🌷 Chapter Twenty-Four –
Annette looked at her clothes.
She was wearing a long dress that stopped at the knees and fluttered in the breeze.
It was short in length compared to long dresses, but since the knees weren't showing, Annette had no idea what was wrong with her wearing it.
Looking at the clothes she was wearing before she entered Evil Annette's body, this dress was on par with the normal clothes she wore every day.
“All my original clothes were much shorter than this, so I don't see any problem wearing it.”
“Anything shorter than this is considered underwear, no, even this dress is considered underwear too.”
"But not in my world.
He's more tidy than the dresses I used to wear on normal days.
What's the matter with him?"
“You mean you walk around in your underwear in your world?”
“I'm not saying that, but according to my standards, this dress is not underwear, it is an ordinary dress that we wear in our daily lives.”
Annette let out a small sigh and approached the mirror, then lifted the hem of her dress with two fingers, revealing her bare legs.
"The dresses in my world were exactly like this length.
And there were big embellishments of green and light yellow leaves...
I mean, there were embellishments printed on the dresses."
Annette looked at herself in the mirror and explained something Theodore didn't know.
It was as if she was seeing in her eyes a warm scene of a summer day in her world.
A summer with a woman who was not the same woman standing before him today, but the woman she had been in the past in her world.
It must have been a very sweet memory, because a soft smile spread across her lips.
Somehow, Theodore felt unhappy when he saw Annette's relieved expression, this was because it was the first time he saw it on her face since they had met.
This woman seems ready to leave at any moment when she thinks of her home world.
Her face was decorated with expressions that made her look like a living person only when she thought of a world other than this one.
She was like a person who didn't even want to breathe next to Theodore.
However, Annette continued to recount her own memories, as if she had not noticed his upset expression on his face.
“Most of the dresses I owned were bright colours, so when I wore them to the beach in the summer, they looked really good in pictures, so they became my favorite clothes.”
In Theodore's world, photographs were black and white, but in her world, it seemed that photographs could contain bright colors as well.
If it had been a dress with yellow and light green leaves on it, it would have looked exactly like present-day Annette.
If we turned her with her bright blonde hair and light green eyes into raw material, she would become a dress that flutters freely in the air.
That was only if we did this with Annette who was in front of him now, and not the woman from the other world who he didn't know who she was or what she looked like.
Theodore had a flashback to the past Annette had seen in the mirror with her.
He tried to imagine her as much as he could, but it was impossible to know whether his imaginings were true or not.
The worlds of the two were too different to be discovered by imagination alone.
Theodore stopped guessing and his sense of reality returned.
He felt sorry for himself as he imagined a world where the dress Annette was wearing now wasn't considered lingerie, but rather an elegant dress that they would wear every day.
It's a world he has nothing to do with anyway.
“What the hell is this world you come from?”
Theodore clicked his tongue as if Annette was pathetic, then picked up a green dress that was lying on the ground and handed it to Annette.
Theodore didn't want to let her remember the past while looking at her underwear.
“For now, this is your current world, so dress according to our rules.
If you go out wearing this dress in Lider Alley, you will get a one-way ticket to enter the Elysia Sanatorium again, so keep our customs and traditions in mind.”
Annette shrugged her shoulders without further ado, but without much resistance she took the dress from Theodore and put it on over her “underwear.”
She wasn't completely naked, but seeing a woman changing her clothes in front of him made him sigh and prepare to scold her again.
However, Annette did not allow him to sigh for a moment and said something more harshly.
“If the dress I was wearing was something so outrageous that I should be reprimanded for it, then His Highness entered the room of a woman wearing only her underwear, right?
How do you think she would appear to others, Your Majesty?”
Her provocation was dirty.
This was in some way retaliation against Theodore, for getting on her nerves, and a hint that she was in a bad mood because of him.
“I must look like a loving husband who personally came to take his wife, the Grand Duchess, to dinner together.”
“In that case, it would be better if we seemed more intimate in line with Your Highness’s efforts, wouldn’t it?”
Annette, fully dressed, gracefully crept up to Theodore's side and clung to his arm.
Her movements were so natural, he didn't have time to stop her.
Then, with a smile on her face, she snatched his core to the fullest.
Theodore felt strange when he looked at the woman who was smiling at him.
"What do you do?"
“I am playing with my husband, the Grand Duke, a game of husband and wife who love each other, have you forgotten?
It would be nice if Your Majesty showed me some love in your eyes as well, but it seems that will be difficult.”
There was no joke in her natural words, she clung to the man's arm intimately and maintained a businesslike attitude.
“Please accompany me to the dining room.
Even if I am acting as a pawn for you, on the outside you have to look like you are living for me.”
Annette was sure that Theodore had never accompanied any woman to a place before in the entire Odentia Empire.
