My Reborn Villainess Fiancée Is Obsessed with Me—Too Bad I’m Not Interested - Chapter 2.11

The Royal Palace at night was silent, a sharp contrast to its daytime sparkle. The light from the candlesticks reflected faintly on the polished marble floors, and the far ends of the hallways were swallowed by darkness. Usually, First Prince Alexis Valentia would return to his room immediately after finishing his work to maintain his disciplined lifestyle.

But on this night, he could not sleep. His mind was filled with the “attempted punishment” at the ballroom—and his complicated feelings for the Duke’s daughter, Serena Leclere. Those feelings kept him awake and made his thoughts race.

A Prince Caught in Confusion

Alexis stood by the large window of his room, looking out blankly while feeling the night breeze. The distant palace towers and the garden trees were touched by faint moonlight. It was a view that should have been the same as any other night, yet tonight, he felt strangely restless.

“What am I doing?” he whispered with a self-mocking smile.

Until a moment ago, he had been remembering his own image at the academy ballroom—the man who tried to, or rather should have, punished the “villainess” Serena. But in reality, he couldn’t go through with it. Her calm face and her indifference, as if saying “it doesn’t matter,” had somehow caused him great pain. Far from hating her, there was even a moment where he felt a desire for her to actually look at him.

A Fiancée Meant Only for Politics

Since they were young, Alexis and Serena were told they were destined to be together. The Royal Family and the Duke’s Family—it was a stable political marriage between two great powers. It should have remained just that, but lately, Serena had been catching his eye more and more.

In the original story, she was supposed to be the “arrogant lady” everyone hated, destined to be pushed aside as the heroine (Lily) rose to power. It seemed as if this had been decided long ago.

However, Alexis still had faint memories of Serena from their childhood. He remembered her lovely appearance and a brief moment where she showed a weakness she never revealed to anyone else. He remembered a time they looked at flowers in the garden together and exchanged just a few words. To him, those memories felt as precious as a dream, and at some point, he began to feel that he “wanted to protect her.”

The Contradiction of Avoiding Punishment

When Lily cried in front of the crowd and cornered Serena, the game’s plot and the atmosphere of the room demanded a “punishment.” It was the natural flow for Alexis to cast Serena aside to support the commoner heroine.

But he couldn’t ignore the pain in his chest that felt like he was being torn apart. He felt as though Serena’s side profile, looking at him with “resignation,” was asking if this was really how it should end. In the end, Alexis impulsively stopped the ballroom event and led Serena away. It was a reckless act that went against his royal self-control. But the strong emotion of “I must save her” had completely overruled his logic.

“I Can’t Leave Her Alone”—The Prince’s Inner Cry

His conflict reached its peak the moment he decided to go pick up Serena in a carriage the next morning. Usually, after a failed punishment, he should have kept his distance. Yet, he couldn’t help but worry about her safety and want to talk to her more.

Even as he told himself they were only connected by a political marriage, he couldn’t sleep a wink. Before he knew it, he was having a carriage prepared before dawn.

“What is wrong with me? I thought I hated her?”

He asked himself this in his room, but there was no answer. He was only confused by how much he didn’t understand himself. Still, driven by an anxious feeling that burned in his chest, he thought, I want to see Serena’s face soon. Even if she hated him, he wanted to go to her house and see for himself. He felt pathetic for being this way.

Wandering the Midnight Hallways

Unable to sleep even after getting into bed, Alexis got up in the middle of the night and walked through the palace hallways. He put on a coat and told the guards he was just going for a walk, then walked in silence.

Under the moonlight, he stared at his own shadow on the black stone walls. He bit his lip, thinking, I didn’t know I was this fragile. For a man who lived with the responsibility of a Prince and had kept his heart closed to others, this agitation over Serena was his very first experience with such an emotion.

“Even if it means abandoning Lily, I want to save Serena… Is this my weakness as a King?” he wondered. As a royal, it would be smarter to follow the political flow and cut off the villainess. But his heart refused. On an instinctive level, he simply couldn’t leave her alone.

The Conflict Between Fate and “Forbidden Love”

As a Prince, Alexis was required to have absolute self-control. He must not drown in excessive emotions or make mistakes based on personal feelings. He always had to be calm, which is why people rumored he was “cold” or a “perfectionist.”

