My Vengeful Former Lover - Chapter 26

Chapter 26

Deatrice thought back to the times when they were still genuine lovers.

Lucius was affectionate and passionate, and although sometimes he would overthink and become a little pessimistic, it wasn’t that serious. It was still negligible.

But from what she could observe right now, that negative side of him she had barely even seen on his person had distorted further into what she could only describe as corrupt and twisted, to the point where Deatrice doubted if she could still handle it if he ever bared his fangs against her.

He gently stroked her cheek with his thumb and moved towards the outline of her lips. His delicate touch made her throat feel dry.

He smiled softly, “Of course, I understand. Deatrice… you are just that kind of person. But… that doesn’t mean… I can’t get angry…”

She didn’t understand what he meant, and Lucius just laughed after spouting that nonsense. Deatrice tried reining in her anger by biting her lips, but it was difficult for her to maintain composure when his body was on top of her while saying words that offended her.

His next words eventually made her snap.

“Would you have said this too had you married that second prince? You want him to f*ck you too because that’s his duty?”

Slap!

“Get off me.” Deatrice slapped him on the cheek, unable to bear his humiliating actions any longer. “Stop harassing me.” she ordered as her eyes glared at him, “Do not lay on top of me if you have no intentions of sleeping with me.”

The smile on his face remained, but it was more of his amusement with her choice of words such as ‘harass’, and then he turned his head away as he left the bed.

Lucius wiped her cheek and stood motionless for a good while, then he apologized.

“Sorry, I was drunk.”

However, Deatrice, who had already witnessed how threatening and wretched he could be, could not afford to forgive him so easily with such a brief and half-hearted apology.

Lucius looked down at her with his head slightly crooked, then he slowly re-tied the laces of her pajamas. He tousled her hair with his fingers and kissed her on the cheek the way a big brother would to their younger sister.

“Sleep well, Deatrice.”

He grabbed the corners of the blankets and tucked her in. Soon after, Deatrice heard him plopping down on the sofa.

He didn’t come back to her side again.

Tonight was bound to be a sleepless night for her, and it wasn’t until dawn that Deatrice had finally dozed off into a dreamless slumber.

***

When she woke up a few hours later, Lucius had already left. Her maid said he went horseback riding, and then he mentioned wanting to have breakfast with her after he was finished with work.

The maid didn’t say where he went specifically, but Deatrice knew that Lucius would usually go around the Sowell Forest and then towards the east. She knew this because back then, Lucius would often visit that place when he came to visit her in their house. Even after taking a shower, she could still detect the scent of forest lilacs and sycamore exuding from his body.

She would lean on his shoulder for a while and inhale that comforting smell, and Lucius would adjust his position to make her feel more comfortable no matter how awkward his posture might be while reading the newspaper.

“Lucy.” She muttered back then, resting her forehead on his shoulder. “You smell nice, like the faint fragrances of Düssel perfume.”

“Oh, really? How did you know? I actually waited in line for an hour just to buy Arton-Düssel’s most famous perfume.” He playfully responded. However, in contrast to his current light-hearted attitude, Deatrice spoke in all seriousness and Lucius even heard the stubborn tone of her voice.

“I think Dussel should make a perfume series labelled ‘Lucius’.”

He burst out laughing at his lover’s solemn expression. He pulled her face closer in an attempt to kiss her.

Lucius’ laugh made it seem like her words were but a mere joke, but Deatrice still let him kiss her anyways. She had already seen different versions of his laughter, but he would only laugh this way when he was with her, and that’s why she liked hearing him laugh so freely like this.

Lucius did treat her words like a child’s prank, but he couldn’t completely ignore the words of his lover.

“If you promise to use it, I’ll go to Düssel and ask for one to be made.”

He said as he pressed his lips to her temple.

The ‘Lucius’ at that time would often make her sigh in admiration because it felt as if he could make her faintest dreams into a reality.

Indeed.

Three months later, Lucius went to Düssel to request for a perfume similar to the scent that clung to his body when he had just emerged from the Sowell woods. But when Deatrice purchased the perfume and tested its fragrance, she said that the smell was similar but there was something lacking.

She realized then, that what she loved smelling and what was missing from that little bottle in her hand was that distinct scent that belonged solely to him. She buried her face into the nape of his neck.

When there were times that Deatrice missed him dearly, she would dab some of the perfume onto her wrist and let the scent drift to her nose. When she wrote letters to him, she would sometimes sprinkle a few drops on a handkerchief and hold them with both hands while sitting by the window.

But…

Just like how its scent had faded from her body when the perfume bottle was accidentally destroyed by someone else—those precious moments could only ever remain as lost echoes of the past.

Deatrice surmised that even if she could smell the scent of the Sowell forest on him again today, nothing wouldn’t be the same as it was then.

“Today, or any day in the future, I will never sleep with you.”

The ‘Lucius’ of yesterday was a completely different person from the warm-hearted lover she remembered.

Cold…

She told herself that just because he looked or smelled the same, he was already fundamentally different from the person she once knew. So she should stop regarding him by the standards of what she knew of him before because she was sure to be mistaken.

It wouldn’t be the first time that happened…