After seeing off Leia’s departure, Akkia returned to the mansion and sank deep into the sofa in his bedroom. The buttons that were fastened up to his neck seemed uncomfortable, and he unbuttoned them with rough strokes.
“Sigh….”
Various thoughts and emotions were swirling confusingly in his mind. He didn’t know how he came back to the mansion after leaving the party.
Honestly, he didn’t want to send Leia home. The image of the brown-haired nobleman who had carried Leia in his arms on the way back kept coming to his mind.
“This is driving me crazy.”
The impulse to strangle that guy for messing with Leia’s waist surged, but he forcefully suppressed the urge.
‘Is that all?’
Leia, who blinked her eyes until she came out to the garden, was like that.
When he saw the reluctant gaze in her eyes as she looked at the Bellarus Duke’s carriage, Akkia almost lost his sanity.
He didn’t want to send Leia away so dismissively. He didn’t want to.
He wanted to embrace her until his body was stiff, kiss her lips as if trying to soothe her saddened ones, and confine her to the bedroom so she couldn’t take a single step outside.
Even in that short moment facing each other, Akkia couldn’t contain his overwhelming desire.
“Ha….”
He clenched his fist and then opened it. The nails dug into his hand, causing blood to flow.
Looking down at his messed-up hand, Akkia let out a deep sigh.
‘How did I endure all this time?’
Leia was always like that. She always appeared unexpectedly and shook his world.
Akkia’s once silent world became turbulent after meeting Leia. He wasn’t a person who was so emotional and swayed by momentary impulses.
But he couldn’t resist Leia.
Thinking of Leia’s eyes that seemed to be hurt, he felt a pang in his chest.
But Akkia couldn’t stop here.
“Not yet.”
To fully protect Leia, he was too lacking in strength.
In the long night mixed with sighs, Akkia restrained his restless heart. He vowed to endure until he gained enough strength.
However, not long after, Leia trampled on his determination.
It was a study where only stillness flowed. A brief knocking sound was heard, and a bewildered Rikel revealed herself.
“Lord.”
The moment Akkia saw Rikel’s awkward expression, his heart sank. It was the expression Rikel made when Leia visited in the past.
“No way.”
“Yes. She’s here again.”
It had already been a week. Leia started coming to Akkia’s mansion without notice.
Since he didn’t open the door once, he had no choice but to allow her entrance because she waited outside.
Rikel looked at Akkia with a perplexed expression, not knowing what to do.
A low sigh escaped Akkia’s lips. Approaching Rikel, who stood by the door, Leia behind the door came into view.
“Don’t you have any pride?”
Although he had expressed his intention not to meet her until now.
“Did you abandon your pride since your days as an apothecary?”
Akkia was dumbfounded by Leia’s reply, which came without any hesitation. He looked at Leia behind the door, who greeted him with a cheerful smile, and unconsciously clicked his tongue.
Knowing that arguing with her would mean she wouldn’t leave today, Akkia returned to the study.
“Rikel, what’s the schedule for today?”
Akkia returned to the desk, not taking his eyes off the documents. Rikel, with a perplexed look, alternately glanced at Akkia and Leia before continuing.
“Today, sir… You have to visit the upper town, and also…”
Even without that, Rikel already felt like she was going to die between the two. On the day he returned from the debutante ball and the recent social gathering.
Every day Leia came, Akkia felt a low pressure.
‘No.’
(To be continued)
The level of the atmospheric pressure wasn’t the issue; it was the cold, piercing gaze that made it hard to breathe.
When Leia returned to the capital, the frozen atmosphere in the mansion seemed to change a bit. Now, every moment felt like walking on thin ice, with the delicate Rikel caught in between.
“Could you two please reconcile?”
Rikel pleaded with an earnest gaze, looking at the two. At that moment, Leia, who was standing with them, spoke up in the study.
“Lord, please try this cake. It’s from the most famous pastry chef in the city…”
Suddenly, a sweet fragrance wafted through, and it seemed Leia had brought a basket. She placed the rattan basket with desserts on the table and spoke.
Observing this, Akkia, picking up his documents, called Rikel.
“Rikel, come to the conference room.”
“Now? Right now?”
As Leia placed the basket down, Akkia, without paying much attention to her, passed by. He feared that if he faced her directly, he might be swayed by her face without even realizing it.
‘Peach tart.’
Especially today, enduring that fragrance was particularly challenging. It was the scent of peaches that had colored their first kiss, a moment when Leia’s aroma sweetened his mouth.
Akkia briefly glanced at Leia’s resentful expression as he passed by, reading the resentment reflected in her eyes.
Male lead is a Divorced Husband
She said to him: “Tell me, what makes you like me? I’ll change it!”
Liu Changning transmigrated into a female cannon fodder character in a female-dominant novel.
After reading the first half of the novel’s plot, the first thing she did upon transmigration was to divorce the Pan Jinlian-style male protagonist she had just married.
She indulged herself, pretending to be ugly and poor.
But as time passed, the way that man looked at her became more and more unusual…
Liu Changning was dumbfounded: Tell me, what makes you like me? I’ll change!
――
This lifetime, Pei Yuanshao was rejected by the same woman twice!
The first time, she drove him away. Forced by the situation, he endured the waves of anger in his heart, yielding and humbling himself.
That person lay slanted on a rocking chair, her sallow face emotionless: “If you don’t want a divorce, go cook!”
Pei Yuanshao’s face was dark and gloomy: “You!”
The second time, after the crisis in Jinling City was resolved, the new emperor sent someone to pick him up. He turned around, stammering: “I… I have to go. If you keep me…”
That person lay on the kang bed, her back to him, as if she had long anticipated this day, crisp and clear: “Goodbye!”
Pei Yuanshao was so angry his fingers trembled: “You… you!”
The mission of family and country made him restrain himself, averting his eyes and turning to leave this broken household.
Two years later, they met again. Seeing her ethereal face, his body shook like a sieve.
“She was originally a ‘she’!”
At the Qionglin Banquet, the top scholar of the imperial examination, a talented person with exceptional speech and conduct, all the unmarried young gentlemen from aristocratic families looked at her with shy and timid eyes.
The peerless imperial official Pei Yuanshao felt the anger in his heart erupt. He pointed at the woman surrounded by the crowd at the Qionglin Banquet, his thin lips slightly curled: “Little sister, I wants that person to be the wife-master of my Mingde Prince Manor.”
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