I’ll Become the Female Lead in this Trashy Webnovel

50. An Unspeakable Secret (1)

On Friday, a day before the day of the showdown, So-hee’s heart shook greatly. The tremors were all due to concern just in case her plan failed. However, if there were no special variables, the plan wouldn’t go wrong. The day was set for the first Saturday of the week since Joshua wouldn’t be at the palace at that time due to regular meetings. The window, her usual escape route, was blocked, but So-hee could still escape the palace through the gates. Still, why was she so anxious? While strolling in the garden under the sunshine, she found herself trembling sometimes. When she entered her room afterward, Joshua was already there. He stared at the paper he was holding with a serious look, and immediately relaxed his expression once he saw Ariad there.

“I told you to stay here and wait for me.”

“I knew you’d be late. What’s that paper?”

His eyes almost closed when he smiled at So-hee’s question. Then, he grabbed her and headed to bed. He urged her to sit down, gently laid his hand on Ariad’s stomach, and unfolded the paper. Black letters were written on white. It was a list of potential names for her future baby. Seated behind her, Joshua continued to explain lazily about the meaning behind every name and whether the name was suited for a boy or a girl. He even asked if she liked it or not until he stopped. Then there was silence.

A few minutes later, he spoke again. “You don’t like a single one at all? Should I make another list again?”

Instead of answering, Sohee shook her head and examined the paper right before her, pretending to focus on each name. Even if she was faking it, Joshua wouldn’t be able to check her countenance since he was holding her from behind until his chin slowly dropped to see her face. Sohee probably looked constipated at that moment. Her nervousness since this morning must have been too obvious. The more Joshua calmly talked about their future, the more intense her emotions became she couldn’t control her expression. After burying her face in the paper for so long, he abruptly set the paper in front of her aside. Kneeling, Joshua got out of bed to face her. Even then, she was only staring at one place without moving. Joshua bent one knee in front of her until they were eye-level while she was still seated on the bed. His fingers held her chin up and at last, their eyes met. She didn’t want to get caught but she was afraid that her face had already revealed it.

“Ariad.”

Every time Joshua called Ariad’s name in that deep baritone, various emotions such as love that she had never felt in her life and obvious anxiety would attack her from all sorts of directions.

Things like love that I’ve never felt in my life, and nervousness that I sometimes see.

“Tell me what you’re thinking.”

Every now and then, mixed emotions would still continue bombarding Sohee. Joshua might be cold-hearted to others but he was honest to a fault when it came to Ariad.

“Ariad, if you don’t tell me, then don’t.”

So-hee, who was counting the profits of her choice, would sometimes become absent-minded the moment she faced Joshua. She was the only one who knew his heart and how big it was. Suddenly, So-hee realized where this morning’s tremors came from. She felt sorry for the man whom she had to abandon and would suffer from despair in the future.

Nevertheless, Sohee had to walk this path. Even if So-hee wasn’t the author, she couldn’t bring herself to kill the child she had. It didn’t matter whether this was just a fictional world or not. Ariad had to survive so that the child could live. Perhaps, Ariad wasn’t destined to become the heroine the moment So-hee carried Deon’s child. Joshua’s overflowing love wouldn’t last forever, anyway. Even her parents abandoned her when she was a child so there was no such thing as eternal in this world. She had engraved that thought deep in her bones since childhood. The woman, who whispered and laughed at her when she was a child, abandoned So-hee at the nursery for economic reasons. She did nothing wrong but she was still abandoned. It all happened in the past but history would usually repeat itself. Sohee stared into his blood-red eyes head-on.  When faced with difficult problems, her past experiences often gave her accurate answers, especially at this moment. Nothing last forever so this man wouldn’t stay with her, either. The young Sohee, who had never done anything wrong, still got abandoned. It was extremely unlikely that Ariad, who had another person’s child, wouldn’t be abandoned, too. Her choice to protect the child wasn’t wrong.

“I was just thinking that I liked them all.”

Her twisted face contorted into a smile. After witnessing Sohee’s reaction, Joshua’s countenance was unreadable but he seemed to believe her and moved on.

“Alaz. I like the name you chose, too.” She said casually.

Joshua came back to bed and hugged her. The irregular heartbeats she felt every time wasn’t solely his. So-hee’s heart kept pounding since she could no longer deny her feelings. If she couldn’t apply the lessons from her past experiences to this, her final decision would have been delayed for months.

“The flowers will bloom soon.” Joshua whispered. “Let’s go out for a picnic.”

A warm voice, like the spring breeze that would soon blow, drew a future that wouldn’t exist.

“There will be two this year and three next year.”

As Sohee buried her face in Joshua’s broad shoulders, she tried to make her voice as bright as possible. “Yes, I like it.”

In the end, Sohee couldn’t be honest. As soon as she talked about her innermost feelings she had no idea when they started, she felt like her promise to leave him would soon crumble down.

‘Actually, Joshua, I….’ In the end, instead of mentioning the unacceptable fact, she muttered something else in her mind. ‘I want you to be happy. Even if this novel becomes too flat and boring.’

* * *