My Ex-Husband Came Back Crazy - Chapter 48

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 48
Chapter 5. Secrets (5)
Lucius wondered if I had fallen asleep.
‘I’m well past the age of confusing dreams with reality.’
Across his composed face, a bewilderment bloomed for the first time.
Celia, one hand resting on the balcony railing as she tapped the window with her knuckles, was difficult to believe as real.
But when he stood motionless for a moment, breath forgotten, her eyes narrowing with growing concern stirred him into motion.
Lucius rushed forward.
He wrenched the door open with rough urgency.
Without giving Celia a chance to speak, he wrapped his arm around her waist and pulled her toward him.
Chest and shoulders collided at once, warmth mingling between them. Veins rose beneath his skin with a tension that trembled through the arms holding her, as if to guard against any slip.
“What’s the meaning of this recklessness—!”
Before his words could finish, Celia’s foot caught on the windowsill.
Her body lurched forward in an instant, her weight pouring entirely toward his embrace. The night air, hollow below, grew vertiginous beneath their feet. Lucius held his breath as instinct drove him to pull her deeper into his arms.
His wavering frame crumbled with hers, and the two fell tangled to the floor.
“Ugh.”
With a dull thud, his vision inverted.
Lucius’s back struck the marble first, and Celia’s body fell upon him. He did not release his hold, absorbing the full force of the impact against the stone floor.
“Lucius?”
Celia, who had made a small sound of pain, shifted her position carefully atop him.
Each time she moved her weight to steady herself, his chest responded with a subtle tremor.
“Are you all right?”
Lucius could not answer at first.
Just as Celia was about to rise, wondering if he’d struck something vital, his hand came up first.
His palm cupped the back of her head firmly. Lucius pressed her back against his chest and drew her down, the gesture both tender and commanding enough to hold her in place.
“……?”
Celia’s forehead was pressed against the hollow of his collarbone.
Her recently washed clothes carried the scent of soap through the damp fabric. When she nestled her cheek against him, she felt his heartbeat racing erratically within his chest.
“……What on earth.”
His voice was like a winter dawn touched by frost.
“Why were you out there?”
Celia stirred. She lifted her gaze as best she could, but managed only to catch the line of his sharp jaw.
“Better yet—how did you get there in the first place?”
At Lucius’s question, Celia wrinkled her nose slightly and reached out her hand.
There, extending its branches through the darkness, was a tree pressed close to the window.
“I climbed it.”
“……What?”
“I’m good at climbing trees like that.”
Though it was from long ago, Celia had already been caught climbing by Lucius once before. He didn’t know it now, but she whispered it to the past version of him that did.
“Why would you do something so dangerous!”
The moment those words left his lips, he drew a sharp breath and cried out in alarm. The sound had come louder than he expected, and he faltered at his own outburst, but Celia, who could not see his face, knew nothing of this.
“You were shut away in that room and wouldn’t come out, so I came to check if you were still alive.”
At her cutting words, the arm that crossed her back and waist twitched.
“Don’t you dare think of sending me away. I’ll do the same thing over and over again.”
The worry, alarm, and reproach that had been tangled across Lucius’s face fractured. The tension held in his jaw released, and his eyes wavered.
He parted his lips.
“The way you say that… it sounds like you came because you wanted to see me.”
Lucius raised his upper body.
As his arm lifted her slender waist firmly, her body shifted without resistance onto his lap.
As the shift in height unsettled her balance, Celia reflexively gripped the fabric of his shirt.
“…You’re trapped in that room and won’t come out, yet you still have the audacity to say such things?”
She had gone to the trouble of finding him, only for him to scold her for danger—the irritation scraped rawly through her.
‘If only you’d opened the door right away, none of this would’ve been necessary.’
Besides, the tree she’d had to climb was a Zelkova Tree.
The Zelkova Tree, with its rough bark and branches spreading low, was one that Celia did not particularly favor. It was easy to climb, but it always left her marked. This time was no exception. The hem of her dress was torn with frayed threads, and red marks scored her palm.
Lucius had certainly seen it.
“It must have hurt.”
“…….”
“And now these lovely hands bear wounds.”
His hand, which had rested on her rounded shoulder, descended along her arm.
“If you do this, I’ll misunderstand.”
His palm covered the inside of her wrist, finding the exact place where her pulse beat. As his hand slid across with ticklish precision, she flinched.
“Misunderstand what—”
Celia, pressed against his chest, lifted her chin.
Her words caught, and her hand suddenly rose to cup his face.
“What is this?”
Her eyes sharpened at the ugly mark that scored his cheek.
Insane…! How dare someone.
The shift in her emotion made no sound.
“Who did this to you!”
“Calm down for a moment, will you? It’s not something to be so alarmed about.”
Now that she’d seen it, the damage control fell to him.
Lucius mustered a deliberately light tone, drawing his lips into a smile as if to soften her sharp displeasure.
“It was only a minor accident.”
“An accident?”
Their eyes met.
Celia tightened her grip on his cheek slowly. It should have hurt, yet he simply regarded her in silence.
“How is this possibly an accident? Do you think I can’t tell a blow when I see one?”
I climbed a tree in the dead of night because of this man, and now he’s dodging responsibility!
At last, Lucius’s straight lips returned to their proper place. His long lashes descended calmly over his eyes.
“Celia, please allow me to save face. I don’t want to show you such a pathetic side of myself.”
Finally, Celia’s patience ran dry. She who had been rationing what little forbearance she possessed day by day could hold back no longer and shot up from where she sat.
Suddenly robbed of her warmth, Lucius looked up at her with startled eyes.
“You seem to have forgotten.”
Her eyes, beautiful with an arrogance all their own, turned toward him.
“I was born three days before you.”
“……Celia?”
Lucius reached for her, but she brushed his hand away without hesitation.
“Face? Fine, face is good. But now you want to concern yourself with saving face in front of me?”
With each word she spoke, his lashes trembled. Yet his eyes remained fixed on her—drinking in each syllable as though etching it into himself, his breath held.
“Do you really think seeing your pathetic state now changes anything?”
Moonlight spilled down across her back.
As the light that traced her outline pushed back the shadows, Celia’s form became luminously clear.
“I’ve already seen you at your most ugly and ridiculous.”
The composed, gentle man who had raised his voice and argued with her, the one who claimed to value dignity yet let emotion override his tone, the habit of dwelling obsessively on matters long past and insisting on dragging them up again—she had witnessed all of it.
“You won’t be rid of me over something so trivial.”
Something stirred again within Lucius.
Over the surface of emotions already full to the brim, another wave rose, one after another. Like fresh snow falling upon snow long since settled, layer upon layer, deeper and heavier with each accumulation.
“So tell me—who did this to you?”
Heat suffused his eyes without concealment, and across his lips a line trembled forth like a fissure spreading.

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