
putting magic on them,
and almost blowing up the mansion.
And now…
this.
“Leave.”
“Your Highness, I…”
“Do you have anything else to report?”
Without even looking at Momont,
Macaron leaned back and closed his eyes.
“…No.”
How boring.
He was probably going to say something unnecessary again.
Macaron turned over,
facing the other side.
Only then
did he finally understand
why Momont had hesitated.
Strange memories suddenly flooded his mind.
‘What… is this?’
Fragments of memories poured into his head.
Most of them…
were so ridiculous
that he almost laughed.
‘My wife is so dazzling that I can’t open my eyes… Damn it!’
Every time another memory appeared,
Macaron buried his face deeper into the pile of documents.
Soon,
the papers were crushed,
torn apart,
and scattered all over the room.
Macaron couldn’t sleep at all that night.
By morning,
his eyes had turned dull with exhaustion.
‘Should I just pretend nothing happened?’
For the first time,
Macaron seriously considered avoiding Calypse
for at least a year.
Since their contract only lasted one year,
avoiding her entirely almost seemed like a good idea.
But…
Thinking about how Coral had been dragged into Kai’s mistake,
his conscience wouldn’t allow it.
He would rather look like a fool
than become someone shameless.
Macaron spent the entire day making an antidote.
It was the only way
to stop thinking.
Finally,
after finishing it,
he swallowed the antidote.
But once it was done,
his thoughts returned to Calypse.
Remembering the Calypse he had met before,
the fact that she still hadn’t made a move
only worried him more.
‘She must be… very angry.’
No one knew what he was thinking.
But he also felt guilty
for suspecting her first
when the potion incident happened.
Macaron walked straight toward the East Annex.
Unlike the cold West Annex,
the East Annex had a warm,
cozy atmosphere.
The elegant white walls
were decorated with several framed portraits.
They looked as though Calypse had painted them herself.
He already knew she was skilled with her hands.
But he never imagined
she was this talented at painting.
Every portrait before him
was beautiful enough to leave anyone speechless.
Just then—
Click.
The door opened,
and Calypse appeared.
“What brings you here?”
Her cat-like eyes curved upward.
One corner of her lips lifted into a smile.
Her eyes looked at him
as though he were an insect.
She looked very angry.
Seeing her like that,
all of yesterday’s embarrassing memories came rushing back.
Standing there with her arms crossed,
she almost looked like she was laughing at him.
“I apologize for what happened yesterday.”
Calypse looked at him strangely,
standing one step above him on the stairs.
“Are you feeling better now?”
It was a perfectly normal question.
Yet,
for some reason,
Macaron felt like she was teasing him.
On the way here,
he had thought about many things.
‘Should I pretend I don’t remember?’
‘If I act like yesterday never happened…’
Hiding his awkward feelings,
Macaron quietly clenched his fist.
“I’m feeling better now.”
At that moment,
a look of disappointment flashed across Calypse’s eyes.
