He had taken a desk from inside the library and placed it in front of the door, preventing me from escaping.

Given that I am generally a fragile wife, he might have thought I wouldn’t be able to move the heavy desk and would be caught helplessly in that spot.

To quickly clear the obstacle and escape, I rushed towards the door.

Just as I grabbed the desk with both hands to move it aside,

“Gotcha.”

Lionel, who had approached silently, embraced me from behind and exclaimed.

To be caught so anticlimactically.

It wasn’t because I couldn’t lift the desk, but rather, I was caught because there was no time to move it.

“Rabbit, do you remember what I said I would do if I caught you?”

Biting my neck slightly, he asked.

“You said you’d give me a carrot.”

In my nonchalant tone, he burst into laughter.

“Of course, I will. Take me.”
He took my hand and rested it on his chin.

“Yes?”

“Am I something like a carrot to you… or not?”

“Well, your face has turned beet-like.”

I replied, turning away and looking at his face.

“It’s because I’m excited.”

Unconsciously, my gaze started to drop downwards, and he grabbed my chin, lifting it up.

“Jump, I said.”

“…What did I say?”

I chuckled but stopped when his urgent touch became more intense.

“Have you ever had a carrot trying to get into your clothes?”

I asked, pulling down the hem of the dress he was pulling me up with his hand.

“Then you’ll see it for the first time today.”

He continued, not caring, placing me on the mahogany desk with an admiring expression.

“But it was fast.”

“If it were a forest instead of the palace corridor, you wouldn’t have caught me.”

“Yeah, maybe.”

As Lionel’s deepened voice reached my forehead, his cool touch cooled the sweat on my forehead.

“Today, even running might make my heart burst.”

After he enveloped my face with his hands, he tapped his right chest.

Thump, thump, thump—really, his heart was beating fast and strong.

“I wish your heart would always beat like this because of me.”

“If you torment me for the rest of my life. Oh, and there’s a lesson for today. Remember it well.”

“Tell me.”

I listened to his words while playfully sticking my hair behind my ear.

“Your plan to escape from me like today will all end in failure. For a lifetime…”

His warning sent a shiver down my spine.

There were already several white flags in my heart.

“I will catch you no matter what.”

Before Lionel finished speaking, uncontrollable words popped out of my mouth.

“I love you.”

My heart had already melted, and my voice flowed out like a stream.

Each time the words “I love you” came out of my mouth, he blinked as if hearing it for the first time.

After repeating several times that I love him, I closed my mouth again.

Lionel, who had been silent for a moment, opened his mouth with a serious expression.

“That damn wizard who cursed me, turns out he didn’t properly cast the curse.”

Why did he suddenly bring up the story of the wizard who cursed him?

“What are you talking about?”

“Judging by how your body heats up with just one word of love, that wizard was quite an acknowledged guy…”

He said, lowering his face with a moved expression, gently brushing his lips over mine and suddenly swallowing them fiercely.

Between the two lips that barely allowed me to breathe, his whisper saying, “I love it so much, what should I do?” tickled my skin along with his rough breathing.

I felt that this man was everything to me right now.

No, not only now but also in the future.

I wanted to eliminate all the excuses I had thought of not to love him.
Lionel’s large hand delved into my hair.

Sitting on the mahogany desk, my body naturally leaned backward under his touch.

Before sharing love with him, there was something I wanted to ask.

I lowered my arms that were wrapped around Lionel’s neck, pushed away his chest slightly, and descended from the mahogany desk.

He took a few steps back, sending me a look of disbelief.

“I have something I’m curious about.”

“What is it?”

He mumbled, stealing a kiss from his own lips with the back of his hand.

“As long as it’s not asking me to reveal it, you can tell me anything.”

Perhaps noticing my uneasy expression, he imitated my expression but spoke with an incredibly affectionate voice.

“If, for instance, there’s something I haven’t told Your Majesty… then…”

I confidently spat out the words, but I couldn’t finish my sentence.

What did I want to ask?

Can I be forgiven if I tell the truth?

How much can you understand me?

Although I had already expressed everything with my eyes, he couldn’t understand just by looking at my gaze.

Lionel looked at me as if contemplating something, then shrugged his shoulders and spoke.

“Zelda, if there’s something I haven’t told you, I don’t know what it is, but… It’s not that important that I didn’t know.”

“Huh?”

“The timing is not important.”

“Then…”

“What’s more important is how that story affects both of us, how it changes our relationship. That’s what’s more important.”

“…”

“But why are you suddenly curious about that? What are you worried about?”

His genuine gaze made my guilt intensify.

The weight of the lies I had hidden so far seemed to press me even more.

“If there’s something I haven’t told Your Majesty…”

It was an impulsive courage.

But each word felt painful, as if someone was pulling my voice from under my throat.

“If it’s a secret, I haven’t told you yet either.”

“What is it?”

I asked, eyes wide open at his unexpected confession.

My attention was more focused on his unintentional confession than on my life-threatening story.

“Later. It doesn’t seem like the right time to talk about it now. If your story is something you find difficult to say now, you can say it later.”

“…How do you know what my story is about?”

“As long as it’s not a lie.”

“!”

Should I just ask him to kill me here?

As the Deputy Empress. A being that started with a lie…

“For example, if you’ve been lying about loving me even though you don’t, that falls outside the realm of forgiveness.”

“That’s absolutely not true!”

I raised both hands, waving them wildly, and raised my voice.

After showing a momentary satisfied smile, he regained his composure and continued speaking seriously.

“Lying about not loving me while loving me is also unforgivable.”

“That won’t happen, I swear.”

“Then what’s the problem? Zelda, do you happen to have a terminal illness?”
“I am a bit of a passionate woman.”

“Huh?”

“Oh, I mean… what I’m saying is… I have a lot of warmth in my body, but it’s not an illness… probably.”

I don’t know if it’s a curse.

I resisted the urge to raise my hand to the burn scar on the right, as if it were a habit.

“It’s not an illness. Being a passionate woman is a blessing to me.”

Lionel is like an oasis to me…

“Oh, by any chance, do I have debts I don’t know about? If that’s the case, it’s really unnecessary worry, isn’t it?”

Lionel threw the words as a joke.

I shook my head.

“I don’t have debts. I have a lot of hair combs, though.”

“Then, is there a hidden man?”

As soon as Lionel asked me this question, he turned around for a moment, saying he was getting a fever just thinking about it, and then turned back to his original position.

“There shouldn’t be a man problem that you haven’t told me about, right? It shouldn’t be.”

“In my life, Lionel is the only man. I only understood why God created men after meeting Your Majesty.”

He mixed a bit of exaggeration in this part because he was so excited and energetic.

His face, which had been crumpled, brightened so quickly that it looked embarrassingly bright.

“If it’s not for that reason, you can tell me later. I’ll have one too…”

He said with a faint smile, but at the end of the laughter, his expression seemed somewhat dark.

Even if I don’t know what Lionel hasn’t told me, it probably won’t be as shocking as my confession.

But if now is not the time for my confession, it seemed difficult to summon the courage again.

I took a deep breath and, finally, after exhaling, I blurted out the secret I had kept in my chest.

“I am not the Empress.”