Saving The Villainous Monster From The Male Lead-Chapter 99 - 98: A Broken Heart

The pain in her leg had reduced. Eleanore could easily take a few minutes short walk, without any help. She was glad that her body was returning to normal.

Eleanore was waiting for Stella to arrive, but it had been past the time she normally comes to meet her. The doctor had advised her to minimise her movement, yet she decided to look for Stella herself.

When she opened the door of her room, the corridor was empty. No maids or guards roaming around. Marina, who is usually waiting outside her room, was also nowhere to be found.

Eleanore started in Stella’s room, which was set on the same floor as her. However, it was empty. If not in her room, where else could she have gone to? Her brother, perhaps?

A smile emerged on her face when this thought passed through her mind. She slowly and steadily, descended down the stairs and crossed the main hall, to the corridor in which her brother’s study is.

Her smile vanished, when the man she didn’t wish to see at all, appeared in front of her. It was Dean. She had heard everything about him from Marina. How he suggested Eleanore might have run away like always. True, the original would, and she can’t blame him for thinking that way, but she was still mad at him and if possible didn’t want to talk to him at all.

Dean stopped halfway when he saw her, walking his way. He gulped, words dying in his throat. He wanted to apologise since he found out she was truly kidnapped but couldn’t find courage to or right words to convey it.

His lips parted, to at least greet her, but Eleanore completely ignored him and continued forward to her brother’s study. She was about to reach it, when the door swung open and Stella stumbled out of that room, her eyes welled up in tears.

Stella looked at Eleanore, she felt a strong clot in her throat on seeing her, as if she was falling weak. She wanted to cry in her friend’s arms, if she could but controlled herself. Her broken heart should not be revealed to a single soul. Thus, she ignored her forwarding feet, trying to approach her and dashed past her.

She didn’t look back and continued running until her room arrived. The tears locked in her eye’s pockets, overflowed and started rolling down her cheeks. Why is she being treated like this? What is her fault? All she was trying to do is return that stupid scabbard back to its owner.

It had been about two days since she had that scabbard with her, she would stare at it all night long, imagining ways in which she could return them back to Hael. His reaction, the conversation they would have, the way her heart would flutter when he smiles for her, it all made her want to dig a hole so that she could hide herself in it.

She was not confident, she believed she might start stuttering at the sight of him. The morning, she decided to bring that thing back to its owner, she begged to God to have another person present in that study. It wouldn’t matter even if that person were Dean.

Hours later, she stood at the door of that study. Dancing back and forth, still debating with herself whether to go in or not. She was going to run away, when the doors opened themselves, revealing Dean.

"Baroness." He bowed. "Good morning, what brings you here?" He asked, his gaze falling on the maroon scabbard in her hand. Instantly recognising it as his lords. "You had that all this time?" He asked, in utter shock.

"Well, yeah. I— didn’t steal it though. Believe me. I just found it lying on the ground near the flowers." She tried to explain.

"What?" Dean was puzzled, as he couldn’t quite understand what she was saying.

"Well, um— can I talk to the duke?" She asks.

"Sure." He says, leaving the room and giving her space to enter. "Then, I’ll be back." He starts closing the door.

Stella turns in horror. "Wait! What? I thought—" her words were left unheard, as he started out of the corridor.

Helpless, she turns to Hael. He was seated on his desk; his eyes fixed on her and then shifting to his scabbard.

Stella quickly walked past the sitting area in the middle of the room and placed the scabbard on the table. "Ah—" She begins, but her heart just starts racing like a mad machine, or whatever and makes her forget her practiced words.

"I thought so." He said, his thin spectacles slipping a little down his nose.

He looked so mesmerising in that moment that Stella thought her heart had stopped for a few second there. "Sorry?" She asked. Completely lost in his looks.

"You had it for two days and you are only returning it now?" He pulls out his spectacles and Stella feels a bit sad, for they suited him a lot. "I thought you had no intention of returning it to me."

"No, I—" Stella tried to come up with a lie. "I forgot about it. That’s all. Sorry."

"I see." He wears his spectacles again and continues reading the document.

"Well, that. I didn’t truly forget about it, I was just—"

"Whatever it is. I don’t care." He cut her off and Stella felt a thud in her heart. "If you are done here, you can leave now."

"Do you hate me?" She asks instinctively, out of nowhere

"No." He looks up again at her dropped face.

"It doesn’t look like that, though. You hate me. Your tone, your body language, your eyes, everything is screaming at me that you hate me." Immediately Stella regretted her words; it would have been better if she had never said it. That way, she wouldn’t have been hurt by what he says to her next.

Hael sighs, taking off his spectacles again and tossing it down his table. He gets up and slams his papers on the desk. "It’s true." he says, looking at her sharply, breaking her heart into a million pieces. "I hate you."

Tears formed behind her eyes, when she heard that. "Why?" She asks in a shaky voice.

"It was because of you that my sister couldn’t leave her bed for almost a month. I ask you— why on earth were you even there? If you weren’t there, Caelestis might not have ignored her and would have kept her safe."