The Grand Duchess Escape - Chapter 86
“What the…!”
Calix’s eyebrows rose at the sudden change in his wife’s demeanor.
The woman, who not so long ago was being held to his chest and behaving as if she would accept him at any moment, suddenly refused to even make eye contact with him.
“Why are you doing this all of a sudden?”
“Get away from me!”
“Asella!”
Calix held her wrists as she tried to get out of bed. This action frightened Asella even more. She screamed with a tearful look on her face.
“Let me go! Let me go! I don’t want to!”
“What the hell is wrong with you? Asella! Talk to me!”
“Get your hands off my body!”
It was a clear rejection.
“What?”
Crack. Something that had been striving in Calix’s head even then snapped.
His heart, which had been vigorously pounding, and the heat that was rising in his body, dropped to a cold, chilled state in a matter of seconds. It was immediately replaced by a cold fury that dominated the place.
Calix gritted his teeth. The man who had never been rejected from anything in his life was refused by his wife? He couldn’t bear to accept it. His red eyes flashed sharply, like a ravenous beast that had lost its prey right before his eyes.
The way his eyes looked made Asella even more frightened. She desperately tried to escape from him, frantically struggling to get out of his grip, but all her efforts were in vain.
“Where are you planning to go?!”
Calix quickly caught her as she was trying to get away from him and pressed her body down to the bed. Asella’s wrists were grabbed by his large hands and then pulled up over her head. Her lower body, which was struggling, was pinned down by his legs and she could not move.
The only part of her body that remained free was her head, which she shook vigorously from left to right, but even then, Calix’s other hand moved to hold her chin in place and forced her gaze to fix on him, and then her relentless movements ceased.
Asella groaned at the faint pain she felt in her wrist, but he did not loosen his grip.
“Asella Benvito.”
The voice uttering his wife’s name was frighteningly low. His face looking down at her, now completely blank, looked cold without any trace of warmth.
Calix gritted his teeth and asked.
“What is the meaning of this?”
The cold voice made Asella shiver as if she had been splashed with ice-cold water.
Her head, which had been overcast as if by a fog, became all clear. At the same time, her mind was thrown back to reality after having wandered through an illusion of her time back at her family residence.
“Ah, ah…”
What Asella had finally noticed when she came back to her senses, was the blood-colored eyes of a man who seemed ready to seize his prey and bite off its neck at any moment.
Goosebumps rose all over her body. Was this what it felt like to sink into the deepest part of a glacier while still alive?
A stifling silence fell across the room for a few moments.
“Um, I’m…”
Asella’s body trembled pitifully. She was too scared to even carry on a proper conversation. However, the look in Calix’s eyes as he stared at her was as cold as ice.
‘How can I refuse the first night?’
If this was what she had done, then it would be considered an outrageous act.
“If someone saw your reaction, they would think I was raping you. Do you really hate me that much?”
At the mocking question, Asella shook her head hurriedly. It felt as though she had to say something.
“No, it’s not…”
“Did my touch make you feel disgusted?”
“It’s not that…”
She parted her lips with much difficulty, but she didn’t know where to start when she was ready to say it out.
That she suddenly heard Phillip’s voice and got scared? That she was scared because she remembered the abuse she endured? And that was why she lost control of her rational mind and spewed the words out without thinking?
Anything she would say would only be an excuse. She would be lucky if he only let her off with some ridicule.
‘He wouldn’t believe me. He’ll just think that I’m a crazy woman or a liar at the very least.’
Asella eventually fell silent. Her demeanor alone was enough to mislead Calix.
His thin lips twisted coldly as he began to speak.
“You know…”
Although this was an arranged political marriage, he had no intention of neglecting his duties as a husband. At least that was what he had in mind.
The same was true for their first night. She was his wife, and there was no such thing as divorce in the Benvito family, and any child born between him and her would be the one and only heir to the Benvito family.
“I would rather have you be honest with me from the beginning.”
“…”
“Just say, ‘Don’t touch me because it’s uncomfortable’.”
He felt even worse as he recited each one of these words in his own mouth. The feverish excitement that had gotten him all hot and worked up just a moment ago was nowhere to be found anymore.
“If you had just said that, we wouldn’t have had to go to all that trouble.”
He thought she was just surprised. There was no particular sign of disapproval when he held her to his chest or when she was in his arms. Not even when he took her to bed.
He could see her fragile body trembling a little, but he assumed it was from nervousness because it was her first time experiencing something like this.
But he had no idea that she was actually disgusted and disliked even the touch of his fingertips.
‘I didn’t even know that was the case.’
He was the only one who had an idiotic illusion.
The way she looked up at him so beautifully, and the silly thought that maybe she wanted him, too…
It was the first time for him as well, but he was also confident in his own abilities. The Benvito bloodline excelled in that area as well.
He even had a faint hope that after this night, he might be able to get a little closer to his wife, who had shrunk back in fear from him.
When he said he would give her a night she would never forget, he meant it.
‘Pathetic bastard.’
He couldn’t manage his facial expression because of the dirty feeling that was filling him, it felt as if he was covered in mud from head to toe.
He could not easily name the raw emotions surging from deep within him.
He thought it was the intense rage he felt because of the damage to his self-esteem, but the actual emotion he was feeling was misery, pure and simple.
Calix gritted his teeth as he shuddered at the dreadful and gruesome emotion he had never felt before.
“I didn’t think I’d let a woman into my life as a wife’s life who didn’t even know what her marital duties were.”
The anger was evident in his low-toned voice.
“How long do you intend to remain quiet for?”
“…”
Finally, Calix’s patience began to run out.
Despite the insult of being rejected on the first night, and the shame of being all excited on his own, which damaged his self-esteem in a way never happened before, he had held out so long because he thought she had her own reasons.
He wanted her to say anything, even if it was a lame excuse.
But she was stubborn, and her lips remained shut. Then, when Asella avoided his gaze, Calix completely let go of the last string of patience he had been holding.
