Don’t Trample on Innocent Love

“Please hold on a second. I’ll be right back!”

The dress turned out to be as beautiful as expected. The designer Dumiel, whose artistic soul was on fire, looked at Ophelia with sparkling eyes and excitedly listed the things she could add to the dress. Then she quickly slipped out of the fitting room.

In the meantime, Ophelia admired her reflection in the mirror. The dress was modest without being overly revealing. The back was completely open and was meant to be tied with strings, but since she only needed to check the overall outline, she didn’t bother tying it.

She blankly looked at her own reflection wearing the pretty dress but with a gloomy expression. The corners of her eyes slightly upturned, and the corner of her lips – no matter how much she tried – only lifted to a an empty smile, lacking of any feelings or sincerity.

‘Was my appearance the problem?’

Ophelia had questioned Robern’s bullying many times. No matter how much other women liked him, Robern didn’t seem to pay attention to them.

But she couldn’t understand why he was being so cruel to her alone, or why he was insisting that she should quickly get over her feelings as they’re not true.

It wasn’t that she was unattractive.. it was because her appearance was simply not to his taste…

Just as her self-esteem was about to hit rock bottom, the curtains were opened. She looked up without thinking just to see Robern striding towards her.

Ophelia involuntarily stumbled backwards.

“What do you think you’re doing? What is this rudeness?”

“I’m the one who should be saying that. Why are you being so rude?”

“…Pardon?”

The one who had barged into the dressing room unceremoniously was Robern. Yet he acted as if Ophelia was the one who had intruded.

“Lack of etiquette towards unrequited love.”

“…..”

“Did you publicly announce in the newspaper that you were going to get fitted in this dressing room, because you wanted me to see it and be jealous?”

Ophelia was stunned. The one with the unrequited love was Ophelia. What kind of courtesy was she supposed to show him? If Robern had shown even the slightest bit of empathy, of course Ophelia would have been polite to him. But he had completely ignored her and stomped over her feelings.

Of course, the reason she had the article published in the newspaper was because she hoped Robern would see it. But it wasn’t because she wanted him to be jealous.

“Lord Valent.”

“You can call me by my name.”

“Lord Vale—”

“Robern.”

“Rob—”

“Ro, ber, n.”

Ophelia’s firm voice was drowned out by Robern’s childish antics. Ophelia let out an exasperated sigh. What was this nonsense about insisting on how to address him?

“You don’t even want to call me by my name?”

“I don’t see why I should.”

“Oh, so you wouldn’t call me by my first name if I wasn’t your fiancé?”

Robern put forth this strange logic as he approached right up to Ophelia. She had been stumbling backwards to avoid him, and now she felt her back pressed against a wall. Frowning at the dead end, Robern grabbed Ophelia’s chin and lifted her face.

“Get out of here. I’m going to scream.”

“Then scream.”

“…What?”

“No one’s coming anyway. I just sent everyone away.”

Ophelia firmly slapped Robern’s hand away. In response, Robern braced himself against the her body till she was pressed all the way to the wall, and then began to lean in close.

“…..!”

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