Other noble boys chimed in, laughing.

“Honestly, the second daughter doesn’t compare to the first. She’s painfully plain.”
“Maybe it’s the comparison, but to me she looked not just plain but bad-looking.”
“What do you think, Callios? Aren’t you disappointed too? Say something.”

Hearing them mock her, Rosie felt her stomach churn and her chest throb with pain.

Callios wouldn’t be pleased to see her, after all. After all, he had ended up engaged to her, the lesser sister — not the beautiful one.

The thought alone made her face burn. She wanted to disappear on the spot.

How could she ever face him again?

While the noble boys snickered and whispered, Rosie, humiliated, ran away.

The dream shifted cruelly to its second scene.

‘Of course it has to be the scenes I hate the most….’

Nevertheless, keen to be the perfect fiancée, she once embroidered an intricate pattern, which her mother had taught her, onto a sword decoration for him.

Callios accepted it without saying a word. Not a single thank you.

But he hadn’t refused it, so she was quietly happy. Despite its clumsiness, she thought he hadn’t thrown it away.

However, not long after, the decoration disappeared.

Hiding her disappointment, she asked where it had gone. Callios responded in a cold voice:

“Why should I carry something you gave me?”

Had he thrown it away?

Her unease had become reality.

“The design wasn’t to my taste anyway.”

So that was why he hadn’t looked pleased when he accepted it.

As if he was annoyed with himself, Callios suddenly turned and walked off.

Rosie was deeply hurt that day.

Nevertheless, he was her fiancé.

She had worked tirelessly, trying to love the cold, rough Callios and crafting special salves and bandages for his frequent injuries. She did everything she could to be worthy of him.

‘All of it was useless in the end.’

Callios had never found Rosie to be a satisfactory fiancée. However, because he valued honor and the engagement had already been arranged, he accepted her as his sacred duty.

He fulfilled that duty until the very end.

Because of this, she had always felt sorry for him.

The third scene took place after they had grown up and married.

Rosie was in her private room at the ducal estate, burying her face in her hands and weeping. It was the day she had revealed her pregnancy and been shattered by Callios’s cold response.

“I can’t… do this anymore… I’m so tired….”

Eventually, she was too exhausted to keep trying to be nice to him. The more she withdrew, the colder Callios became.

This perpetuated the cycle, widening the gulf between them.

The more she watched her younger self, the more crushed she felt. She couldn’t breathe under the pressure.

‘It hurts…’

It felt as though every nerve in her body was burning. The pain was so intense that she wished for a quick death.

She soon recognized the agony: it was the pain she had experienced during her illness, when she had been dying.

The dream had shifted to the final stage of her life.

‘So this is when I was ill…’

She looked around. She was back in the same barren, coffin-like bedroom where her life had slowly faded away.

She desperately wished for this nightmare to end.

A monk in a brown hood appeared; he had been sent to prepare for the death of the Duchess of Benedict. Rosie’s life, withered by illness, flickered like a candle in the breeze, ready to be extinguished at any moment.

She could hear Jenny’s shaking voice in the distance:

“Go away! My lady is not going to die!”

Ignoring her distress, the emotionless monk calmly asked for her final will.

“Is there anything you wish to say before you pass? Anything you want to ask?”

The Rosie of that time let out a faint, bitter laugh. Sweat beaded her forehead.

Was there something she wanted to ask?

Of course she had questions. No — she had many.

When she had returned to the past, there had been so much she had wanted to ask him.

‘Why did you say such cold things when I asked you to dance?
Why did you throw away the gift I made for you?
Why did you stay silent when others mocked me?
Why did you look displeased when I told you I was pregnant?
Why… didn’t you come when I was dying?’

‘I begged you to stay… I begged you not to leave, but why did you walk away again?’

‘Why? Why did you marry me?’

With each passing question, her nose stung and her throat tightened painfully.

Her chest trembled and she could barely breathe.

Tears filled her eyes.

The child — her child — who had suffered in the womb of a worthless mother and died alongside her, drifted through her mind. She had wondered whether it was a boy or a girl. She had desperately wanted to meet the child.

The tears that had been gathering at her lashes finally fell.

Ah, now she remembered.

The last thing she wanted to ask Callios was…

Suddenly, she felt herself being pulled upwards with great force, as though she were being dragged out of a deep sleep.

Despite the pressure on her arms, she could feel a dull ache running through them, as though they had gone numb. Her senses slowly returned, as did her hearing. She must have been waking up from the dream.

“…—sie!”

A startled voice called out.

Someone was calling her name.

Rosie summoned the strength to open her eyes.

A large, solid figure loomed above her, blocking her view.

