Without her knowing, he had taken a deep place in her heart. Realizing this now, in this situation, made her feel pathetically crazy.

“I don’t want such a woman anymore. I’m saying I no longer need that kind of wife.”

His words finally pierced her heart like a blade.

Ugh…! It, it hurts….

Belita gritted her teeth as her lower abdomen tightened painfully again. Still, she stared at him with wide eyes. She didn’t want to be fooled like an idiot anymore. By that ruthless, arrogant man.

“So you’re saying you’ll divorce me!”

“……Let’s do it again.”

“I’ll do as you wish…!”

What…!? What is this now…. Why does this man keep choosing words that make no sense?

“Let’s marry again.”

……What?

When did he ever say he didn’t want her, and now he wants to remarry? Did this man even know what he was saying? Had he completely lost his mind?

“You crazy bastard! That was my idea!”

Belita, who had been staring at him blankly as Crazy Rian’s curses erupted again, let out a bitter smile. After wiping away her flowing tears, she asked with a distorted expression.

“……Ha, what are you talking about?”

“I’m saying I want you to expect more from me. Whatever it may be.”

“……”

“My feelings for you are shaking uncontrollably. Yet I don’t feel it’s a waste of emotion. Seeing that I don’t mind the constant burning feeling.”

“?”

“So I’m asking you to be my real wife, not just the mistress of the Grand Ducal household.”

“!”

“You’re also the mother of my child now.”

“Is it… because I’m carrying your child… that you’re doing this…?”

At her trembling voice, Rian firmly grasped her hand again, which she had shaken off earlier. Relieved that she didn’t shake him off this time despite still trembling, he revealed his honest feelings.

“No, it’s because it’s you, because I feel like anything would be fine with you, because I think I could be happy with you, so.”

“……”

“Let’s start over.”

“What about me…? My happiness? Is my happiness included in the happiness you mentioned?”

“Yes. It is. I’ll make sure it is.”

“……How can I believe that?”

“Belita. If you can’t trust this bastard, trust me. I’m at least more honest than this bastard.”

“Why suddenly…? Why are you suddenly saying these things?”

Tears flowed down again. They weren’t tears of joy, but they seemed to be tears of relief. Though she had shouted in anger, she had truly been afraid and lost. She had been scared of being abandoned alone in the world again. It seemed the fence she had once relied on had established itself more firmly in her heart than she thought.

“I believe our relationship can only develop if we correct it from the beginning.”

“Our… relationship…?”

“Yes. Didn’t we start as Grand Duke and Grand Duchess?”

“?”

“This time I want to start as Rian and Belita.”

“What…?”

“Let’s properly marry now instead of dating. Like normal people.”

Really? Is he serious?

“I want to know everything about you. Even what you were like when you were a troublemaking young lady. I’m curious about your future too. What kind of mother you’ll become. I think even someone as lacking as me could be happy with you. I don’t know if it’s just my selfishness right now, but I’ll try. So won’t you trust me just once?”

It seemed like something was wrong with his mind. She couldn’t understand why he suddenly had these thoughts, why he suddenly made such a resolution. And of all times, embarrassingly, in the middle of their lovemaking.

“Damn it. I was planning to propose properly once I was certain of my love, but this bastard ruined everything.”

“……”

His serious expression twisted fiercely as he cursed. Belita’s eyes widened at Crazy Rian’s words. Both personalities definitely seemed to have undergone some change. But exactly why, and why so suddenly, she couldn’t understand at all.

Suddenly, she remembered his confession on the day he came with a head injury. Of course she hadn’t believed it, but she had wanted to think it was love, even if just an illusion, in that moment. But now, why did it seem like it wasn’t an illusion?

“And soon, you won’t be seeing this guy anymore.”

“What…?”

“The crazy one needs to disappear before the child is born.”

“Ah….”

“Wife.”

“……”

“Now that the misunderstanding is cleared, will you accept my proposal?”

“……Ugh!”

“Wife!?”

