The Grand Duchess Escape

“You must have been offended by my foolish behavior. Believe it or not, I never meant to insult you. I sincerely apologize, Your Excellency.”

Asella said with her eyes still downcast, but she could clearly feel his gaze fixed on her. She bit her lip in tension and impatience.

After a considerable time, Calix finally opened his mouth.

“Are you done?”

He asked coldly and Asella felt her mouth go dry. She squeezed her hands together tightly as she struggled to form a complete sentence.

It was difficult for her to keep her voice normal, especially when there was a hint of crying in her voice.

“If you give me one more chance… I can perform really well this time. I will do my duty as your wife.”

“Don’t.”

Calix stopped her mercilessly as he raised his eyebrows.

“I have no interest in forcing a woman to my bed when she clearly doesn’t like it.”

That was the first time that someone had pushed him the way she did last night.

But if he had known she didn’t want him in the first place, he wouldn’t have laid a single finger on her.

“It’s not that I don’t like it. I’m telling the truth. From now on, I’m never going to do anything like what I did last night-“

“Stop.”

Calix cut her off in one swift motion.

He couldn’t quite hear her as her voice broke into a whisper. Throughout the period she was talking, she looked like she was about to cry, and even now, trembling with fear while picking out words to say that she doesn’t really mean.

“I don’t need those words. I have no intention of forcing you to do something you don’t want to do.”

But Calix immediately regretted the words he had uttered.

After he said that, tears erupted from Asella’s eyes and began to flow down her pale cheeks.

“Wh-What will happen to my sister then?”

“What?”

“Please tell me what you want me to do. I’ll do as you say…”

Calix’s eyebrows furrowed. He couldn’t grasp the flow of the conversation at all. But before he could make sense of the words, her body began to shake violently. 

“Asella!”

Calix leapt to his feet. In a flash, the distance between them, which had been quite wide, decreased, and then he wrapped his arms around her waist.

As she was buried in his firm chest, Asella barely managed to raise her trembling eyes to look up at Calix. 

At that moment, he felt the faintest ache throbbing in the corner of his heart.

Why on earth…?

Why was she so desperate?

“You promised to help her. You said you would support her so that she could go to the academy. I did this, it’s all my fault… But Mariel .. that girl is innocent, she didn’t do anything wrong.”

Among the scattered bits and pieces, Calix finally figured out what this was all about.

She had been terribly frightened by the news that her tutor was unable to come due to circumstances. Perhaps she had made a hasty assumption that he was angry with her over last night’s events and was punishing her for it.

Was that all he could see in him? Did she think he was a person who would vent his anger on a child just because she refused to sleep with him? What kind of person was he in her head?

He felt the blood running through his veins turn cold and the atmosphere suddenly froze for a moment. Asella took a deep breath and clenched her frame tightly.

‘Damn.’

Calix tried to manage his distorted expression as he didn’t want to scare her more.

“That teacher had to go to the academy as an invited professor and it was unavoidably canceled. Ryzen is looking into it, and a new tutor will be here within a few days.”

“R-Really?”

Instantly, Asella blinked at him with her big eyes and tear-stained face. Calix felt something strange, he hastily avoided her gaze and answered.

“Yeah, that’s true, so stop crying already.”

He had a gut feeling that he should leave this place quickly and that he should not stay with her any longer. He then lifted Asella into his arms.

She was as light as a feather. Carefully lowering his wife onto the wide sofa, he turned around like a man being chased and said.

“Stay here while I call Margo for you.”

Then he left his office without hearing a reply.