The Sub Male Lead is Burning with Jealousy - Chapter 6 Part 8
“Anais! No! This is, I mean…”
He seemed too flustered to come up with an excuse, but she didn’t care. Anais got out of the bed. Rahil, scrambling after her, embraced her. Anais instinctively recoiled.
No.
“Right now, I-I’m not in a state where I can talk.”
Anais said, turning her head away from Rahil, refusing to look at his face. Rahil felt his blood run cold. His actions had not been deeply thought out.
“I-I’ll explain everything! I didn’t know you’d be hurt. I just wanted to spend more time with you.”
Only then did Anais realize how hurt she was by Rahil’s actions. She had trusted this person, had expectations, and that trust had been betrayed.
‘Why should I be the one who gets hurt?’
Nothing was as she had wanted. She had neither desired the power of an empress nor longed for the man before her. Anais trembled like a broken doll, simply holding her breath. She couldn’t understand why she was being treated this way.
“Spend time like this…? You think that makes sense….?”
Rahil’s words were merely understated. In Anais’s mind, it seemed clear that he had used contraception merely to have more physical intimacy with her.
“Isn’t drinking tea and dining together enough? You came to see me every day. Why, why do you do this to me every time I start to trust you, Your Majesty?”
He had shallowly thought that even if Anais found out, she wouldn’t be hurt. It was nothing serious, after all. Deceiving someone and causing pregnancy seemed a major issue, but the opposite could be dismissed as a minor incident.
However, the moment he saw Anais’s eyes, he realized this was not a light matter at all. As she began to cry, Rahil felt as if his heart was being torn apart.
“I-I was wrong! I was short-sighted! I’m sorry! This isn’t what I intended.”
Biting her lip at the same reaction and the same apology as before, Anais was frustrated. He always acted thoughtlessly. He claimed he hadn’t thought things through, but it was simply that his deep thinking never considered other perspectives. His twisted and contorted thoughts were always self-serving.
“You just didn’t plan on getting caught. You didn’t think I’d ask about it. You thought you could destroy the evidence by breaking the magical artifact, and no one would be able to accuse you.”
Though Anais spoke coldly, her heart was racing. The contact of their skin made it palpable. Rahil couldn’t bring himself to turn her head and face her directly as she looked away from him.
“No.”
He denied it, but Rahil knew that Anais was right. He thought he wouldn’t get caught. Even if he did, he thought she wouldn’t be too angry. She had already endured his wrongdoings several times, had gotten angry, but ultimately let it go.
“Your Majesty, since you don’t seem to understand unless I explain, I’ll tell you. I am very miserable right now…. so miserable that it’s hard to even… look at you. It’s not just because you deceived me.”
Then what is it?
Rahil wanted to ask, but he had no choice but to listen to Anais’s story. He was focused on her voice and the sound of her heartbeat.
Anais continued, looking into the darkness beyond the edge of the bed, where the light did not reach.
“I wasn’t the one desperate to have a child…. But now I feel like a woman who’s desperately trying to have a b@by. Why me? I’m not even in a hurry to have a child…”
Anais’s breath trembled with anger.
“It wasn’t even a marriage I wanted. I don’t even want to try to maintain this marriage.”
As she continued to speak, she grew angry at the tears that wouldn’t stop flowing. Rahil shook his head while holding Anais.
“No. Having a child… it was something I wanted.”
That statement offered no comfort and fell apart before it could reach Anais’s heart. She shook her head and said,
“You used the idea of having a child to lure me into bed. If I hadn’t been thinking about having a child, I wouldn’t have… been with you. Even if Your Majesty didn’t intend it that way, the situation makes me feel utterly miserable.”
She tried to speak quickly, but her breath caught in anger, and her words were punctuated with sobs as she tried to hold back tears. Rahil felt like his mind was going blank. Even thinking became difficult. He hadn’t realized Anais would think so deeply about things.
If he hadn’t loved her, he might have dismissed her thoughts as excessive or paranoid. But the process and the outcome were just as she said. Rahil had been able to sleep with her because of the promise of a child.
“Now… let me go please. I want to leave this room. It’s hard for me to see your face.”
It wasn’t about sending Rahil away; she herself wanted to leave. Being alone in this room was unbearable, especially after the past few days of sharing a bed with him.
“Please, listen to my side too.”
Rahil desperately tried to find the right words as his mind swirled in confusion and fear. He had hurt Anais again, and he couldn’t let her go like this. He loved her too much. Yet he had kept doing foolish things.
“Anais, I like you. I…I admit that I was greedy and short-sighted. I was foolish. But it wasn’t because I didn’t think highly of you. Please don’t think that.”
Holding Anais desperately, Rahil whispered into her ear. Despite the fear that she might not want to hear it, he had to speak.
“You are the most precious person to me. I wouldn’t trade you for the entire empire. I’m clumsy with words… I don’t know how to make a woman happy… I only thought about being close to you. While I was holding you, I was under the illusion that… you were happy too…”
It was a cold, yet truthful admission, because he did think that to be true. But while she may have experienced moments of ecstasy in his arms, it was merely a physiological response.
