“People say that I am the most handsome man in the empire. Do you think so too?”
“Yes.”
She didn’t hesitate in her response. Carson, on the other hand, seemed to lose words for a moment and lingered in Ines’s gaze.
“Do you still have my portrait?”
“Of course.”
“Next to the statue of the goddess Heclesia?”
As Ines nodded, he came forward and stood in front of her. After seeming to grab her cheek with his large hand, it soon went straight up. He placed Ines’s right hand on his left chest.
Carson’s heartbeat thudded truthfully beneath Ines’s palm. Overwhelmed by the sensation, Ines looked up at him as if feeling a burning heat.
“I’m not a god, Ines.”
Despite the clear fact that he was not a god, she was surprised and dumbfounded, gaping like a fool.
“I’m not your god.”
“…”
“Even if you make a face as if you’re trapped, it’s useless.”
As Carson grinned, Ines felt a strange warmth.
“So accept it now. That I am not perfect.”
The beautiful man, not claiming to be a god, was solely focused on her. Feeling her stomach churning, Ines tried to clear her mind.
“Why were you angry?”
Swallowing dry saliva that wouldn’t go down, Ines nodded her head. When he smirked, even the surrounding air seemed to thin out, and her chest naturally swelled.
“I get angry when I see you smiling at other men, and my anger subsides when I approach you and massage your shoulders. Just a man who gets angry at those things.”
“No.”
Still with a dazed face, Ines raised her head, but he nodded.
“No, that’s right.”
“…”
“Aren’t you feeling anything right now? While I touch you, even though my heart is in your palm?”
As he spoke, Ines felt trapped in an inescapable dilemma.
After meeting Carson, Ines had never treated him as anything other than a god. However, Ines felt raw emotions towards him.
Even so, her persistent gaze, her heart pounding whenever he touched her, and the desire to become solely his every time – all these feelings had to belong only to her.
Was it a punishment from the gods?
“No, I’m not. I… Just being near you makes my blood boil. My fingertips itch to touch you dozens of times a day. The desire to hold you in my arms and make you mine completely leaps in my heart all day long.”
If not for that, there was no reason for him to pour out his feelings to her so earnestly.
Still, Ines couldn’t hide a single glance from him.
Ines swallowed her overwhelming feelings and unknowingly raised the hand that Carson hadn’t caught. However, she couldn’t bring herself to touch his cheek. As the cool air with a different density touched the back of her hand, an instinctive fear suddenly took over.
What would happen if she touched his cheek?
“Who is the man you met in the garden?”
But Carson didn’t let her off the hook.
“Wh…o?”
“The man you smiled warmly at when you faced him.”
Ines’s eyes couldn’t catch on, shaking uncontrollably. Seeing her like that, Carson’s brows narrowed.
“Who is it that makes you make such an expression?”
But at this moment, she couldn’t even recall who that man was. He stood out so vividly, as if overturning her entire world, that he occupied her vision completely.
His words were too clear, making it impossible to turn away no matter how much she tried. A greed that was excessively large surged from head to toe, completely tossing her into turmoil.
“It doesn’t matter who it is.”
“…”
“Not any other man.”
“Not any other…?”
Following his last words, Ines reached out with her hand. And surprisingly, she brought it to his cheek. Carson’s golden eyes flickered like they reflected on a lake.
The man’s cheek that she touched for the first time was much softer than Ines had imagined. It was unexpectedly surprising to find such a soft part on a person as robust as him. The sensation of his fingertips scratching her palm was so soft that she felt like her whole body had fallen into a soap bubble.
At that moment, he grabbed the hand that was resting on his cheek and pulled it abruptly. As Ines’s body fell off the chair, his large hand firmly held her waist, pinning her in place.
When the hot heat touched her whole body, she wondered if he really wasn’t a god but a human.
In the space where the exhaled breaths were indistinguishable.
If she didn’t exert force, they would soon be close enough to touch.
The thin and fragile distance that always existed between you and me.
At that moment, when a sound of something falling not far away was heard, the surrounding vacuum was shattered.
Ines and Carson both turned their gaze to the source of the sound simultaneously.
“I—I definitely knocked on the door and asked if I could come in.”
Carson looked at Noah with an displeased expression, but he didn’t release the hand he had placed on Ines’s waist.
“You didn’t get an answer, so where are you coming in?”
“Sorry.”
After Being Cheated On, She Picked Up a Treasure (Female-dominant)
One-line summary: The husband I married on a whim had been secretly in love with me for a long time.
On the day when Jun Shao finally obtained the imperial decree for her marriage, Lan Qu, the person she had admired for six years, defied the decree and ran away.
Her gentleness and devotion, her promise of a lifetime together, were all disregarded by him. Instead, he dreamed of entering the palace to serve the Emperor’s sister as a sixth-rank attendant.
News of this incident spread throughout the capital, and the alleys in front of and behind the Lan mansion were crowded with people who came to watch the commotion.
Jun Shao should have been embarrassed and angry.
But someone stepped in to protect her dignity.
The figure was in a miserable state, yet still possessed an undeniable elegance and handsomeness.
The young lord struggled to climb the wall of the Lan mansion and shouted to her, “If he won’t marry you, I will!”
So, Jun Shao took advantage of the situation and married the person.
She thought the young lord did it to save the Lan family from the crime of defying the imperial decree, but never imagined that from beginning to end, what he coveted was her.
*
After the wedding, Jun Shao felt like she was living in a dream.
Her Wife-master was as beautiful as a fairy in a painting, skilled in the six arts, well-versed in poetry and literature, capable of being gentle and attentive, and also grand and dignified. Most importantly, she was the only one in his heart and eyes.
Jun Shao didn’t know how Lan Shiwu, as a illegitimate son without a father and blessed with beauty, had managed to preserve his purity, recklessly escape, and use his last ounce of strength to ruin his own reputation, all because of his love for her, just to stand before her.
She could only see him gazing at her with eyes full of love, and when she bestowed a name upon him, his eyes shone like stars.
“You have come to me like a weary bird perching on a branch. I shall call you A Qi.”
