CHAPTER 127: CHAPTER HUNDRED AND TWENTY SEVEN

The only sound in the chamber was the soft, rhythmic swish of the silver hairbrush passing through Marissa’s long, dark hair.

She was staring into the mirror. But she wasn’t looking at her reflection. She was looking into the past. The image of the silver locket dangling from Derek’s hand was burned into her mind.

She stopped brushing. The bristles rested against her scalp.

"So," Marissa spoke to herself, her voice a whisper in the empty room. "He was the one I saved back then."

She lowered the brush to her lap.

"He was the boy in the snow," she murmured. "And I was the girl. But he mistook Senna for me."

It all made sense now. Derek’s blind trust in Senna. His patience with her. His need to protect her. It wasn’t love. It was a debt. He thought Senna was the one who had dragged him from death’s door. He thought Senna was the one who had kept him warm and safe.

Marissa dropped her brush onto the wooden table. A slow, genuine smile spread across her face. It wasn’t a smile of victory over Senna. It was a smile of wonder.

"I am the one," she whispered. "I am the one he has been searching for all this time."

She felt a warmth spread through her chest. Fate had played a strange trick on them. They were married, living in the same house, fighting each other, while all along, they were connected by a memory from years ago.

Her eyes drifted to the jewelry box on the corner of the table. It was the box Derek had given her in the garden that day.

She reached out and opened it. The large, glittering necklace lay and matching earrings inside, sparkling in the candlelight.

She picked up the necklace. The gems were cold and heavy.

She remembered his face in the garden. He had looked so boyish, so eager to please her after the disaster with the dress Senna ruined.

"I bought you a prettier dress and accessories," she recalled his words.

She lifted the necklace to her throat. She didn’t clasp it. she just held it there, looking at how the stones rested against her pale skin.

"So," she said to herself, tilting her head. "Between us, there was such an extraordinary fate."

She wasn’t just a political match. She wasn’t just a convenient wife. She was his savior. And he was the boy she had promised to meet again.

Knock. Knock.

The sudden sound on her door made her jump.

Marissa froze. She looked at the door. It was very late. The servants were all asleep.

"Who is it?" she asked, her voice guarded.

A deep voice came from the other side of the wood.

"Are you asleep?"

It was Derek.

Panic flared in Marissa’s chest. She looked at the mirror. She was wearing the necklace he gave her. She looked like a woman who was sitting up late, pining over his gift. It was too vulnerable.

"Just a moment!" she called out.

She quickly took the necklace from her neck and dropped it back into the box. She snapped the lid shut and pushed it to the side, behind a stack of books.

She looked at her hair. It was a bit loose and messy. She quickly ran her fingers through it, adjusting the strands to look perfect, yet natural. She pinched her cheeks to bring some color to them.

She stood up and grabbed her silk robe from the chair. She put it on, tying the belt tightly around her waist to cover her nightgown.

She took a deep breath to calm her racing heart. She walked to the door.

She opened it.

Derek was standing there.

Marissa blinked. He was not dressed as the Grand Duke. He was not wearing his military uniform or his fine coats. He was wearing his night shirt. It was white and loose, and it was only half-buttoned, revealing the top of his chest and the strong column of his neck. He was wearing simple night trousers. His feet were bare. His hair was messy, falling over his forehead.

He looked... homely. He looked like a husband.

Marissa felt her face heat up. She quickly looked away from his chest and focused on his eyes.

She raised her hand to her mouth and faked a small, delicate yawn.

"It is already late, Your Grace," she said, trying to sound sleepy and indifferent. "What do you need?"

Derek didn’t answer immediately. He stood in the doorway, shifting his weight from one foot to the other. He looked uncomfortable. He looked like he wanted to run away, but something was keeping him there.

He looked at her face, then looked down at the floor.

"I..." Derek started. He cleared his throat. "I want to explain something."

Marissa leaned against the doorframe. "Explain what?"

Derek looked up. His eyes were serious, almost desperate.

"I want to explain that I am not defective," he said blurting it out.

Marissa blinked. Her mind went blank.

"You are not what?" she asked, confused.

She thought she had misheard him. Defective? Like a soldier not good enough for his post?

Derek didn’t wait for her permission. He squeezed past her, entering the room. The scent of soap and clean linen followed him.

He walked to her bed. He sat down on the edge of the mattress, his hands resting on his knees. He looked like a man waiting for a doctor’s diagnosis.

Marissa turned from the door. She watched him sitting on her bed, looking so large and out of place in her feminine room.

"What are you talking about?" Marissa asked, walking slowly toward him.

Derek looked at his hands. He took a deep breath.

"Senna," he said, his voice low. "When the guards were dragging her away. She shouted things."

Marissa remembered. Senna had screamed that the Grand Duke was impotent. That Marissa was a living widow.

"Oh," Marissa said. "That."

"She said I was useless," Derek said, his jaw tightening. "She said I was impotent because the aphrodisiac didn’t work on me."

He looked up at Marissa. His eyes were burning with a need to be understood.

"I came to tell you," Derek said firmly, "that she is wrong."

He paused, his ears turning a bright red.

"I mean..." he hesitated, struggling to find the polite words for a very physical topic. "My body... it functions normally. There is nothing broken."

Marissa stood in front of him. She tried to keep her face neutral, but the corners of her lips twitched.

He had come all this way, in the middle of the night, half-dressed, just to assure her that he was capable in bed?

"I see," Marissa said, her voice trembling with suppressed laughter.

"It is just..." Derek continued, looking earnest. "It just doesn’t want her."

He looked at Marissa deeply.

"Even with the drugs," he said softly. "My body rejected her. It felt wrong. It felt sick."

He remembered the feeling of Marissa in the tub. The way his body had reacted to her instantly, violently. He remembered the heat. He remembered the hunger.

"It is not that I can’t," Derek said, his voice dropping to a husky whisper. "It is that I choose not to. With her."

He didn’t say the rest. He didn’t say, "But with you, I lost control in seconds."

He didn’t have to. Marissa remembered the tub too. She remembered the hardness of his body against hers. She knew he wasn’t impotent.

Marissa turned away from him, walking back toward the door to close it. She couldn’t let him see her face. She was smiling. A real, wide, amused smile.

"He’s so cute," she thought to herself.