Isn’t Being A Wicked Woman Much Better? - Chapter 214

—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————

10. Bares and Vanessa
Simour was known for an unusually high number of twin births. That distinctive trait of Simour bloodline manifested itself through me without reservation. Fraternal twins of different genders came into our lives.
Bares and Vanessa.
Bares, the boy who emerged into the world twenty-five minutes earlier and thus became the older sibling, was my spitting image—a child with my same wispy violet hair.
“I’ve never seen a baby with such distinct, dignified features. He’s certain to become an extraordinarily handsome man in the future.”
People marveled every time they saw Bares. Arin Oslot in particular made a fuss over him each time.
‘He is handsome, I’ll admit.’
Not because he was my son, but objectively speaking, Bares was remarkably handsome. Though his sharp eyes and coldly set thin lips gave him a somewhat fierce appearance.
‘Perhaps more than somewhat.’
Except for his emerald eyes—an exact copy of Isidore’s—Bares was my mirror image. The characteristic ruthless aura of Simour bloodline emanated from a thirteen-month-old infant….
“Uu….”
Then suddenly, tears began to glisten in the child’s sharp eyes.
“Da-da, da-da!”
“Bares! Father is here.”
The moment the child called out desperately, Isidore—who should have been in his office—appeared in the nursery like a flash.
“Da-da!”
Despite his fierce appearance, Bares was prone to tears.
‘He’s even a coward like me.’
Whenever he opened his eyes to find neither mother nor father nearby, or heard an unfamiliar sound, or saw an insect flutter past, he would become terrified and shed tears like drops of chicken droppings.
Even when he would settle obediently into the Nanny’s arms, if his father didn’t appear for more than a certain amount of time, worry would set in, and he would sob pitifully just as he was doing now.
“Bares, were you startled that father disappeared?”
Isidore lifted Bares skillfully into his arms, and the child, overcome with sorrow, nestled into his embrace and breathed in ragged gasps.
“Da-da.”
“Yes.”
Isidore gently rubbed the child’s heaving back and affectionately nuzzled his plump cheek with his own.
“Ba-ba! Ba-ba!”
Bares suddenly reached his hands toward empty air.
“You wanted to play with Tommy?”
As Isidore responded warmly and waved the stuffed toy, the child laughed with his lips slightly parted as if he had never cried at all.
Meanwhile, his younger sister Vanessa played with her toys with spirited determination, indifferent to whether her father had arrived or not.
“Ma-ma! Bird!”
She pointed at the bird chirping beyond the window, clapped her hands, and laughed with delight.
If Bares and I were identical, then Vanessa with her gleaming golden hair seemed to have stepped right out of Isidore’s childhood portrait.
When she laughed with her eyes narrowed into crescents, or when her plump peach-tinted cheeks dimpled, my heart would involuntarily seize and I would collapse from the overwhelming cuteness.
“Tree, up! Bird.”
Vanessa, with her curious eyes sparkling like rubies, continued to speak to me.
“She’s already learned to say ‘on the tree.’ Our Vanessa is so clever.”
It was sometimes unbelievable that such a brilliant and remarkable child was my daughter. I was admittedly a daughter fool with no sense of propriety, but Vanessa was truly gifted.
“Vanessa, what does father do?”
“Duke!”
When I pointed to Isidore, Vanessa answered with crisp certainty.
She already knows the Duke! Truly a genius… isn’t she?
“What about Mother?”
“The Commander!”
Insight as well.
“What about Bares?”
…
“Try calling Bares ‘brother.'”
My clever daughter had firm convictions of her own—she simply would not call Bares by that name.
“…Crybaby!”
“Where did she even learn that?”
“Woo.”
Fortunately, the little one was fast asleep in his father’s arms, blissfully unaware of Vanessa’s outburst.
“Is brother a crybaby?”
“Mama! Wuu, uuu….”
As I stroked her soft golden hair and asked again, Vanessa whimpered and reached out her arms, apparently too tired to answer. True to their twin nature, the moment she nestled into my embrace, her eyes fluttered shut and she drifted off just like her brother.
“Your little ones sleep so peacefully.”
“They haven’t been sleeping like this for the past few days.”
Isidore and I stood there with slightly weary expressions, having spent nights cycling through the children’s sleep and wakefulness, but when our eyes met, we both smiled simultaneously.
“They’re always most beautiful when they’re sleeping.”
“Carefully now.”
Lest we wake them, we both lowered the children we held onto the bed with the delicate care one might show a porcelain vessel.
It was remarkable how, despite their completely different appearances and opposite temperaments as fraternal twins, they looked identical when asleep.
“My dear, look. Here—another baby tooth has come in.”
Isidore pointed to the child’s lips and whispered softly against my ear.
“Their hair has grown quite a bit too.”
The tiny, wriggling fingers and toes were so endearing that I could have watched them for hours without noticing the passage of time.
“Our son takes after his father with all that crying.”
As I playfully wiped away the dried tears clinging to Bares’s eyes, Isidore let out a short sigh.
“If I went back to that time, I’d probably cry again.”
At his words, I found myself drifting back to that moment.
When I was carrying the twins, the early months were relatively easy since I had no morning sickness, but as I progressed, the growing children began pressing against my organs, and I suffered considerably.
I couldn’t sleep properly and my body was exhausted, but I wasn’t mentally strained—all thanks to Isidore’s attentive care by my side.
After completing those nine months, labor pains came so intense that stars burst before my eyes.
Isidore dismissed all the servants who tried to stop him and entered the Birthing Chamber, calmly soothing me. He even slowly guided me through breathing techniques he’d learned from the Priest, and amid the chaos, I remember thinking how mature he was.
But after giving birth, the moment I opened my eyes, I saw Isidore crying torrentially.
“I was so worried. I feared that you might… sob… not open your eyes again.”
After confirming that my body was unharmed, all the accumulated worry and anguish he’d felt for me melted away, and tears poured forth—or so he recounted later.
As I held him close while he buried his face in my chest and gasped for breath, I wept a little too. Now, that memory felt deeply tender.
After tucking the children in, I stepped out to the Terrace with him for tea time.
Even when childcare kept me busy and work poured down relentlessly, we made certain to carve out at least one moment each day that belonged to us alone.
As I gazed at the magical luminescence Isidore had newly installed and naturally rested my head against his shoulder, he swept my hair back with gentle fingers.
Starting with which toys the children had played with this morning, we progressed all the way to the latest developments at Armand, which now boasted fifteen locations.
We sipped tea while exchanging these trivial intimacies, when he suddenly narrowed his eyes and fixed me with an unwavering gaze.
“Don’t you have anything to say to me besides work and the children?”
“Hmm… I was just thinking how handsome you look today.”
“That’s merely stating the obvious. Telling you that you’re beautiful is like wearing out my tongue.”
“It seems you’ve suddenly developed a craving to hear certain words. Something like ‘I like you’ or ‘I love you.'”
“So you knew all along and were deliberately withholding them. Trying to make me want to hear them even more.”
Though I had heard those words last night and again this morning the moment I opened my eyes, he perpetually demanded these affirmations from me.
“I like you. I love you.”
“I love you too.”
And I told him this frequently enough that my feelings for him would swell and overflow like shimmering water.
We fell silent in our conversation, naturally intertwining our fingers, playfully kicking our feet together before our lips met.
His lips, which had held mine for some time, brushed against the tip of my chin before trailing down to my neck and collarbone.
I could never refuse the warmth he offered. I wrapped my arms around his broad frame tenderly while gently grazing my teeth against his shoulder.

—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————