Greg gritted his teeth and quickened his pace through this minefield of well-meaning gazes, reassuring himself:
...Forget it. Since I chose this path myself, I'll just have to hold my nose and put up with it for now.
As long as I find a chance to explain things to Vivian in private later and tell her it was just a stopgap measure to help Lilith see reason, that should clear up all the misunderstandings, right?
That had been his plan, but he soon noticed a blind spot.
Explain? How was I supposed to explain?
Was I supposed to tell her outright, "Your Highness Vivian, I didn't say that to suck up to you. I was trying to stop you from being manipulated by the Demon King Cult in the future, becoming a villain, and dying horribly"?
Or should I say, "I pretended to be deeply in love to help you sisters get along and prevent a family tragedy"?
If I actually did that, she'd definitely think I was making excuses to hide my true feelings. It would only cement my image as a devoted lover.
After all, he was nothing more than an outsider right now. Why would he care so much about the relationship between these royal sisters, even going to such lengths to help?
Unless... he really did have special feelings for her, and his affection for her extended to her younger sister.
Damn it... this was a vicious logical circle!
No matter how I explained it, everything seemed to circle back to "He really does like me"!
The more Greg thought about it, the more his head hurt. The brilliant idea he had come up with that morning on a sudden flash of inspiration had left behind far more troublesome consequences than he had expected.
Anyway...
He