113. The Other Side of Love and Hate
“Tia, what is this suddenly……”
Nikolai stepped back, covering his lips with the back of his hand.
The surface of his lips that had touched his wife’s felt burning hot.
Whether it was the heat from the kiss spreading throughout his body, even his ears and nape were flushed red.
Katya couldn’t help but burst into laughter at how cute her husband looked with his startled rabbit eyes and face burning bright red.
“How can you laugh right now?”
“You say you’ve never loved me even once while acting like this.”
“What?”
“If you’re going to act, do it properly until the end. It’s too obvious. When you’re clearly dying to have me.”
“Ha……”
Nikolai let out a hollow laugh, at a loss for words thanks to his wife who spoke only straightforward truths.
His wife was a clever, witty, and wise woman.
Among all the people he knew, regardless of gender, she was the best in that regard.
As expected, trying to deceive her was impossible.
He felt pathetic for getting caught like this even after making the difficult decision to push her away for her own good.
They say you can’t hide a sneeze or love, don’t they?
Nikolai realized there was no point in continuing with lies that she didn’t believe anyway.
He should have been honest from the start and tried to convince her.
“You’re right. Even at this very moment, I’m dying to have you. I really don’t know anymore how not to love you.”
He finally became honest.
Katya felt her nose stinging.
When she had run down the stairs after receiving an unexpected rejection from him, everything felt hopeless.
No, even just moments ago when she had surprised him with a kiss, it had taken her a lot of courage.
Though she knew his reason for pushing her away was because of the prophecy, she couldn’t think of any way to convince him who believed it was fate.
So she had recklessly confronted him to make him be honest about his feelings.
“I love you. So much that just imagining a day without you is painful. I’m someone who doesn’t fear death, yet you keep making me afraid.”
She felt the same way.
Until the moment she stood on her tiptoes, she had been afraid of being rejected again.
She finally understood how painful it was to be rejected by someone you love.
How had Nikolai been quietly enduring this difficult, frightening, and anxious process of courtship all this time?
“Then let’s get married. We can become a real family and stay glued to each other’s side forever.”
“There’s another reason why I can’t be your husband.”
“What is it?”
She pretended not to know even though she already did.
Because she wanted him to confide everything to her.
Isn’t that what real spouses do?
Someone who shares not just life’s true joys but also the burdens one has been carrying alone all their life.
She wanted to be that person for Nikolai.
His eyes turned red as he looked down at his wife.
The prophecy meant that he could become a madman like his father at any time.
It was incomparable to mere rumors of being a tyrant.
Who would accept as a husband a man who could kill his own child?
‘Could Tia love even someone like me?’
It would be natural for her to reject him.
Maybe that’s why he had been hiding it until now.
He always wanted to be a good man for her.
He wanted to be someone she could lean on anytime, anywhere.
“Actually, I……”
At that moment, Katya suddenly interlocked their fingers and gently rested her head against his arm.
Startled by her continued skinship, Nikolai called her name in a low voice.
“Tia.”
“The Prince and Her Highness are watching us.”
At those words, Nikolai turned his head back.
He could see Norbert and Klavdia, who had been talking while watching them from inside, awkwardly smiling and waving as if caught off guard.
They seemed flustered after being caught secretly observing.
“Smile, smile.”
Katya spoke through her teeth while clenching her molars.
Like a puppet, Nikolai lifted the corners of his mouth following his wife’s words.
A similar scene was unfolding inside across the window.
“Smile, Ladia.”
“I’m smiling my best.”
After brightly smiling toward the couple on the balcony, the two turned back to the table, their faces becoming stern.
In truth, there hadn’t been much conversation between them until now.
Norbert placed his teacup on the saucer after noticing Klavdia’s discomfort.
She finally lifted her gaze that had been fixed on the tablecloth.
“Now you look at me.”
A faint smile appeared at the corner of his mouth.
Klavdia couldn’t tell if it was a sneer or a genuine smile of happiness.
“If we have nothing to discuss, may I take my leave?”
“I’ve been wondering—”
“……”
“Are you angry with me?”
There was no answer.
Norbert realized that meant yes.
“I really don’t understand why you’re angry with me.”
