Chapter 72- Im not sorry #3
"People will say I should have done more," I continued. "They will say I should have been kinder. Softer. That I should have answered the letters, comforted her, offered friendship after she proved she could no longer accept friendship without turning it into hope."
I laughed once.
There was no humor in it.
"History would have condemned me if I entered a relationship with her knowing I could never love her."
My thumb moved once across Ophelia's cheek.
"It condemns me now because I refused to."
Her face tightened.
"So let it."
The words came quietly.
Completely.
"Their opinions have never guided my decisions."
I leaned closer.
"You do."
Her breath caught.
"They may call me cold."
My hand slid from her cheek to the side of her neck.
"Cruel."
Her pulse moved beneath my fingers.
"Heartless."
I did not deny any of them.
Perhaps I was all three.
There were days when ruling required it. Days when mercy only gave dangerous people another opportunity to reach those I loved.
"But they will never say I betrayed my wife."
Ophelia's eyes softened.
"They will never say I stepped outside my marriage."
My voice lowered.
"They will never say I kept another woman near enough to believe she still had a chance while coming home to tell you that you were enough."
The thought alone disgusted me.
To ask Ophelia to trust me while quietly preserving someone else's hope.
To sleep beside her while another woman waited for the next disagreement, the next weakness, the next lonely night.
No.
A marriage could not survive doors left deliberately unlocked.
"One day," I said, "our children may ask what happened."
Ophelia glanced toward the nursery.
I followed her gaze for only a moment.
Then looked back at her.
"I will tell them the truth."
"What truth?"
"That I protected their mother."
Her lips trembled.
"I protected the dignity of my marriage."
I tightened my hand around hers.
"I protected the family we built."
Her fingers curled against my palm.
"And I will tell our daughters never to expect less from the person they choose to love."
Ophelia's expression shifted.
Something fragile entered it.
Something proud.
"A husband does not keep another woman's hope alive because he fears appearing cruel," I said. "He ends it."
I paused.
"Completely."
She watched me.
"Mercilessly, if that is what honesty requires...Rejection hurts once," I said. "False hope teaches someone to keep reopening the same wound...You will never wake beside me wondering whether another woman still has a place in my heart."
Her fingers tightened.
"You will never question whether someone is waiting for me to leave you."
I lifted her hand and placed it over my chest again.
"You will never compete for love that was promised to you."
She looked up.
"I burned every letter."
The fire had taken the paper quickly. I remembered watching the corners blacken, the ink curling inward before disappearing entirely.
Not anger.
Not revenge.
Removal.
An ending made physical because Alexis refused to accept one spoken aloud.
"I did not burn them because I hated her," I said.
"Then why?"
"Because there was nothing in them worth preserving."
The answer hurt Ophelia.
I saw it.
Not because she believed I was wrong.
Because she could still pity Alexis while understanding me.
I softened my voice.
"The only words from another woman that deserve to survive in my home are yours."
Her breath caught.
"The only promises worth keeping are the ones I made to you."
I touched the ring on her hand.
"The only future I intended to protect was ours."
Ophelia blinked slowly.
A tear slipped free.
I caught it before it reached her jaw.
"I have seen the way men look at you."
Her brows drew together.
"That has nothing to do with this."
"It has everything to do with this."
I had seen men measure her softness and assume it made her easy to humiliate. Seen nobles watch me speak to another woman and immediately glance toward my wife, hungry for some crack in her composure.
Courts fed on uncertainty.
A former lover standing too close would have become a weapon before the evening ended.
"They would use Alexis's feelings to mock you," I said. "They would whisper that you were na?ve. That I belonged to her before I belonged to you. That you sat on a throne another woman had already earned through suffering...They would make your marriage into a competition you never agreed to enter."
My jaw tightened.
"They would wait for you to question your place beside me."
"I know where my place is."
"I know."
I brushed another tear from beneath her eye.
"But I would rather they hate me than give them the opportunity to make you cry over something I could have prevented."
The room became quiet again.
My hand remained against her face.
"I am your husband."
The title mattered more to me than emperor.
More than king.
More than every line the herald required before I entered a room.
"Wiping away your tears is my responsibility."
My thumb moved once beneath her eye.
"Not causing them."
Ophelia's mouth trembled.
I leaned forward until my forehead rested against hers.
"So if they think I am a monster because I refused to betray you, let them."
Her breath warmed my face.
"If protecting your dignity costs me my reputation, then the price is small."
I had paid more for things that mattered less.
Blood.
Years.
Parts of myself I would never recover.
Reputation was nothing.
History was written by people who preferred clean stories over honest ones. They could carve Alexis into a martyr and me into the heartless king who refused her. They could describe Ophelia as a thief if cruelty made the tragedy more romantic.
It changed nothing.
"And if Alexis's death finally buried the future she refused to stop imagining," I said, "then that fantasy died with her."
Ophelia closed her eyes.
"My choice did not."
Her eyes opened again.
"I chose you."
The words came slowly.
Not because I doubted them.
Because I wanted her to hear every part.
"I continue to choose you."
Her hand pressed harder over my heart.
"And I will make the same choice every day until I no longer have days left to give."
Tears gathered again.
I did not look away.
"I have nothing to apologize for."
Ophelia inhaled softly.
"Not because Alexis was unworthy of love."
I could admit that.
She had deserved someone who wanted her openly. Someone who did not need to be persuaded. Someone whose affection did not have to be extracted from old loneliness and mistaken for devotion.
"But because I never once pretended that love would come from me."
My voice broke against the final word.
Only slightly.
Enough that Ophelia noticed.
She always noticed.
I pulled her closer.
Her body came against mine without resistance, arms wrapping slowly around my waist. I held her until the tension left her shoulders and her face disappeared against my chest.
After a long moment, she spoke.
"You really burned all of them?"
"Yes."
"Without reading them?"
"Yes."
"That was cruel."
"Perhaps."
Her arms tightened around me.
I lowered my mouth to her hair.
"I chose you..And I will never apologize for making certain you know it."