“For fear of going to you. I told you, didn’t I?”
With a snort, Lucas spat out spitefully.
“I hated being smaller than you. I hated the idea of standing before you again like that even more.”
Serena had not attached much importance to the engagement ceremony. It was Lucas who had provoked her into calling him small, and whether he was big or small, it was a matter of indifference to her.
However, she had not realized that Lucas had spent six years in rigorous training to get to this point because of that one comment.
“Your Highness, what I said at the engagement ceremony wasn’t like that.”
“What else did it mean?”
In fact, it was a meaningless statement. But his piercing eyes were looking seriously at Serena.
With the eyes of a man who had moved forward with only one goal in mind, it was hard to say it meant nothing.
“But it’s okay. Now, I’m prouder before you than anyone else.”
A faint bewilderment spread across Serena’s face.
“On lonely nights, I looked at the sky, thinking of you as I gazed at the moon. Then, no matter how hard the day was, I found the will to train again the next day.”
Who could have known that the wretched boy would set a goal from her single word and train for six years to appear before her?
“At first, the goal was simply to grow bigger than you, but as I thought about it every day, looking at the moon, I wanted to become the strongest man on this continent.”
Serena was just annoyed with the small fiancé who was pecking at her, but that one word had changed Lucas’s life.
“Your Highness, I…”
“The only reward I want is to become the strongest man and take you as my wife.”
Lucas’s passionate eyes didn’t understand. That is, he couldn’t grasp that exact part.
“And not long ago, after the battle, I realized it.”
Training as the crown prince was natural. But Lucas’s training was different.
He struggled to become strong as a man, laying aside his status. Standing on the battlefield, participating in the fight, it was all because of that.
“Now I am qualified to come for you.”
Seeing Lucas, who was all too serious, Serena’s mind was confused.
“How is it? Am I not qualified enough to receive a reward now?”
Lucas asked in a low, calm voice, but he couldn’t hide his tense expression. Serena then became even more troubled.
With eyes like those of a big puppy expecting praise, she felt as though she had become a bad person.
“Am I still lacking? If you say I’m lacking, I’ll go back to the battlefield right now and train more.”
There were always big and small battles in the western part of the empire. However, it was not a place for the crown prince to be. And he did not look like he needed more training.
“You don’t need that, Your Highness.”
“Then give yourself to me.”
Lucas, perhaps having forgotten the blow to his solar plexus earlier, took a step closer and grabbed Serena’s hand. If his large hand had not trembled slightly, his solar plexus would not have been spared.
“Marry me, Serena.”
As the distance between them narrowed, it really felt that he had grown. His low voice was resonating above Serena’s forehead.
“The only thing I want is that.”
A fleeting image of the proposal letters stacked on Lucas’s desk crossed his mind. The incessant marriage proposals meant nothing to him. Only Serena, standing before his eyes, appeared to him as a woman.
Lucas’s breath trembled slightly. As Serena said nothing, he summoned the courage to slowly bring his lips to her forehead.
But, too tense, before his lips could touch, his hot breath tickled Serena’s forehead.
“Oh my!”
In an instant, Serena involuntarily let out a shy exclamation, slapped his chest, and turned away.
“Sigh…”
Wondering where that small, white hand got its strength, Lucas barely resisted the urge to clutch his chest.
Though his pride was wounded, he had to admit that his body had almost staggered when Serena slapped him.
“Don’t startle me like that.”
Serena’s cheeks were unnecessarily hot. No matter how she thought of him as a little boy back then, the fact that a robust man was trying to kiss her forehead made her tense without realizing it.
“Our engagement is null and void.”
“I cannot accept that.”
Lucas’s resolve was not so easily shaken.
“But I will be careful not to startle you.”
His still smarting solar plexus and the spot on his chest where she had slapped him awakened his survival instincts. It was a moment when Lucas realized that, though he had indeed become stronger, that did not mean Serena had become any weaker.
My Step-brother Is Obsessed With Me (Female-dominant)
A gentle female protagonist vs pitiful in the early stage, and a sick male protagonist in the later stage
Cheng Songer transmigrated into the body of a vicious cannon fodder female supporting character with the same name as her in a female-dominant novel.
In the original story, the cannon fodder female supporting character was inhumane, committing domestic violence, gambling excessively, being lustful, and even wanting to sell her stepbrother to a brothel for money.
As luck would have it, she just happened to transmigrate at this time.
Seeing Cheng Qingzhi biting his lip, enduring the tears in his eyes, looking pitiful, her heart softened.
She stuffed the money back into the Madam’s hand and reached out to him.
“Brother, come home with me.”
