Living as the Villainess Stepmother

Chapter 173 - A Blond Parrot (1)

"Your highness, what brought you here...?" asked Lila, shoving the nervousness away.

"That's a stupid question. You should know by now that there's no place on earth I can't go. Why are you acting so weird these days?"

Lila slightly frowned at his rude tone. What's wrong with him?

Enrique was giving off a completely different vibe from when they met a while ago. Why is he suddenly treating me with such a cold attitude when the only thing different here is that I don't have Lacias by my side?

She felt dull after taking so long to put two and two together. So he sees me as nothing without Lacias.

Enrique would still call her by weird nicknames like 'cat'. Where is this sudden confidence coming from? Even with her newfound position his arrogant aura still remained around her, did he still believe that she would obey him like she did in the past?

"Do you have anything to tell me?" She asks after a moment of silence.

"Of course, I've got a lot of things to tell you. Do you know how long I had to wait to meet you?"

"Well, I don't know?"

Enrique burst out laughing as if he had not expected such an answer.

What does he even want me to do? And how am I supposed to know?

Of course, Lila knew that she could have just made an agreeable response. But for some reason, she didn't want to curry favor with a man with such an arrogant attitude. A spark ignited between them.

"I thought you would follow me because from the way you were looking at me it seemed you were gonna die from curiosity."

"I wasn't really interested."

Enriques grin only grew wider. "You wouldn't have been able to say that if you could see your own face. Your eyes were wide open like a startled puppy."

"Well. Even if I was curious, I wouldn't have done something the duke didn't like. I have no reason to go against him."

"Does that mean you can still go against me?" he asked mockingly.

"It would be really nice if you could take my words as a request for mutual respect." Suggested Lila, completely ignoring his last question.

Erique grew slightly more stern at Lila's ridicule. She was too stubborn to step back, but it was a bit iffy to say her tone was impolite, so he couldn't point that out. This seemed to have angered the emperor even more.

"Duke Wipere will return soon." Mentioned Lila very calmly. "If you have anything to tell me, I suggest you keep it short and concise."

The comment she made almost came out as a threat, but Enrique knew there was some truth to it. Still he had to keep his pride.

"It doesn't matter if the duke returns. Did you forget that I'm of higher status? Even if he returns, he's the one who'll have to wait until I finish."

"Aha, is that so?"

This man only speaks confidently when Lacias is not around. Does a cat catch his tongue every time they're together? How funny. Lila sneered.

"Then can you please get straight to the point?" She asked, adding a hint of impatience to her tone.

"Why didn't you accept my offer?"

Lila couldn't understand what he meant by an 'offer', but she soon remembered.

He must be talking about the words he whispered to me in the hall.

"If your highness wants to make an offer, shouldn't you invite me through a formal process? The listener will not pay much attention to the words you spit out as you pass by."

Seeing Lila answering with a cold face, Enrique becomes distorted with anger. He must have gotten very annoyed since he realized that nothing was going his way. The more he talked with Lila, the more furious he got.

"You better stop provoking me and behave yourself. Never forget that your past is not going to change just because you became the wife of Duke Wipere."

"Hm...." She was not the real Lila Marshmell, so she knew nothing about their past together.

I wonder how serious her past was since he has been threatening me with that.

Although they were two different souls, she was in the body of Lila Marshmell. She was curious about the relationship between the former Madam Marshmell and Enrique. Still, she pretended she was not because Lila had no thought of letting Enrique look down on her.

I have to pretend and react like I know what he's talking about. She decided to keep her words vague as to not give away her ignorance.

"The past is the past. If you continue to dwell on it, you can never move forward. Do I really need to tell these things to the emperor? I thought this was something you knew already."

"Do you think you can erase what happened with just those words? I think you're being too optimistic. Don't think everything is going to go your way just because your remarriage to Duke Wipere was easy."

"I never said that I want to erase my past. All I said was that I didn't want to dwell on it." Corrected Lila.

"Looks like you want to joke with me. I would've accepted it under normal circumstances, but unfortunately, this is not the case today."

Enrique widened his fierce eyes as if warning her to end the attitude. He was trying to press her down with an intimidating look, but Lila wasn't affected at all.