Love.
It was also a topic that filled in the most social gatherings she happened to attend.
How the ladies shared stories with crimson cheeks and sparkling eyes about their encounter with a gentleman.
How they were asked for a dance, how a bouquet of flowers was offered to them, how they received a marriage proposal, and so on.
But during that mont, what she mostly did was wonder what made them that enthusiastic about having a relationship with people that they just t.
Nonetheless, despite all her different ways of thinking to define love, just like how love began to bloom in juvenile life, she did not deny that she wanted to experience that. She wanted to experience love between man and woman, just like the love between her father and her mother. She wanted to know how it felt to fall in love with soone.
Was it really beautiful and making hearts flutter, like how it was described in the storybooks she read? Would it be planted deep in one’s heart even after fate separated them forever to never et again, just like her father’s love for her mother? Or would it be shallow, like her grandfather, who married her grandmother just because she was an aristocrat, but his love was eternally for his first sweetheart?
Yet ti passed, and she had not yet experienced falling in love until the day the marriage decree was bestowed upon her. She also felt that she was still away with the so-called love after she married and beca a wife. And that love had never co to her mind again.
What was in her mind after the intention to separate from the man who had married her was no more was just to live with obligation as his wife for the rest of her life, like how he demanded that from her, and like how most marriages happened without the foundation of love all this ti.
Until last night, when the separation intention reappeared in her mind and was ntioned by her, the pain in his eyes was too vivid for her not to understand. Then, love was confessed by him.
But why, when the day ca for her to hear that the man that had beco her husband prevented her from stepping down from their marriage because he loved her, joy could not burst in her heart? Instead of joy, she was overwheld with surprise, confusion, and ache in her heart.
Why did he love her? What made him love her? Was he really in love with her? Did he say that just to prevent her from leaving him? Those questions played in her mind.
Joanna pondered as her gaze did not go anywhere but to the face before her.
But no. Although she might have had uncommon and complex thoughts about love, she was not blind to not notice the way his eyes stared at her and the way he treated her since the first ti he set his feet into her room.
His beautiful eyes had always tried hard to reach the depth of her confused heart. His tender gestures had always been there to bring her to feel how his true feelings for her actually were.
But was it really love? What love actually was? The sa question surged again in Joanna’s mind.
Was it because she was oblivious to defining it so that she could not express how she should respond to it? If so, how should she respond to it despite her nescience? Joanna wondered.
"Happy to see what you are seeing?" A familiar voice that sounded hoarse and deep cut off Joanna’s unruly train of thought in an instant, making her heart skip a beat.
For a mont, as she was too late to dodge the bullet, she could only freeze with her eyes captured by a pair of eyes that had previously closed, feeling powerless to retreat.
It had never co to her mind that she would be caught red-handed ogling him, as she thought he was in a deep sleep.
But wait! What if he had actually already woken up before she did?
Her heart beat fast against her ribcage at the thought that it felt like it was about to leap from her throat. A warm flush slowly crept up her neck before flooding her face.
"I have been waiting for my wife to steal a kiss, but it seed that she was too engrossed in admiring my handso face." A grin appeared on Canillas’ lips after the words he said successfully made his dazed wife flush and fluster.
Smiling broadly, he gently rubbed Joanna’s head with his hand that was stretched on top of her pillow, above her head. "Good morning, wife. Did you sleep well?" He greeted Joanna, who was still in a daze and had her lips closed shut, unable to utter a word but managing to nod her head to respond to the morning greeting about three seconds later.
"Hmm... These puffy eyes again," ca the comnt from Canillas not long after Joanna responded to him with a shy look.
He took out his hand that had been settled under the blanket by Joanna to touch the corner of her eyes, where the trace of redness due to the heavy cry she had had the day before was still vividly there.
"Have you ever cried?" Joanna blurted out, not only to shift from awkwardness and embarrassnt for being caught ogling him but also to quench her curiosity as she suddenly wondered if a tough man like General Canillas von Rodega had ever shed tears.
Had he ever had his eyes puffy due to crying, just like how she had shown that to him twice since they t?
Joanna’s curiosity was suddenly piqued. As for what she knew, n should not cry. They were supposed to be strong, just like how her father and brother had appeared to be, except for the day her mother took her last breath. All the sturdy walls crumbled at that mont.
As the impulsive question was recited, Joanna noticed the man whose face was a palm away from hers stiffened. His fingers abruptly paused from caressing the skin of the corner of her eyes.
Did she ask an improper question? Before Joanna opened her mouth to shift the topic of their conversation, which she did not expect to cause another awkward atmosphere around them, she heard a reply to her impulsive inquiry.
"I did." To what she heard, Joanna was lost for words montarily, which was in contrast to Canillas, whose stiff deanor was no more to see, turned into calmness, as if telling her that n crying was not sothing to be ashad of.
His hand resud its movent, caressing the sa spot of Joanna’s skin before tucking her hair that rested on her cheek behind her ear.
"Why did you cry, if I may know?" Joanna cautiously asked, subtly coaxing him to answer.
She wanted to know what made a warrior like him cry. And through his answer, she realized that n were human beings after all, and she was impressed that he did not hide his embarrassnt from her.
Canillas smiled at her prying questions, gently rubbing Joanna’s earlobe, which made her wriggle to avoid it.
"Don’t. You are tickling ," Joanna complained with her eyes narrowed, to which Canillas withdrew his hand to be put under his head after letting out a chuckle.
He knew that she did not like it and always complained to him every ti he touched her there.
The sa expression, the sa words. And he still rembered that, as he would never forget every mont that he had shared with her.
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