GIF 1

Chapter 1

Click, clack.

High heels struck the smooth marble floor sharply, producing sound. The woman in white heels had a face so beautiful that ten out of ten passersby would turn to look.

Ruby-red eyes that sparkled in the sunlight, white-blonde hair as thin and airy as a thread of silk. A delicate-looking chin and sorrowfully downturned eye corners. And eyelashes that fluttered like bird feathers.

Behind her, a man who appeared to be a hotel employee was following with an uneasy face.

“Ha…….”

Unlike the vigor with which she had struck the marble floor, she stood before the hotel room door and let out a trembling breath. Her slightly lowered eyelashes quivered. She raised her hand, then as if she truly could not bring herself to do it, brought it to her chest and clenched it into a fist.

Her eyes, as if imagining the scene that would unfold when she opened this door, were soon hidden by her quivering eyelids. Because the hotel corridor was quiet, the sounds flowing from inside the room tickled her ears faintly.

“Ahh, Jeice…….”

“Roena, you. Truly…….”

They were voices so passionate that the hot breath of the man and woman could be felt as it was. It was clear they were devouring each other, unaware of who stood outside the door. Her closed eyelids flew wide open, revealing ruby eyes filled with shock.

She bit down hard on her lower lip with a face that looked about to burst into tears at any moment, and spoke to the hotel employee who had followed her in a watery voice.

“P-please, open the door…….”

The hotel employee looked at her with a pitiful face, took a key from his waist, and with a click, unlocked the room door. The moment the lock was released, she flung the door wide open in one motion.

Bang!

The door slammed against the wall with a loud noise, and the two men and women tangled on the bed turned to look at the doorway with startled faces. The naked woman and half-naked man saw the woman standing in the doorway and went pale, their lips moving soundlessly.

“You, how are you…….”

The white-blonde woman choked out in a trembling voice.

Jeice, that is.

“W-wife! I mean, this is……!”

Her husband scrambled to straighten his clothes and rose from the bed. But that did not mean he could hide the scene of infidelity.

The hundred roses placed on the table told how deep their passion was, and the sweet scent faintly lingering in the room seemed to tell how ripe their feelings were.

“Hnngh……!”

Tears finally spilled from her ruby eyes, and as if she could no longer bear to look at the scene, she turned and began to run.

“Wife……!”

Jeice’s voice came from behind, but she did not stop. Jeice, who had not yet managed to pull up his trousers, tumbled over with a crash, and the woman fled the corridor faster than anyone, racing down the stairs.

“How could you do this to me……!”

Tears rolled down her white cheeks. At her outcry, the other guests of the hotel looked at her. And everyone wore a pitiful face, as if to say it was understandable.

“Hnngh, sob…….”

With a face smeared with tears, she headed for the desk in the hotel lobby. And dabbing at her tears with a handkerchief she had produced at some point, she spoke to the employee in a sobbing voice.

“……Please give me the reservation card for Room 706.”

“Yes, Madam Verdandi.”

The hotel employee held out the reservation card with the most pitiful expression. A reservation card was something used in the Empire Hotel, a paper on which was written whose name the room had been reserved under.

“Please stay strong this time too…….”

The reservation card was personal information that even hotel employees could not look at carelessly, but between husband and wife it was different.

If a husband had reserved a hotel under his own name, this could be used in court as evidence of the husband’s infidelity.

The hotel employee knew this well, and so handed it over obediently.

She did not even think to wipe the tears streaming down her face any longer, and clutching the card, she ran out of the hotel. The employee watched her leave the hotel and glanced sideways at the stairs.

Her husband seemed to have no intention of following her out, for all was quiet. Or rather, in a situation like this, showing his face would be awkward.

“How many times is this now?”

“……The fourth.”

The hotel employees murmured. Hotel employees—no. In this Empire, her name was very famous. In a very bad way.

A beautiful face, a gentle heart, but for some reason, rock-bottom luck with husbands. This was already the fourth time the man who became her husband had cheated, which meant, that is.

“Madam…… no. Lady Iris, you will be getting your fourth divorce.”

“At this rate, the god of love must surely hate that woman.”

The hotel employees’ chattering grew distant. With a face smeared with tears, she climbed into the carriage. The carriage set off quickly, as if it knew her feelings.

Thump, thump, thump!

The verdict pronounced in the court was obvious. The spouse at fault was Jeice Verdandi. Indisputable infidelity! An affair! The judge’s gavel unhesitatingly ruled in Iris’s favor, and.

“Jeice Verdandi is ordered to pay his former spouse, Iris Verdandi, one hundred million gold in alimony.”

She had obtained what she wanted.

“Wife! Please, just give me one more chance!”

“Now, now, you mustn’t do that. Please leave the court!”

Jeice Verdandi shouted at Iris’s retreating back, but was restrained by the court guards. Iris left the courtroom with a sorrowful face wet with tears.

Click, clack.

Her steps, though feeble, continued straight. And when the people along the road gradually disappeared and she was left alone.

Tak, tadak. Tak.

She began to walk briskly. She walked as if dancing in the sunlight.

She had merely often created opportunities for her husband and the baroness she had recently grown close to, to be together, ‘under the guise of coincidence.’

Learning that the two shared the same hobby, yielding the opera tickets she had been supposed to attend with herself was merely ‘goodwill,’ and sending red roses to the baroness in her husband’s name was merely a bit of mischief.

“In the end, the two who fell for each other were those two lovebirds, weren’t they?”

The two, who had grown close without anyone drawing a line, headed to the hotel without a moment’s hesitation upon receiving the letter containing the hotel room key addressed to each of them. And they fell for each other, and their bodies matched as well.

The hundred roses prepared in the room, the faintly scented candles tickling the nose. That scent, that atmosphere, must have lulled them into an even sweeter dream.

And then, ta-da, what appeared was Iris. It was her.

She climbed into the carriage that had been waiting a little way from the courthouse. The carriage, with its curtains drawn, looked secretive.

“How did the verdict come out?”

Someone was already riding in that carriage. The man with red hair and sharp eyes had a large scar on his cheek, and his impression was not that of an ordinary back-alley thug.

She took from her bosom the card bearing the name of the hotel’s reservation holder and unfolded it. Yes, she had not submitted it to the court as evidence.

Because the name written on that card was.

<Iris Verdandi>

“How did it come out, indeed.”

Her tear-wet lips curved into a smile, as if they had never been distorted. Her beautiful face was, at some point, filled with mockery.

“It went according to plan, just like always.”

“You wicked woman.”

“Says the vicious little debt collector.”

She tore the card to shreds, flung it out of the carriage, and cackled loudly. Iris Verdandi—she was the ex-wife of Count Verdandi, having just divorced Count Jeice Verdandi, and.

“Less than I thought, but with this I can pay off half of what’s left of my debt.”

She was a professional divorcee on her fourth divorce.

If anyone were to learn the truth, they would point at her and call her the wicked woman of the century.

But no one knows, do they?

Hello? I’m Iris.

My specialty is divorce, and what I’m good at is ‘being cheated on.’