“Words still won’t change anything when it comes to him.”
"Genevieve...you've changed."
Adaline felt a desire to cling to him as if he were an ex-boyfriend, desperately, pitifully. But she understood: [if she did this, the madman would simply beat that poor fellow to death.]
[Main character! Hero of this world!]
[Yes, a mad dog as he is.]
[The heroine became a deputy, and the main character became a mad dog.] The eyes were in tears. Her reports over the past few years had said that he had become more aggressive...but not to this extent.
[The fact that no one intervened was not only due to his reputation. [It’s just that those who had the most power at this reception – the Crown Prince, the Saint, the Duke, and even the representatives of the marquises, mixed with the crowd, only watched silently.]
Adaline felt that only she could stop him.
Only she can save his life.
"Shane, stop it!"
Screaming loudly, she wrapped her arms around his waist.
And as if by magic, he froze.
Carefully, as if touching a mine, she pulled him a little closer to her, and a little further from the mutilated man. Shane didn't resist, but he didn't pull away either.
"Enough. Well please..."
"..."
"If he dies..."
[Death was scary.]
[Alien and our own.]
Adalyn closed her eyes, unable to look at the crippled man, and spoke the first thing that came to mind:
“I haven’t even danced once today, have I? Let's go and dance. My partner is Jeff, but you're my fiancé, so it's okay. Let's go, Shane. Let him go, okay? Let go..."
She was truly afraid that he would die.
She squeezed Shane tighter, not allowing him to move.
A moment later he covered her hand with his.
"If you had just told me to stop, Adaline...I would have stopped."
"Don't lie."
"This is true. Just tell me."
He smiled, raised her hand and kissed it. Fingers - one after another.
“Are you afraid that I will actually kill him?”
"Yes. Afraid."
"Me? Or..."
But, seeing how pale Adaline turned, he changed his intonation.
“If I wanted to kill him, he would have died already.”
"..."
"This lesson is enough."
He added that he had no intention of killing the man.
Adaline looked at him in disbelief.
[Perhaps he simply decided to postpone the murder until later.]
[Once upon a time the novel was a light and cheerful love story, one could believe it.]
[But now that the genre had changed to a strange hybrid tragicomedy, trust was misplaced.]
“You wanted to dance. Let's go."
“Um...a little later. I need to come to my senses, my head is spinning.№
"Then step on my feet."
“I’m not a child to trample on your shoes...”
Adaline, with a quick glance, signaled to the exhausted man: run while you can.
Shane didn't stop him. I just watched silently as he crawled away, gasping for breath. Then he turned his heavy gaze to the crowd. He didn’t say a word, but the expression on his face was quite eloquent: Those who underestimate Adaline Bertrand are not to be trifled with.
Edwin whistled softly:
“What a performance.”
“How can you say that? They almost broke my sister’s head!”
"She's not my sister."
A man who wouldn’t care even if his own sister was beaten put it surprisingly elegantly.
Jeff commented:
“I just went to get drinks and my first dance was already stolen.”
“But look: now no one will dare to doubt Adaline Bertrand.”
Edwin chuckled.
[Shane acted out a scene of jealousy, as if he was furious with his fiancée's situation.]
[Partially, really not myself.]
[Now everyone will be talking about how much Shane Blanchard loves his fiancée.]
[And...]
[Who keeps him on a leash.]
“A leash that Adaline herself wouldn’t mind getting rid of, by the way.”
"Ha! It seems you're right."
[Everyone will begin to wonder what the returning Adaline Bertrand really has.]
[And even though she didn’t want it herself, for Edwin it was a trump card. A useful card has returned to the game.]