When You Started to Regret - Chapter 31

“Then, Elaine.”

He set the sponge aside and gently wrapped his arms around Elaine’s shoulders. As her slick back pressed against his firm chest, Elaine’s heart began to beat once more.

“Let’s leave what just happened behind us.”

He lowered his head slightly and kissed her softly near the ear.

“Don’t worry about Aiola or Cheshire.”

Elaine slowly turned her head toward him.

“Let’s think only about us—just you and me.”

They shared another long kiss. In the damp, humid air, the wet sound of their lips meeting echoed with an odd sensuality.

Splash, splash.

The bathwater rippled. At some point, Elaine had turned to sit with her knees drawn up, clinging to Dominic as their kiss deepened.

Their lips met, their breaths mingled, and their warmth exchanged… Yet the more she clung to him, the more she felt something lacking. She wanted to be filled by him completely.

Their breathless gasps intertwined. The moment Elaine felt like she would be devoured by the intensity of his gaze, he lunged first. Dominic pressed kisses to her slender neck, to her wet skin, here and there. Each time, Elaine’s moans echoed louder than usual, resonating in his ears.

“Ha… Elaine…”

With flushed cheeks just like hers, he murmured languidly.

“Come to think of it, I was supposed to help you bathe.”

“And now you bring that up?”

“Here—get up and lean forward.”

His hands lifted her before his words even finished. Elaine, weak and drained, had no choice but to move where he guided her.

“I’ll clean you properly.”

As if proving those words, his moist tongue moved tenderly, the lewd sound it made embarrassing Elaine. She gripped Dominic’s shoulders, barely keeping her trembling legs steady.

“Dominic…”

At her fragile call, Dominic lifted his head to look up at her.

Her eyes, always flushed when they did this, had turned red again. Elaine Aiola always ended up like this—her eyes would redden, the contrast with her pale skin making it all the more striking. Did she even realize how seductive she looked?

Though her voice trembled like she might cry, no tears fell. Yet every time, Dominic wished tears would spill from those eyes—a dark, immoral, and destructive desire.

Elaine, gazing down at Dominic, suddenly flinched. Dominic immediately realized where her eyes had landed. A low chuckle escaped his lips.

“Do you still hate it?”

Even after all their time together, she still found it grotesque and unnerving. Her reluctance was almost unbearably endearing.

“After everything I’ve done to please you… am I to be cast aside like this?”

As if to say that wasn’t the case, Elaine silently shook her head, lips pressed tightly together. In that instant, Dominic lifted her with ease, pressing against her soft thighs.

“Elaine.”

“Ah!” she gasped, startled. Watching her wide-eyed reaction, Dominic felt almost foolish, recalling the twisted fantasies he’d once had. That he’d imagined such things with a woman like her…

Letting out a hollow laugh, he pressed gentle kisses along her anxious face. As if cradling something delicate and precious, he held her tighter.

Elaine fell asleep as if dead from exhaustion. Dominic silently watched her sleeping soundly atop his bed. She was wearing his oversized robe—it couldn’t be helped. There were no women’s clothes in his estate.

Perhaps that was why she looked even smaller, more fragile. As his gaze traced the perfect lines of her body—lines he marveled at every time—his hand gently caressed the old scars left by her childhood illness.

Carlotta’s poison… Elaine had once spoken of it with a light smile. At the time, even Bella—his brilliant informant—hadn’t known she was part of that family, so he hadn’t understood how sick Elaine had truly been.

But it kept bothering him…

Don’t think about it.

Dominic forced himself to stop thinking and instead focused on Elaine’s body. Every time his hand brushed against her, she twitched slightly and murmured in her sleep—an endearing sight.

His gaze lingered on her lips. Slowly, Dominic brought his hand to her mouth, gently tracing her lower lip before slipping a finger between her slightly parted lips. The way she unconsciously sucked on his finger was unbearably cute.

If only she’d bitten me that sweetly in the bath, he thought, a depraved idea that made him chuckle as he withdrew his hand. He wiped her warm, sticky saliva on the edge of his robe and carefully rose to his feet.

