“I understand now why you asked for divorce the moment you first saw me. At that time, I wondered why someone who had just gotten married would so hastily ask for divorce.”

Karina’s choice that day might have been right. Though she demanded divorce out of anger at a husband who cheated on their wedding night, looking back now, her choice to leave the palace was wise.

“That’s because I had already experienced three years.”

Aidan stared at her, puzzled by her response.

“Aidan, just as you came from another world and woke up in that body, I returned to this time from three years in the future.”

It took a moment for his brain to process the meaning of her calm voice.

“You… regressed?”

When he asked incredulously, Karina nodded.

My god. He felt dumbfounded that such an impossible thing had happened to Karina too, as if one person wasn’t enough. Yet he had no reason to disbelieve her. His own existence proved that logically inexplicable things could happen.

“I wondered why you believed me so easily.”

“I never believed easily. I thought Your Highness might be crazy.”

“You could have been more suspicious, but you weren’t.”

“That’s because you were so different from the ‘Aidan’ I knew, who had been my husband for three years.”

Now he understood Karina’s behavior. She could have been more suspicious and treated him more like a madman, but she didn’t. Sometimes she acted as if she knew everything, which seemed strange, but it made sense if she had regressed with three years of memories. Finding Aidan’s safe, bringing the sword he received from the Emperor at the knights’ tournament, noticing first that Emily, a maid working in Aidan’s palace, had disappeared — all were possible because she had regressed.

There were probably more things he hadn’t noticed.

“Are you angry that I deceived you?”

Karina asked. Though her tone was calm, he saw her eyes trembling slightly. She was clearly revealing a truth she had never told anyone for the first time.

“You never deceived me. You just didn’t tell. Everyone has things they don’t want to talk about.”

After answering that far, Aidan frowned at a sudden thought.

“But you spent three years with ‘Aidan’? Don’t tell me you even consummated the marriage?”

At Aidan’s question, Karina let out a breath of disbelief.

“Is that important?”

“Of course.”

He frowned instead of voicing his thought that he didn’t like the idea of losing to another man, even if it was this body.

He was aware it was childish to say out loud.

Karina sighed heavily and shook her head.

“Never, not once. Unfortunately, that ‘Aidan’ had several lovers besides Kate and showed no interest in me.”

“Really?”

Aidan’s face brightened automatically, feeling relieved. Karina almost laughed. She never expected him to react so oddly to her regression. It made all her worrying about telling anyone seem futile.

“Do you know why I panicked when Kate Spencer said she was pregnant?”

Aidan tilted his head at Karina’s question.

“Originally, Kate Spencer was ‘Aidan’s’ lover from our wedding night, and she continued to stay by his side afterward. She was ‘Aidan’s’ longest-standing lover. Eventually, after three years, she became pregnant with his child.”

“Ah. So that’s why. When Kate said she was pregnant, you naturally thought it would be my child.”

“Though the timing was different, it had already happened once. He even asked me to accept that child as mine.”

Aidan swallowed a rising sigh. He couldn’t understand what kind of bastard the original ‘Aidan’ was to ask his legal wife to accept a child he had with his mistress. He barely held back from saying that such bastards give all men a bad name.

“Don’t tell me you accepted?”

He thought Karina, as the prince’s consort, might have accepted even a lover’s child if there were proper justification and reasons. That made him angrier. He wondered why she would try so hard to maintain her position as prince’s consort for such a bastard.

“Of course not.”

Fortunately, Karina answered firmly.

“But somehow things got twisted — House Hewitt and I were accused of trying to make Aidan Emperor using that child, and since His Majesty was still alive, it was considered treason. It was probably the Empress and Lloyd’s doing. In the end, I refused Lloyd’s final offer to become his lover and died by his sword cutting my neck. When I opened my eyes, for some reason, I had returned to three years ago, to now.”

As calmly as Karina spoke, Aidan’s eyes widened. Killed by Lloyd? No wonder Karina’s gaze toward Lloyd seemed quite cold. He found it strange how much she disliked both ‘Aidan’ and Lloyd despite saying she had only met them a few times before entering the palace.