‘Heavy…’

She blinked and turned her gaze aside, allowing her eyes to adjust to the dimness. The broad shape of the room slowly came into view, its edges hazy. Her unfocused brown eyes took in the scene, but her mind lagged behind.

Where was she again?

The weight pressing down on her wrists eased slightly. In her dazed state, only one clear thought surfaced.

‘Sticky. Uncomfortable. I want these clothes off.’

Rosie’s body was drenched in cold sweat, and the damp fabric clung unpleasantly to her skin. Annoyed by this, Rosie tried to take off her clothes.

She yanked off her outer layer and tossed it aside. She was about to remove her undergarments as well when a large hand suddenly clasped her wrist, stopping her.

Callios’s bewildered voice broke through the darkness.

“What are you doing?”

As soon as he released her, he seized her wrists again and pinned them down with both hands. He climbed over her and restrained her struggling body with his own weight.

Rosie stared at him with glazed eyes.

Was the dream not over yet?

But the darkness slowly sharpened and her sight came into focus. She could clearly make out Callios — and herself beneath him.

Only then did the shock hit her fully.

‘What is this.’

This wasn’t a dream. This was real.

He was holding her down with a body as solid as stone. He was breathing roughly and moving tensely. His black hair had fallen over his forehead, moving with his breath. The look in his eyes was flustered and unsettled.

Even worse, his iron-hard knee was positioned between her spread legs.

Her gaze dropped to his powerful hands, which were gripping her wrists so tightly that she couldn’t move.

Seeing Callios’ disheveled face looming over her made Rosie feel as though the blood had drained from her body, leaving her cold.

Was he trying to force himself on her?

Had the nightmare been a warning about this exact moment?

The thought made hot fury surge up inside her.

Would he break a promise for a moment of l*st?

Rosie’s voice was dangerously calm.

“Liar. You said you wouldn’t touch me here.”

“…What? Wait—”

“Get off.”

Perhaps it was the lingering shock from the nightmare. A wave of heat rose from deep within her chest, and the repressed sorrow thrashed around violently inside her.

“You still can’t let go of that heir, can you? Are you going to force yourself on me in my sleep over it?”

Her brown eyes burned with sharp, unfamiliar hostility. Tear tracks still stained her cheeks, and Callios froze at the sight.

“What are you talking about…? That’s not what I—”

“I said get off!”

She thrashed around violently, seemingly indifferent to the prospect of breaking her arms. She was desperately trying to free herself.

Rosie squeezed her eyes shut and shouted at him as loudly as she could.

“Let go of me!”

No matter how violently she thrashed around, he didn’t move. Once again, she was struck by how overwhelmingly strong Callios was. If he wanted to, he could do whatever he wanted to her.

But not this time. She wouldn’t allow it.

Fear and anger surged through her, clouding her vision. The betrayal felt new and raw, and it was this that infuriated her even more.

Callios had disappointed her far too many times for this to come as a surprise.

“Rosie. Get a hold of yourself.”

“Let go of me….”

“There was never a problem before. Why are you suddenly acting like this?”

“Let go!”

The restraint she had barely managed to maintain finally snapped. Her tear-stained eyes reddened further and her chest burned with fury. Callios, on the other hand, became even more still the harder she struggled.

His black eyes took on an unreadable expression.

He pinned her flailing legs with his knees, completely subduing her, and warned in a low voice:

“You’ll hurt yourself. Stop fighting.”

Rosie forced her trembling jaw to steady itself. She glared up at him, her eyes brimming with venom.

“Rio, I’m never doing this with you again. Never. I’d sooner die than have a child. Now move.”

Rio.

It was the nickname she had used during their engagement years ago.

She was so angry that she blurted out the old nickname before she could stop herself.

Callios froze, a strange look crossing his face, as if he hadn’t heard the name in a long time.

Meanwhile, Rosie’s breathing became increasingly ragged with each sharp intake of breath. She was overwhelmed by shock and fury so suddenly that she started to hyperventilate.

Callios quickly slid a hand behind her neck and lifted her slightly.

“Breathe properly first.”

But Rosie shook her head wildly. Her chest heaved and her vision blurred.

“No problems before?”

That was because someone had been keeping everything in. She had swallowed every ounce of discomfort and fear just to keep the peace in her household. And he had never known.

Rosie struggled harder to escape. She hit his solid chest with all her might and clawed at him, but he didn’t budge — he felt nothing at all.

“Hh—haa… haah….”

Her breathing became so rapid that it sounded as though her lungs might collapse. A coldness spread across her body, and tremors ran through her limbs.

Seeing her convulse, Callios’s expression hardened. He hesitated, then seemed to make a decision.

He lowered his head.

Rosie flinched sharply as his dry lips pressed against hers. Not lightly. Not tentatively. They sealed her completely, leaving no space for air to escape.