Perhaps because the tension had eased, she felt pain again in her abdomen that had been tightly knotted. She bent forward enough to fold her waist, clutched her stomach, and bit her lip hard while gasping for breath. Her head spun. She was short of breath, and her vision blurred.

“Wife, what’s wrong?”

“My stomach, my stomach……Rian, the baby… the baby hurts.”

“Wife!”

Rian’s face was colored with fear as he caught Belita who suddenly collapsed.

* * *

A sense of quietness lingered in Belita’s room as she slept, breathing evenly. The faces of the two men watching her were very serious for different reasons. A low, subdued voice asked Font worriedly.

“Is she really alright?”

“Yes, fortunately she seems stable now. It looks like she was under psychological pressure. What exactly happened? I’ve repeatedly said that pregnant women need to be as stable as possible.”

“Ask this bastard. I’m too dumbfounded to even speak.”

“……Hah, fine, you tell me. So what happened?”

A sigh escaped as he had to ask the same question to the same man again. Somehow, he felt he already knew why the Grand Duchess had ended up like this without even hearing the story.

“I tried to… start over.”

“Start what?”

“My relationship with my wife.”

“What…?”

“I asked her to marry me again. To start over from the beginning….”

Judging by the serious state of the man, he didn’t seem to be the crazy one, but why his words sounded like the crazy one’s was puzzling.

“So, you proposed to the Grand Duchess, and this is what happened?”

“……”

As Font gazed at him in confusion, Rian’s previously serious mouth twisted into a crooked smile. Judging by his expression, it seemed the crazy one had appeared again.

“Yes, I proposed. I beat him to saying what I was planning to say. But did he have to do it in that situation? And starting with nonsense about not wanting his wife and whatnot?”

“What!?”

“Yes, I admit I spoke rashly without context. But I cleared up the misunderstanding. I honestly told her my true feelings, and she understood.”

‘This crazy bastard.’

Before being his friend, he felt like giving the Grand Duke—the highest authority in the Empire after the Emperor and Empress—just one hard smack on the back of his head. He could imagine how he had spoken without even seeing it. Though the two personalities were completely different in temperament, they had one thing in common: they couldn’t empathize with or consider other people’s emotions or feelings. That was an emotion Rian had never learned since childhood. Or perhaps it was an emotion he never had to begin with. Looking at the Emperor and Empress, the latter seemed more accurate.

Even so, the more rigid and cold Rian would have hurt her even more. The crazy one was selfish, but at least he had some affection in his own way.

“Haah… Are you sure she… understood?”

“What?”

“I’m asking if the Grand Duchess agreed to it.”

“…No. She was about to answer when her stomach suddenly hurt.”

“Hmm, the Grand Duchess is stronger than I thought.”

“What? What do you mean by that?”

“It must be her first time seeing such a crazy bastard, and that happens to be her husband. If it were me, I would have run away long ago. But the lady stayed by your side until the end despite seeing that.”

Rian’s expression twisted ominously at Font’s sarcastic words.

“And not only did she understand and endure that, she even made a child for you. I can’t say her generosity is less than a goddess’s.”

“What are you trying to say?”

“That you’re shameless.”

“What!?”

“I can tell what you said without hearing it. If it was the crazy one, he would have acted selfishly as expected, and if it was the rigid one, he would have pretended to be smart while spouting nonsense. And very selfishly at that.”

“Font.”

Font, who had been staring at Belita as she slept with even breaths, looked at Rian who called his name with a cold gaze. Rian closed his mouth, holding back what he was about to say at Font’s chilly expression, which he had never seen before.

“You need to change your fundamental thinking first.”

“What?”

“Do you still think you had the most unhappy and terrible childhood?”

“What!?”

“But what can you do? There are many people who had more unhappy and terrible childhoods than you.”

“……Shut up.”

“Even if you never see me again, no, even if they cut off my head for insulting the imperial family, I must say this. For your sake, and for your wife’s sake.”

Rian clenched his fist, never having imagined that Font, who knew his past better than anyone, would show this unfamiliar side and say such things.