To Meet My Lovely You – Chapter 2
“The flower of romance is the male lead!”
Cordelia dramatically flopped onto the table as if to collapse from frustration when a clear, bright voice rang in her ears.
“Wow! It’s the author!”
Startled, Cordelia straightened up immediately and turned toward the door. A girl who looked about ten peeked her head in through the doorway and then skipped into the room.
It was Rosetta Luther, the only daughter of Mason Luther.
“Author-nim, are you doing that again?”
“Again? I’m being serious, Rosetta.”
Unlike the tone she used with Luther, Cordelia’s voice was very sweet when speaking to Rosetta. Despite the blatant difference in treatment, Luther merely shook his head in resignation. Tilting her head, Rosetta spoke brightly again.
“But Author-nim, you said the exact same thing a few months ago when you were rushing to meet a deadline.”
“Ahem. Did I?”
Cordelia gave an awkward cough. The dilemma of finding a perfect male lead was her perennial problem at every deadline. Understandable, considering how incredibly high her standards were for men.
Since such men didn’t exist in reality—or if they did, they belonged to someone else—Cordelia was adamant that at least the fantasy version had to be perfect. And Luther’s job was to humor her through these declarations.
Life is truly hard, he thought suddenly.
“Maybe I should just retire.”
“Please calm down.”
To soothe her dramatic mood swings, Luther placed the cake he had brought in front of her. Cordelia’s fork swiftly sliced through the air toward the apricot tart with its dense cheese base.
“Mmm, delicious! Luther, you really are good at cooking.”
“Thank you.”
Thinking once again how exhausting it was to be both an editor and a publisher, Luther passed a plate of tart to his daughter as well.
Despite her theatrics, Cordelia was one of the more diligent authors with relatively few troublesome quirks.
Most nobles would never bother to meet commoners face-to-face.
Unlike other noble-born authors who simply sent their manuscripts via servants, Cordelia sometimes dropped by the office out of boredom—and overwhelmed by her sociability, Luther had somehow kept this up for over ten years.
“What about borrowing magic as a theme? Didn’t you say you know a priest?”
Regardless of era, mystical powers always drew attention. Although all magic users were monopolized by the temple, and actually witnessing magic was usually limited to temple-hosted events.
Explaining this would require a dive into the kingdom’s founding history. Their home, the Kingdom of Kreitz, dated back roughly a thousand years.
In the founding legend appeared the first king, Kardian Linaen, and three meritorious retainers who helped him establish the kingdom. Two of them received ducal titles, but the remaining one made a quiet request to the king:
“There is no sin in power. Only in how it is wielded.”
As a devout follower of the main deity, Felicie, and the only mage among the three, he pitied those persecuted for practicing what was then considered vile sorcery. Negotiating with the royal family, he founded the temple and made an agreement to take full responsibility for all matters related to magic.
That man was none other than Abyss Hellas Sandria, the first High Priest of the temple.
Thus, while not all priests were mages, all mages had to belong to the temple without exception. Although a legal revision two years ago changed this obligation to an option for newly awakened mages, it would take years for that change to make an impact.
Therefore, for ordinary people, magic was as foreign as the nobility itself.
Just an “oh, so it exists” kind of thing.
Unless they got dragged into some incident, even nobles rarely encountered magic in their lifetime. The temple’s strict control of information made it nearly impossible for outsiders to learn anything about it.
Of course, the temple wasn’t completely inflexible, so they wouldn’t suddenly arrest someone just for mentioning magic in a novel. Still, Cordelia shook her head indifferently.
“No. They don’t know I’m an author, and I have zero intention of telling them. Even if they did know, they’d probably lecture me for three hours about how magic isn’t something you use for convenience.”
“That does make it difficult.”
“And anyway, the real problem isn’t the theme—it’s the male lead.”
She was agonizing over it longer than usual. Luther had a guess why, but instead he asked another question first.
“Is it because the response to Letters of Gray Dorian wasn’t great? It was your only sad ending, after all.”
Letters of Gray Dorian was Cordelia’s most recent work.
It was an epistolary novel about a man who loved a noblewoman as beautiful as a rose, writing her a letter every month even after she married another man.
Sales weren’t much different from her previous book, but the publisher received many letters saying the ending was disappointing.
Cordelia shook her head firmly.
“No, I’m satisfied with the ending. A happy ending just didn’t feel right.”
Though cloaked in beautiful prose, it was ultimately a creepy act—obsessively observing someone else’s private life—so she never even considered making them end up together.
Because she had experienced something similar herself. And they weren’t even dating.
So, there was no other choice. It’s not like she could actually kill the guy in real life.
Killing off the male lead in the story had felt so cathartic!
Unlike her usual cheerful and lively disposition, Cordelia was ruthlessly thorough when it came to her writing.
Especially in shamelessly milking the people around her for material—though she always made sure to disguise it well.
“Ah, but seriously, I can’t think of anything. What makes a man attractive? What is that, even?”
