Chapter 91
“We… we’ve arrived.”
Even though Reina whispered it while pressing her burning cheeks, Kaiden didn’t move.
He had returned to his original seat, face buried in his hands, utterly still.
They had reached the mansion, so they needed to get out.
Normally he would descend first and offer his hand.
But he stayed frozen, and Reina, flustered, stared at him.
Finally, in a voice so small it could have been an ant crawling across the floor, he muttered,
“Go ahead without me…”
“What about you?”
“I… I don’t think I can move right now…”
He clutched the velvet cushion like it was the only thing keeping him afloat, sighing over and over, talking to himself.
“I’m losing my mind. Truly.”
Reina didn’t quite catch the words and leaned closer.
At that exact moment he lifted his scarlet face and blurted,
“Just so there’s no misunderstanding — it’s not that I hated kissing you. It’s the opposite. It was too good. You were too lovely, too dear, and now my body — words — ha, I’m going insane.”
He dragged both hands down his face as though he could wipe the foolishness away.
One kiss. One single kiss, and here he was acting like a boy who’d never touched a woman.
If a mouse hole had opened in the carriage floor he would have dived in gladly. Instead he curled into himself, trying to hide the fire blazing from his nape to the tips of his ears.
“Please, I’m begging you — go first.”
Reina’s mind went blank, but for an entirely different reason this time.
He said I’m cute. He said I’m lovable.
Did he have any idea what those words had just done to her heart?
No one had spoken to her with that kind of pure, undiluted affection since her brother.
Something inside her chest detonated.
Boom.
Her face flared crimson. She clutched her heart as if it might actually burst through her ribs and took a shuddering breath.
Now she understood perfectly why he was trying to fold himself into nothing.
“Ah…”
A shy, helpless sound escaped her.
Her lips trembled, searching for words that refused to come. Her gaze spun in circles.
In the end she stood up awkwardly.
He was right — they both needed a moment alone to breathe.
“I—I’ll go first, then.”
No answer.
“Come in carefully, all right?”
She flung the carriage door open and nearly collided with Ben, who had been about to knock.
“Ah! You’re finally out! I was starting to think something terrible had happened inside—”
Reina swept past him without a glance and fled toward the mansion.
“My lady?”
While Ben stood blinking in confusion, the carriage door slammed shut from inside.
The lock clicked.
Ben knocked, startled.
“Your Excellency?”
Silence.
“Your Excellency? Are you not coming out?”
No matter how many times he called, the door stayed closed.
Truth was, Kaiden physically could not exit just then.
He was screaming without sound, every nerve alight with feelings too huge for his body.
He had seen, in Reina’s eyes, the rest of the sentence she hadn’t managed to say.
If the coachman hadn’t announced their arrival at that precise second—
Kaiden honestly didn’t think he would have stopped.
A long while later he slumped against the door and rasped,
“Dismiss everyone.”
“Pardon?”
Ben’s face was pure bewilderment until the coachman gave a meaningful cough and jerked his chin — first toward the direction the lady had vanished, then at the duke still trapped inside.
“You truly have no sense, do you?”
A sly grin.
“They’re in their prime, man.”
“…”
“The mood was ripe.”
Ben still looked lost, so the coachman cackled and led the rest of the servants away.
Left alone, Ben murmured,
“They’ve all gone, Your Excellency.”
“Get lost yourself.”
The command cracked like a whip — clearly the coachman’s words had been overheard and vitality restored.
Ben flinched at the prickly tone and retreated at once.
Touching him now would be suicidal.
“Then… I shall withdraw first.”
Even after Ben’s footsteps faded, Kaiden remained inside.
“Ha.”
He tried to think of paperwork, of tomorrow’s schedule, of anything else.
Useless.
His mind contained only Reina.
He had waited so long for her heart to open , now that it had, the joy was drowning him.
The carriage stood motionless for a very long time.
Only after the last echo of human presence vanished did he finally rise.
“I’m going mad.”
His body had calmed not one degree.
He looked down at himself and sighed, deep and resigned.
He could not go to their bedroom like this.
So Kaiden went straight to his private training grounds.
If he saw Reina’s face again tonight, he knew exactly what would happen.
He needed to run until thought became impossible.
Until the hunger in his blood cooled.
Until he could stand before the woman who had only just discovered his love without pouring every unsaid thing over her all at once.
With grim determination etched across his face, Kaiden began to circle the field.
He ran laps all night long.
* * *
Reina gazed out the window in a daze.
The memory of what happened inside that carriage a few days ago felt like a dream.
Since that evening, Kaiden trained until the small hours and returned only to collapse into bed.
Watching him sleep like the dead, Reina felt an ache she couldn’t quite name.
It wasn’t that she wanted anything physical from him.
She just missed him.
Once she understood why her heart raced, the longing became constant.
She missed him even when he was right beside her.
A terminal illness, clearly.
That day they had confirmed each other’s feelings — only an idiot could have missed it was mutual.
And in the same breath she realised how long he had been waiting for her.
Every gesture she had once dismissed as acting now glowed with love, and everything made sense.
She understood at last why he had sometimes looked so restless, so frustrated.
Because she felt the same these past few days — restless, frustrated, aching.
She wanted to tell him.
That she had loved the kiss too.
That she loved him.
That she needed him just as desperately.
But fate was cruel, she never got the chance.
She barely saw his face.
At first she feared he was avoiding her again.
So she cornered Ben and demanded answers.
Only to end up listening to his tearful complaints instead.
“I’m the one who’s dying here! Do you have any idea how His Excellency has been hounding me? He used to be a workaholic ghost — now he’s a grasshopper who wants to sing all summer! There’s a mountain of overdue documents, yet every five minutes it’s ‘When will this end?’ ‘Can’t we just skip this?’ ‘Why don’t you do it?’ — I’m really going to drop dead!”
So Kaiden was swamped.
The culprit, unsurprisingly, was the emperor — summoning him on flimsy pretexts, nitpicking every report until new ones had to be written.
The same old harassment, but suddenly revived just when things had been quiet.
And unlike before, Kaiden — who used to endure in silence — was now grumbling openly and saying he wanted to die.
From Ben’s perspective, this was catastrophic.
Come to think of it, they hadn’t even shared lunch these past few days.
Kaiden was probably just as flustered and overwhelmed as she was.
Knowing he wasn’t deliberately avoiding her loosened the knot in her chest.
But she still didn’t understand why he ran laps every single night.
If he was busy during the day, they could talk at night.
They shared a bed, for heaven’s sake.
Yet he always slipped in only after she was asleep.
She sensed him in her dreams, so yes, they slept together.
But every morning the space beside her was cold and empty, leaving her heart restless in ways she couldn’t articulate.
What she truly could not comprehend was why he refused her even the smallest chance to speak — especially at night.
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By Anna 💓