But every time he faced Serena, that self-control crumbled bit by bit. The image of her looking down and whispering “it doesn’t matter” on the night of the ballroom stayed burned into his mind.

“’It doesn’t matter’… does she really think that? Or is she just not expecting anything from me?”

If she truly wanted nothing from him, was it wrong for him to force his way into her life? Was it unfair to use his power as a Prince?

—Even so, every time he thought, if I don’t move, she will be cornered and left all alone, his heart was uncontrollably moved.

Memories of Childhood—The Duke’s Garden

In the middle of the night, as he looked down at the garden from a large window at the end of the hallway, a memory suddenly returned.

When he was very young and visited the Duke’s mansion, he had run into Serena in a corner of the vast garden. They only spoke a few words—she bluntly asked, “Are you the Prince?” and he replied, “Yes. My name is Alexis.”

Yet, for some reason, her eyes from that moment were very memorable. Under an arch of pale-yellow roses, her young eyes held a hint of sadness. It seemed as though she had no interest in the Prince, or perhaps she even felt sympathy for him for being trapped in his royal position.

“Maybe it was just my imagination. But I think I wanted to talk to her more someday.”

The Reason to Hold Back the “Villainess”

Perhaps it was because of these fragments of childhood memories, not just the political engagement, that Alexis couldn’t punish Serena.

A strong desire to “save her” had grown within him, surprising even himself. It might be too early to call it “love,” but it was certain that he could not abandon her. Deep in his chest, a small fire was stinging him. As a royal, this was forbidden, but the more he tried to suppress the feeling of “I must not love her,” the more he feared it would burn out of control.

“…I will go get her tomorrow morning. I want to meet her and confirm. What is this feeling? And what is she thinking right now…?”

Preparing the Carriage—Morning Comes Without Sleep

By the time he decided this, the sky outside was beginning to turn white. A guard wandering the hallway asked worriedly, “Your Highness, are you not going to sleep?” but Alexis gave a small shake of his head.

“It’s a bit early, but please prepare a carriage immediately. …Would it surprise you if I said I am going to the Duke’s mansion?”

It was natural for the guard to be confused. Normally, it would be unheard of for a Prince to go pick up his fiancée himself. But Alexis didn’t care. He couldn’t hold back this impulse.

(I don’t know what Serena is thinking. But I can no longer wear the mask of the “cold Prince” and abandon her…)

Anxiety and Hope for the “Morning”

Going to pick her up might be a reckless act. To others, it would seem strange to chase after Serena so desperately right after the punishment failed.

But for Alexis, it was incredibly serious. If he left things as they were, Serena might become more isolated at the academy, be misunderstood, and be blamed by the Royal Family. He couldn’t stand that. While his worry grew, he also felt a kind of hope that by going to her house, he could make the decision to “never let her go again.” It was a clumsy move for a royal, but he told himself that even if she didn’t need him, “at least I should be allowed to go pick her up.”

The First Time “Burning with Love”

He wasn’t sure yet if he could call it “first love,” but Alexis was experiencing the sensation of “burning with love” for the first time in his life. The reason his heart was so shaken was simply because Serena, who he thought was just a tool for a political marriage, had unknowingly become a precious person to him.

As the pale light of dawn faintly lit the palace corridors, Alexis washed his face with cold water and began changing into formal clothes to go get her. His face in the mirror was full of irritation, anxiety, and a strange kind of expectation. The sleepiness and hesitation from before were gone, and he was driven only by the single thought: I want to talk to her.

And So, the Night Breaks

“How did it come to this…?”

Returning to his room, he laughed softly to himself. He understood that Lily appeared as the heroine and stood out at the academy, but he never imagined a day would come where he cared this much about the villainess.

But that contradiction was surely Alexis’s “true feeling.”

—And so, the carriage that left the Royal Palace at dawn headed for the Duke’s mansion. Alexis, still carrying the tiredness of the night, tried to close his eyes to calm his heartbeat, but he was too excited to sleep.

“Serena… I wonder what kind of face she’ll make. She might hate me. But I don’t care if she dislikes it. I just want to know her true heart a little more.”

Eventually, the sound of the carriage wheels echoed on the cobblestones as it stopped in front of the Duke’s gate.