Perhaps her frustration had built up because Cordelia frowned and began folding her fingers one by one.
“If he’s polite and not clingy, then people say he lacks passion. If he’s too passionate, they call him scary. If he’s kind to everyone, they say he’s untrustworthy, but if he’s rude, then I don’t like him!”
“Didn’t you use to like those types before?”
“Reality ruins everything. It’s too exhausting to deal with. Especially men who try to control my every move—ugh, the worst.”
Fiction was supposed to give people fantasies they couldn’t find in real life, but real-life struggles had a way of shattering even those fantasies. For a writer, that was especially fatal.
“So, who did you break up with this time?”
From experience, Luther knew that Cordelia’s outbursts often tied back to her dating life. Cordelia muttered slowly, sounding weary.
“He was handsome, though…”
“So, the personality was the problem again.”
As Luther smoothly followed up, Cordelia’s eyes suddenly lit up.
“Exactly!”
She grabbed Luther’s arm as he tried to clear the plate and chattered animatedly.
“Listen to me, Luther. He seemed so polite and neat at first, so I dated him for a few months. But as time went on, he started hovering around me to the point it was suffocating.”
He would interfere in her every move, grab her wrist or pull her into his arms without permission. Where had that courteous man gone?
She let it slide at first—maybe that was what lovers did—but the reason for their breakup was always the same.
“I told him I didn’t want to talk about us in public, but he was obsessed with showing off. And then he kept interrogating me about why I talked to Liam. What could possibly be going on between me and someone I see once or twice a year?”
The guy’s married, for heaven’s sake!
Cordelia shouted in frustration, recalling her friend with an annoyingly perfect face. Ever since his marriage, his smile had bloomed like a flower, and when she asked how he’d been, all he did was gush about his family. The last thing she wanted was to be tangled up in rumors with a man like that.
“Another great deed by His Grace, Duke Gracia.”
“I just don’t get it. Why does everyone latch onto Liam? Every guy I date thinks I’m having an affair with a married man! Why?!”
Even after seven years of marriage, Liam’s grin never faded. Every time she saw him, Cordelia mimed scratching her arms in irritation.
Honestly, it was creepy. Was this how it felt to watch an immature little brother pretend to be all grown up? Of course, if Liam heard that, he’d point out he was two years older than her.
“Well, a lot of men have mistresses, after all.”
When Luther hinted at the prevalence of extramarital affairs, Cordelia pouted.
“Even so! Why should it matter who I talk to? Am I supposed to throw away a friendship of over ten years just because I’m dating someone?”
She’d never done anything suspicious. All she ever did was listen to that guy’s endless bragging about his wife and kids—and sometimes scold him to tone it down.
How did that translate into something shady?
She had hoped Eddie would be different, but in the end, his nitpicking was no better than any other man’s. At first, she tried to soothe him, insisting it was a misunderstanding, but he kept crossing the line, claiming Liam had feelings for her.
Finally, she lost patience.
“How long are you going to keep this up? Eddie, I hate this atmosphere. I said it’s not true, so can we drop it here, okay?”
“Even if you don’t feel that way, you can’t know what he thinks. You’re too noble to imagine what goes on in men’s heads.”
“That’s just your assumption! Stop insulting a man who adores his wife, will you? You’re out of line.”
She hadn’t said delusional, which was her last shred of restraint. Eddie had sighed deeply, as if looking at a naïve child, which only made her angrier.
I’ve been in this world for years, and you think you can lecture me?
“I’m serious, Cordelia. Unless you promise never to see him again, I can’t back down.”
As if he had no close female friends himself—laughable. Cordelia let out a bitter laugh.
“Really? Then let’s break up.”
Without hesitation, she said it and walked away, leaving him stunned. When he tried to stop her, asking if friendship mattered more than love, Cordelia sighed just as he had and replied bluntly:
“It’s not that friendship matters more, but it matters more than a man who can’t understand me. Maybe I’ve grown up, but I can’t be attracted to someone so self-centered. Thanks for everything. Take care.”
She had liked him quite a bit, but no was no.
Cordelia was as decisive in endings as she was fiery in temperament. People said she resembled her mother from head to toe, but what she inherited from her father, the duke, was her drinking capacity and her resolute nature.
Besides, the moment you gave in to such unreasonable demands, they would only keep growing. Memories of her reckless younger days still made her shiver.
And she couldn’t consult Liam or anyone else—too embarrassing to admit she’d dated such an idiot. So here she was, venting again.
“But you know what? When I talk to others, I realize I’m not the only one meeting guys like this. So what’s the problem? Honestly, someone like you would be perfect, Luther. Want to be my son-in-law?”
“I must respectfully decline.”
Even knowing it was a joke, Luther broke into a cold sweat as he declined without a shred of hesitation. No worker wanted to get entangled with their boss beyond business.
“Aaah, isn’t there some man out there who’s insanely handsome, has a great body, is kind, sharp, polite, and only good to me…?”