“No wonder you found him horrifying, since he killed you.”

“And you asked me if I would meet him after divorce.”

Aidan smiled awkwardly at her sighing criticism. How could he have known such a story? It was unimaginable under normal circumstances.

“So that’s why. Why you asked for divorce right after waking up.”

It wasn’t simply because ‘Aidan’ had cheated on their wedding night. Come to think of it, after getting to know her personality, she wouldn’t have thrown away a politically-arranged marriage just because her partner cheated.

“It must have been terrible when I said I couldn’t grant the divorce.”

Having just experienced death, she probably didn’t want to stay in the palace for even a minute longer. She must have wanted to overturn everything and leave the palace immediately, yet somehow she had agreed to his proposal.

“I swore over and over that I would divorce no matter what, that this time I would definitely escape the palace and live quietly without any connection to the imperial family.”

Understanding her feelings, he didn’t know what to say.

“What shook me up was you, Aidan.”

Karina’s gaze fixed directly on Aidan.

“You became a variable that made me postpone the divorce, and I started hoping things might flow differently from before. Because you were so different from the previous ‘Aidan.’ You drew a clear line with Kate Spencer, who was directly connected to my death, and even showed excellence at the knights’ tournament, which I never expected.”

Her tone revealed how low her expectations of ‘Aidan’ had been. While he might have done well, ‘Aidan’ might have been such a mess that his achievements seemed greater in comparison.

“Above all…”

Karina paused briefly to catch her breath. Her eyes, fixed on Aidan, wavered uncertainly about what she wanted to say.

“‘Aidan’ didn’t like me.”

Her voice grew increasingly quiet over those words. Someone who had calmly told more shocking stories just moments ago showed the opposite reaction just mentioning the word ‘like.’

This gap had only seemed cute before…

Now he understood. Karina was simply unfamiliar and awkward with the emotion of ‘liking’ itself. Despite being married for three years, she had clearly never heard words of affection or experienced consideration from her partner.

“It’s a strange feeling.”

“……?”

“I’m relieved you weren’t properly married to that bastard, but it also makes me somewhat angry.”

“I don’t understand what you’re saying.”

“I mean, how blind must he have been not to recognize such a good woman and instead be swayed by someone like Kate Spencer?”

Karina, who had been staring blankly at Aidan, burst into laughter. Once she started laughing, she seemed unable to stop easily, alternating between trying to hold back her laughter and her lips twitching at the corners.

“What’s so funny? I’m angry.”

“It’s funny that you’re getting angry on my behalf.”

A much more comfortable smile spread across Karina’s face than before.

“You’re right. I should have gotten angry. Things might have been different if I had.”

She referred to the three years she had experienced, not the present.

“That also annoys me.”

“Why now?”

“If things had been different, you would have gotten along well with ‘Aidan.’ I don’t like that.”

Karina stared at him in disbelief at his unreasonable complaint before letting out a laugh and approaching right in front of Aidan.

“We don’t need hypotheticals about things that didn’t happen. There’s no need to feel bad either.”

Karina took Aidan’s hand first. Come to think of it, this seemed like the first time she had initiated physical contact.

“I told you. You were my variable.”

She looked up at Aidan with a beautiful smile. It was the most beautiful smile he had seen so far.

“You don’t have the right to demand divorce. Take responsibility for making me abandon my resolve to cut ties with the palace.”

Aidan’s face reflected in her blue eyes. That face, once unfamiliar, had become quite familiar now just because it was captured in her eyes.

“The responsibility I’m thinking of might be different from what you’re thinking…”

At his soft whisper, Karina smiled and nodded.

“After experiencing your way, I found it’s not so bad.”

Aidan’s right hand cupped her face as she looked up at him. Karina leaned her cheek into his hand without resistance. As she gently closed her eyes while watching Aidan’s face slowly lean in, warm softness settled on her lips.

*