How to Tame My Beastly Husband

How to Tame My Beastly Husband — Chapter 76. Unknown Emotion (1)

Annette looked at Raphael with misty eyes. If he would only listen to himself, he would realize that he was the one that really hated himself.

She didn’t like where this was going. He was biting her, his hands roughly caressing her, and she reached out her arms and wrapped them around him. If she wanted him to stop, then pulling him closer worked better than trying to push him away. And she wasn’t wrong. His hands froze in the middle of undressing her.

“…why are you doing this?” Raphael frowned and tried to pull back, as if her close embrace made him uncomfortable. But she only tightened her arms, hugging him as hard as she could.

“Do you really think I hate you?” She asked, her voice small.

His eyes went to her face silently. Her lips were reddened from his kiss, and her white shoulders were bared from her disarranged nightgown, her eyes wet. It made him feel bad to see her unhappy, especially as a tear slid down her small face, dripping from her chin and straight onto his heart, rippling. Raphael lifted a hand to her cheek, wanting to brush away her tears immediately.

“You were the one who said it,” Annette murmured sadly.

“What?”

He stiffened in belated understanding. For a moment, he strangled, unable to answer. Because now that he thought about it, he had several times said outright that he hated her. His heart tightened as he realized he had done the thing he accused her of doing.

And he had already hurt her deeply. Annette was exhausted from coping with his mercurial moods, and now defending herself over something she had said years before, when he had said far worse last week. Annette was frustrated, saddened, and so unhappy.

“I told you I don’t hate you,” she said tiredly, looking into his cold blue eyes. She felt miserable, like a flower wilting for lack of sunshine. “That’s what I’ve always said. You’re my husband. You’re all I’ve got…so why do you keep talking like that?”

Her words were very direct.

Raphael’s face suddenly heated, and he had to turn away to hide his flushed cheeks as he understood what she was saying. It very nearly sounded like a confession of love, and his heart raced. He couldn’t believe it.

She sighed, her forehead resting against his hard shoulder.

“What about you?” she asked. “Do you like me, even a little?”

He couldn’t answer.

Her smile was cold as she lifted her head.

“I thought so,” she murmured, resigned. 𝘧𝓇ℯ𝑒𝓌𝑒𝑏𝓃𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘭.𝒸ℴ𝓂

***

“That’s why you ran away? You fool,” laughed Harold, draining his glass. Raphael glared at him, but surprisingly did not retort. He knew there was nothing he could say if he had ten mouths.

Raphael gulped down his liquor. If he could have drowned himself by burying his face in it and inhaling, he would have done so gladly.

Do you like me, even a little?

Her question still echoed in his ears. He had heard the sadness in her voice.

Raphael shoved his black hair out of his face angrily. She hadn’t even asked if he loved her. She had just asked if he liked her. And he hadn’t even been able to answer that.

“Do you love her?” Harold asked, leaning back on his couch.

Rather than answer, Raphael tossed back another glass of liquor. His esophagus burned from overindulgence, but maybe that was the reason he could even begin the difficult conversation. Raphael swiped at his mouth with the back of his hand.

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t know?”

“How can I know something I’ve never felt?” Raphael asked, in utter seriousness. He had never loved another person in his life. No family, no woman, and no one had ever loved him. The world he knew was cruel and unforgiving, and so he had killed off everything that made him weak, then channeled his rage into the sword. That was how he gained wealth and power enough to set himself above his enemies.