If the countless women who had tried to get close to Theodore but had failed without him telling them saw what was happening now, what would their reaction be?
Annette was very curious about this.
“Should I act out at home too?”
“In order to look like a couple in love with each other, we have to fool the servants more than anyone else.
They like to talk about their masters a lot.
The only place we can act normally with each other is behind closed room doors.
Don’t tell me you can’t do that?”
Annette had a knack for talking about love so dryly.
“We already made a promise.”
Annette's expression changed in an instant.
Her face had become cold and hard, completely different from the face she had before she started acting.
“Don't forget, I'm not here because I like you.”
Annette stared at Theodore very coldly, while still holding his arm very intimately, and then issued a warning from the lips that spoke so casually of love.
“If you really want to become emperor, there is only one thing you have to do.”
“I can't wait to hear what this thing will be.”
“Don't fall in love with me.
You just have to pretend to love me.”
“Love?
What a silly word coming out of you all of a sudden.”
This was not an appropriate word for this situation, it was not even an appropriate word to talk about in front of Theodore in the first place.
This was because he was someone who was not at all compatible with soft emotions like love.
“Pretend that you love me so much that others see me as your weakness.”
“Are you saying you want to become an opening through which my enemies can overthrow me?”
“That's right.
You didn't like anything in the book, Your Highness, so people didn't even think about negotiating with you.
They were just trying to get rid of you.”
Annette seemed to remember something about Theodore, she didn't say what it was, but it must have been something very miserable.
Instead, the cold smile on her lips told him of the terrible end he was about to face.
Perhaps Theodore would have died in the future without Annette helping him.
“So...”
Annette increased the strength in her arms and grabbed Theodore's arm tightly, then moved closer to him.
"Hug me, touch me, and whisper to me that you love me in front of everyone.
Be serious enough for me to believe that your love is sincere, so much so that others including me will believe that you are someone who can fall in love and that I am someone important to you."
Annette whispered softly, but Theodore read the truth hidden in her sharp voice.
Pretend you love me and make me believe you love me enough to give me strength.
Make me believe that the power you have is my power.
In exchange for bringing me into this world, let me enjoy it all.
Annette had asked him for love very boldly, and her words were far from a pitiful entreaty.
But that was possible for one reason...
It is that Annette hated Theodore instead of loving him.
She asked him for love, but it didn't matter if he hated her or not, so she had no reason to be ashamed or ashamed.
But Theodore did not like this situation.
Love makes people weak.
His heart was a good target for enemies to attack, but since the love between Annette and Theodore wasn't real, it wouldn't have been a real danger.
But if the enemy was fooled by this, it would be a great trap that Theodore could take advantage of.
If his enemies misunderstand the situation as his love for Annette as a weakness and try to exploit that, when in reality, there is a solid wall of defense protecting him, they will fall into Theodore's hands and he will be able to control them as he pleases.
In simpler words, it meant that if Theodore pretended to be madly in love with Annette, he would set his heart as a trap and eliminate the enemies who would try to get to him.
The love of a man in this era was the strength of a woman.
Annette will receive power through his love, and with that power she will cut the throats of those who stand in Theodore's way.
If the price for pretending to be in love is the Emperor's crown, he is willing to give up his heart.
“I will give you everything you want, my dear soul.”
“It is not foolish love, but sincere love coming from the heart.”
“When a woman who until recently was naked talks about love, I feel very sincere in her words.”
“You are... a degenerate man.”
Annette turned away from him in disgust, but at the same time, Theodore grabbed her hand and pulled her into his embrace.
If the price of the love he would devote to her was the throne, he had no reason not to give it to her.
“I will do whatever you want, my dear soul.”
Annette tried to escape, but when the door opened, she straightened her expression and leaned on Theodore's arm.
Theodore remembered the sensation he felt as Annette gently wrapped herself around his arm.
The servants waiting for them outside saw that the two were friendly with each other.
Looking at them without thinking that it was just an act, everyone was convinced of the sincere love that existed between the two as Annette wanted.
It seemed to them that the extremely cold master had finally found love.
***
Rumors spread quickly that Annette had come to Theodore's palace after a long seclusion.
This was a natural thing, as the situation had been very noisy in the past.
Everyone wanted to ask whether the marriage between the two was real or not, and the truth about the murder that happened in the Marquis Scheringen's mansion, but there was no way to communicate with the people inside the Flores mansion which was tightly sealed.
Annette was well prepared to face the eyes that would be poured upon her the moment she left the palace.
The real Annette did not have a good personality, but thanks to her upbringing in a noble family, she was an aristocratic woman who knew how to maintain basic rules of behavior.
Today's Annette couldn't have that level of sophistication, but she had to emulate it.
So Annette learned everything quickly.
It would have been perfect if she had more time, but the time available was limited, so, the two decided to initiate the first stage of the actual battle and went out to face the world together.