Chapter 63
Words swirled in Aniella’s mouth, but no sound came out. Just as she was about to give up, seeing Paiki’s back made her anxious. A premonition struck her that if she couldn’t make a sound here, she would regret this moment for the rest of her life.
“There’s still…!”
As Aniella called out, Paiki stopped walking. She approached him as he slowly turned around.
“There’s still time.”
The sound of her heart pounding was so loud it was distracting.
Wouldn’t she look strange, a woman holding him back when she couldn’t even answer his question about loving him? Her forehead felt sweaty; what if her makeup came off and she looked awful?
Aniella was so nervous her mouth felt parched.
She had merely recalled that the curfew was at 12. Paiki hadn’t been about to suggest they leave. Thanks to Aniella’s misunderstanding, he learned that she didn’t want to part, and the corner of his mouth twitched.
He gestured and called a passing waiter.
“Champagne?”
Paiki first took a glass himself and then asked Aniella. When she nodded, Paiki took another glass of champagne and handed it to her.
Aniella took the champagne and smiled awkwardly. She had succeeded in stopping him, but what should she do now? What should she say?
Her throat felt scorched from nervousness, so she gulped down the champagne. Halfway through, she met his eyes and felt inexplicably shy again, starting to sip it slowly. The glass of champagne was soon empty.
Looking down at the empty glass, Aniella regretted it. There was nothing around to put the glass down on, and she couldn’t catch the busy waiter’s eye. She was staring at the back of the waiter’s head, waiting for him to turn around, when Paiki took the glass from her hand.
“Do you want more?”
He called out to the waiter and asked. When Aniella nodded, he gave the empty glass to the waiter, received a new one, and handed it to her.
Aniella pretended to watch the bubbles in the full champagne glass while glancing at Paiki. Her heart was still pounding. That single action just now made her heart flutter more than all the strange terms of endearment he used while flaunting his affection.
“Sca…”
“Your Grace…”
They both started speaking at the same time, and when their words overlapped, they quickly closed their mouths. You go first. No, you go first. Aniella found the situation of both insisting the other speak first intensely awkward.
“Did I really fall asleep leaning on your shoulder, Your Grace? And at a party?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“At the last party, where you were sleeping soundly.”
Paiki laughed lightly, recalling the moment. Back then, he found it utterly absurd that a woman he had never even exchanged greetings with had leaned on him, drooled, and fallen asleep. Thinking back on it now, it was a memory. He even felt glad that he was the man beside her at the time.
“If I was drooling that much, you should have woken me…”
“You had such a tired face, like someone who hadn’t rested in years, how could I? I wanted to take you somewhere you could sleep more comfortably without waking you.”
“Was I really that deeply asleep?”
Paiki shrugged his shoulders and took a sip of champagne.
So that’s why he kept telling me to sleep more. Aniella sipped her champagne, following his lead.
“Your turn, Your Grace.”
“There are a few drawings I like from the sketchbook you left behind. May I take them? I plan to hang them on the hallway wall.”
“On the walls of that splendid Ducal residence?”
Thinking he meant to hang her drawings beside those of famous painters, Aniella was startled.
“No. Not the Ducal residence walls.”
So he meant the hallways of that bleak mansion.
Relieved, Aniella nodded.
“Which drawings did you like?”
“The last portrait you drew of me. It’s completely different from the ones before, perhaps because you drew it after falling in love with me.”
Aniella, who had been sipping champagne, choked in surprise. She burst into a fit of coughing, and Paiki took her glass and patted her back.
“Why are you so flustered?”
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