#5. Officially My Person

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Kate Spencer approached with her arms wide open. She was about to run straight into his arms. Before her fingertips could reach him, Aidan slightly turned his body to avoid her.

“Your Highness…”

She looked at Aidan with teary eyes after losing her intended destination.

“Isn’t this my palace?”

Despite his question, Kate didn’t understand at all. She just stared at Aidan with eyes that seemed to expect something.

“I asked why you’re in my palace.”

Even after changing the question to be more specific, she still just tilted her head. He belatedly swallowed a sigh at her response. Surely ‘Aidan’ had allowed her to come and go in this palace.

“I feel like I’ve said this several times. Our relationship is over now.”

He deliberately hardened his face and drew the line. Karina would be here soon, and he didn’t want to cause any unnecessary misunderstandings.

“I know. I understand why Your Highness said those words.”

“If you know, then leave quickly…”

“You were being mindful of the princess, weren’t you? I was thoughtless. When the other party is none other than the Hewitt ducal family… How difficult it must have been for you.”

Kate dabbed her tears with a handkerchief while talking nonsense. What nonsense is this? How could she arrive at such a conclusion? It was so absurd that he couldn’t even find words to respond.

“Was I too insensitive? I should have understood Your Highness’s feelings sooner. I’m sorry.”

She wasn’t insensitive at all. Just in the completely opposite direction of what she was thinking. He became too tired to explain. With his head throbbing, even continuing the conversation became exhausting, so he just turned away.

“Your Highness!”

Kate urgently grabbed Aidan’s arm.

“Let go!”

When he swung his arm to shake her off, Kate fell backward and landed on her bottom.

“Sob, Your Highness…”

She looked up at Aidan with tears welling up in her eyes. Her expression seemed to protest why he was treating her this way.

“Haa… You seem to be seriously misunderstanding something. I don’t know how it was before, but now I have absolutely no interest in you. So I hope there won’t be any more incidents like today.”

“I know. You’re deliberately being cold to me in front of the princess. I’ll be careful. I’ll be even more careful than now when coming to see Your Highness, so the princess won’t notice.”

Am I speaking the same language as her? As communication became completely impossible, irritation started to build.

“As long as the princess doesn’t know, it’s fine, right? I’m really okay with it. Even if I have to live as a hidden lover for life, as long as Your Highness stays by my side…!”

She was excitedly rambling on her own when suddenly her eyes widened and she shut her mouth. Her eyes seemed to be fixed on something behind him, so when he turned around, sure enough, Karina was standing there with Kai.

Karina lowered her gaze to look at Kate sitting on the floor. No emotion could be read from her perfectly expressionless face.

“Karina, this is…”

“Please stand up, Miss Spencer.”

Karina passed by Aidan and approached Kate. Watching her extend her hand to help up the shocked and frozen Kate, Aidan inwardly swallowed a gasp. He hadn’t expected her to be jealous, but could she be this calm? Even though this was a political marriage without love, and even though their souls had switched making them practically strangers, he was still officially her ‘husband’.

“Miss Spencer?”

When Kate couldn’t readily take the hand she offered, Karina called her again. Kate’s eyes darted back and forth between Aidan and Karina, unable to find their bearings. When she hesitantly and carefully took the hand, Karina helped her up.

“Thank you.”

Kate’s voice was barely audible. Just moments ago, she had been pleading that it would be fine as long as Karina didn’t find out, but being caught immediately after those words, she didn’t know what to do.

Aidan watched the two without saying anything. It would have been easy to explain at this point that this wasn’t a meeting he wanted, that she had already been here, but he deliberately didn’t. Karina already knew about the soul switch and thus that he had no interest whatsoever in Kate Spencer. Making elaborate excuses would have been more ridiculous.

“Miss Spencer.”

It was Karina who broke the suffocating silence between the three.

“Yes?”

Kate’s voice jumped nervously in response.

“Do you think you can handle me and the Hewitt ducal family?”

“……?”

Not understanding Karina’s question at all, Kate just blinked stupidly.

“I believe I warned you clearly the last time we met in front of His Highness’s bedroom. About how rude you were being.”