He had no intention of waking Elaine. Tonight, he wasn’t going to return her to Fernando’s arms.

But unlike Elaine, Dominic couldn’t sleep. The more he looked at her peaceful face, the more deeply rooted his unease, fear, and anxiety surged within him, tormenting him.

He walked over to the nightstand by the head of the bed and opened the drawer. Inside was an old box, slightly protruding.

“It’s yours, Dominic. I thought you were dead, so I kept it like a memento…”

It was something Bella had given him when he returned to the capital. Dominic stared at the box for a moment before slowly closing his eyes.

There was a particular memory from long ago that lingered more than any other.

The Crown Prince’s palace in the royal city of Hermanda—behind it, the famously beautiful gardens of Edmund. Invited there were a few tiny guests. Among them, a little girl, charming like a porcelain doll, and the young Prince Turner, much younger than he was now.

Laughter rang out like bells under the warm spring sun. That warmth, in retrospect, made the misery of that moment even sharper.

Though Edmund was a monstrous figure to Dominic, in front of others he played the part of the benevolent Crown Prince with grace, smiling gently as he welcomed the two small guests.

They couldn’t have been older than four or five. With short limbs and childlike lisping voices, they struggled to sit at the table, chattering excitedly. The gracious prince nodded along kindly, listening to their innocent chatter.

In that serene and picturesque setting, Dominic was the only figure who didn’t belong. He was just ten years old then, a slave boy barely worth a name, owned by Prince Edmund.

As the children’s laughter echoed through the garden, Dominic only felt more wretched. He glanced at the wound on his wrist, hidden under his sleeve—torn open again by Edmund’s whip the night before. The untreated gash festered with pus. Remembering the pain, Dominic clenched his teeth.

“Dominic Clair… hah…”

All he’d done was answer when asked his name, yet the whip made of cowhide had struck his back, arms, and thighs mercilessly. At ten years old, his body couldn’t withstand the beating from a seventeen-year-old noble.

“No, a slave shouldn’t even have a surname.”

Looking down at the ragged boy from the fallen southern kingdom of Emilta, Edmund muttered lazily.

“Filthy and lowborn Dominic—that’s your name. Now, tell me again. What’s your name?”

Even though he had already called him “Dominic,” he asked again, not to confirm, but to humiliate.

“I’ll kill you… urgh…”

“Shall I bring your sister?”

In front of the Queen and courtiers, Edmund was the perfect prince. But the pressure to maintain that perfection bred paranoia and madness, which he unleashed on Dominic. Watching a noble-born prince of a defeated nation reduced to less than a beast thrilled him.

“Again. Say your name.”

“Dominic… filthy, lowborn Dominic…”

The whipping alone wasn’t enough. Edmund devised countless ways to shame him—forcing him to lick spit off the dirt, then escalating to crueler and more humiliating tortures, unspeakable in their depravity.

And yet, Dominic endured it all. Because none of it could compare to the very first insult Edmund had thrown at him.

It was easy for Edmund to break Dominic. Because he had Liliana—his little sister, who had been captured alongside him.

After returning victorious from war, Edmund had bathed Liliana and gifted her to Vanessa. Even before leaving for the front, Vanessa had shown a particular curiosity about the exotic beauty of southern Emilta. Dominic’s sister became both a prized gift and a perfect tool to torment him.

“What’s wrong, Dominic? If you keep boring me like this, I’ll have no choice but to bring her in.”

Just the mention of Liliana’s name was enough to make Dominic surrender the last of his human dignity and crawl at Edmund’s feet.

“Something smells funny.”

The voice snapped Dominic back to reality. It was Prince Edmund’s youngest brother, scrunching up his nose in innocent complaint. No one looked at Dominic, yet his face turned red with shame.

“Are you okay, Elaine?”

The young prince, holding his nose, turned to the tiny girl beside him. She nodded slightly in response, this doll-like child, so delicate and pretty. Surely, she could smell it too: the stench of his body.

Dominic clenched his small fist tightly.

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