“What did you say?”
“Shouldn’t I be the angry one?”
His voice turned ice cold.
He was angry too.
Due to the sudden and one-sided breakup, he had first denied reality, then fell into depression, and later became angry.
The fiery anger that had consumed him gradually turned cold as time passed.
Anger toward someone you don’t care about eventually fades.
Even if it was someone you loved, when hatred grows stronger, the anger burning in your heart turns to ash and scatters.
Even the emotion of love finally disappears without a trace.
But his feelings for Klavdia were divided between love and hatred fiercely fighting for space in his heart.
The former love sitting before him was an object of intense love and hate.
Though he had tried endlessly to forget, she was someone he could never forget.
“You’re angry with me, Your Highness?”
At those words, Klavdia let out a scornful laugh.
“The delegation is just an excuse. I, who hate long-distance travel, deliberately found a reason to come all this way…… for you. I came to see you.”
Her heart that had been storming settled.
“……Why?”
“I had something I wanted to ask.”
“What did you want to ask?”
“Why did you do that to me back then?”
That was what she wanted to ask instead.
Klavdia bit her lip just as she was about to angrily demand answers.
Thirteen years had passed.
Getting angry, demanding answers, and fighting should have happened back then.
Everything was pointless now.
It was too late to turn back time.
“What good would it do to bring up the past now? We’ve both lived well until now, so let the past stay in the past.”
“Are we really just the past?”
“What else?”
“Be more honest.”
“What exactly do you want to hear?”
“Tell me you haven’t forgotten me. Tell me that’s why you still haven’t married.”
Seeing her eyes waver, Norbert pressed on persistently.
“You still love me.”
“Your Highness!”
“If you were going to leave me completely, you shouldn’t have met a sickly man who would die before you.”
Thirteen years ago, after breaking up with Norbert, Klavdia got engaged to a nobleman from Hersen.
But one day before the wedding, her fiancé succumbed to the plague.
News of the Princess’s cancelled marriage reached even the Charmente Empire.
Norbert naturally knew about it too.
Since then, she remained unmarried even now well past marriageable age.
“You were waiting for me. Waiting for me to come back and tell you I still can’t forget you and that I love you.”
“That’s just what Your Highness wants to believe.”
“Tell me if I’m wrong.”
“It’s true I haven’t married until now, but that’s just because I haven’t met the right person. The news seems to have been slow reaching Charmente.”
“What news?”
“I’m getting married soon.”
Norbert was struck speechless at the bolt from the blue.
News of Klavdia’s marriage had not yet spread outside the Grand Duchy of Hersen.
For some urgent reason, the Grand Ducal family, or more precisely Oksana, had rushed her stepdaughter’s wedding preparations and quickly set a date.
“What…… do you mean?”
“It means exactly what I said. I’m marrying Duke Klebov of Hersen. Fortunately, unlike my previous fiancé, he’s not sickly, and unlike those days, hygiene has improved so there hasn’t been a plague outbreak in quite a while.”
“Don’t lie to push me away.”
“When Your Highness is right here in the Hersen palace, not in the Empire, why would I tell a lie that you’ll find out about anyway?”
“……You’re really going through with this marriage?”
Norbert shot up from his seat with a shocked expression.
As he leaned on the table and met his former lover’s eyes up close, she didn’t avoid his gaze but looked straight back at him.
Just then, a servant’s voice was heard from the corridor.
“Her Highness the former Grand Duchess enters.”
The door swung open and Oksana walked in.
“Oh my, I apologize for being late. It’s been a while.”
Though she smiled casually, inside, she was going crazy.
She felt anxious not knowing how much the two had discussed.
Klavdia and Norbert must never be together.
The current Emperor of Charmente had no sons. So Norbert was currently first in line for the throne.
Oksana’s power base included nobles who supported the late Grand Duchess Yevgenia and her children Ruslan and Klavdia.
So the situation was already precarious with the possibility of Klavdia’s supporters breaking away.
If Klavdia were to marry the Prince of Charmente and become Grand Duchess, her chances of becoming Grand Duchess of Hersen would increase too.
Mikhail would just become a figurehead.