Karina’s voice wasn’t agitated in the slightest. She was simply conveying her intentions clearly in her usual calm and measured tone. That made it sound even colder.

“I didn’t know you were foolish enough to need it explained more clearly. I am warning you not to have private meetings with ‘my man’, even at times and places where I can’t see you.”

Aidan’s facial muscles twitched when she said ‘my man’. To think such an expression would come from Karina’s mouth of all people. Of course, he knew well that she wasn’t saying this because she had other feelings for him. Karina was merely managing the prince’s private life as the princess consort.

“That’s…”

Kate’s face contorted severely at the expression ‘my man’. Then she turned to look at Aidan. She seemed to believe that although he was married to Karina, his heart belonged to her. Aidan didn’t even look her way. He deliberately avoided her more thoroughly, feeling that if their eyes met, he would have to drive home the point about her misunderstanding.

However, Kate Spencer’s obsession with Aidan was not to be taken lightly.

“But Princess, you’re already in that position.”

Karina frowned at the unexpected response.

“I have no desire for the position of princess consort. I have absolutely no intention of coveting the princess’s position.”

As Kate continued speaking, Karina felt like laughing in disbelief. In fact, during the three years Kate had been the princess consort, she had never once coveted that position. She seemed satisfied just being able to stay by Aidan’s side, more than all the privileges she could enjoy as princess consort. The only time she had ever tried to use the power of a princess consort in front of her was when she begged to save her child.

“I’ll live like I’m dead. If you tell me not to appear before the princess, I’ll do that. Just let me stay by His Highness’s side.”

Kate pleaded with her tear-stained face. Karina wondered what made her so confident in the face of such desperation. She wasn’t sure if this imperial family was crazy for condoning imperial members having lovers, or if she was strange for not understanding that woman. Looking at Kate so openly begging just to stay by Aidan’s side, she felt like she might go crazy herself.

So this was how Kate had hovered around Aidan. While it was irritating to see her so boldly declaring her desire for another woman’s husband, part of her was curious about what that desperate affection was like.

Karina had never felt such tender feelings toward Aidan, or anyone else for that matter.

“Miss Spencer, you keep making me repeat myself.”

Separate from her curiosity about what that woman’s affection as a woman was like, she couldn’t condone her existence itself. In her previous life, Karina too had tried to condone the existence of an imperial member’s lover. She convinced herself that she just needed to stand firm as princess consort. But she was wrong. That existence she had condoned ultimately led to a conclusion where a knife was held to her throat.

“I don’t want to see you inside this imperial palace. To be more specific, I cannot tolerate you coming and going to Your Highness’s palace…!”

Karina’s eyes widened in surprise at the force that suddenly pulled her body. Aidan, who had been quietly listening until then, had grabbed Karina’s arm and pulled her. Her body spun around quickly, and suddenly a shadow fell across her face. Before she could properly recognize what was happening, Aidan wrapped one arm around her waist while his other hand grabbed the back of her head and pulled her close.

“Your High…mmph!”

She had no chance to ask why he was suddenly acting this way. Aidan’s lips pressed against Karina’s lips as if crushing them. Through her slightly parted lips, hot heat pushed in. It was completely different from the fleeting kiss that had brushed her lips in the banquet hall. His tongue invaded, forcibly creating a gap, exploring every corner of Karina’s mouth.

She couldn’t even breathe properly. Frozen, not knowing what to do, just dealing with the unfamiliar heat was overwhelming enough.

Pop. When their sealed lips finally separated, her body trembled at the sound. When she looked up at Aidan without even blinking, he met her gaze with a gentle smile. Looking at his elegantly curved eyes, she belatedly felt her face flush hot.

Aidan buried Karina’s reddening face in his chest and turned to look at Kate while holding her. Kate was watching the two with a pale face.

“You seem to have been misunderstanding since earlier, but I’m not rejecting you because I’m being mindful of Karina. From the start… Kate Spencer, was it? I have no interest in you. The only one I’m passionate about right now is Karina. So won’t you get out of my palace while I’m asking nicely?”

His tone was gentle, and his face wore a smile as he looked at Kate. However, his eyes were not just cold but sharp.