Jax felt a bit of guilt looking at the broken face of Isadora. But then he reminded himself that the world isn’t fair and this woman along with those two emperors needed to learn that lesson the hard way.
So he placed a hand on her shoulder and said with a warmth that could lt winter itself. "I know it’s hard. But please, calm yourself."
Isadora’s tears had already ford from whatever horrifying future she was constructing inside her head through Jax’s made-up story. And that story was just getting started.
She said through a voice that was cracking at every other word. "How... how can you ask to calm down? You are sitting here telling that I have to spend the rest of my life with a man who isn’t even... who isn’t a man to begin with?"
Her voice cracked harder. "How can I live with soone who finishes just from the touch of his male best friend? I am sorry for saying this about your dearest companion but my life feels completely ruined right now."
She wiped her face roughly with the back of her hand. "I am not like the other won who chase after wealth or want a share of the throne. I never cared about any of that. I just wanted a life worth living. A husband who would actually love . Children whose smiles could wash away all my worries."
Her lip trembled. "I just wanted a ho built on genuine mories. Not a cold palace built on pretend."
She broke down completely. Hands covering her teary face. Shoulders shaking with sobs she couldn’t contain anymore.
Jax placed his hand gently on her lap and rubbed it with a tenderness that only made her cry harder. "I know you are a pure soul, Isadora. And it genuinely hurts that you are being traded just to protect Damian’s ego."
She looked up at him through wet lashes as if silently begging him to explain what he ant.
Jax let out a sigh so heavy as if every word coming next was being dragged out of him against his will.
"That fool is the cause of all this. It started during a council eting months ago. So of the senior mbers were talking behind Damian’s back. Exchanging absurd stories. Spreading hot rumors that were circulating in every corner of the palace."
He rubbed his temples as if the mory was physically painful to revisit. "I just sat there. Watching Damian’s face as those council mbers frad him while back-bitching right in front of us in a corner. They accused him of being behind the assassination of my girlfriend. My Yuline."
His jaw tightened. "They said Damian never liked her. That she was taking away from him. That he cursed behind our backs whenever he saw us together."
He shook his head slowly. "But they didn’t stop there. They started questioning why the Emperor had never once shown interest in a woman. They claid the reason he never cared about choosing a bride was because he never intended to be with a woman at all. They openly accused him of harboring forbidden desires. Desires that polite society and perhaps even I would completely reject."
Jax leaned forward with a voice thick with fake sorrow. "I watched my best friend completely shatter that day. After that eting he vanished. I didn’t see him for an entire week. Sothing completely unprecedented for Damian. I knew sothing was horribly wrong."
He paused. "And then he just showed up at my door one morning and announced that he had made up his mind. That he was going to marry you."
He looked at Isadora with eyes drowning in false guilt. "I was excited at first but then I realized he wasn’t marrying because he had found love. He was marrying to bury the rumors. To create a cover story."
He swallowed hard. "And you, Isadora... you were the curtain he chose to hide behind."
Isadora was completely shattered. Every dream she had about this marriage was collapsing floor by floor inside her head. And Jax himself couldn’t believe how perfectly she was connecting dots that didn’t even exist. For a mont he genuinely questioned whether this was actually the real story and he just happened to make it up.
She spoke with a voice that had nothing left in it. "What should I do? I can’t live like this."
Jax moved closer. His face ca inches from hers. So close that their breaths were exchanging in the shrinking space between their lips. He raised both hands and cupped her face gently. His thumbs wiped the tears from beneath her eyes with a softness that made her chest ache worse than any wound.
He spoke through that inch of distance. "To be completely honest, Isadora, I should have killed you the second you considered staying by my best friend’s side as a punishnt. At the very least I would have simply forced you to say your vows at swordpoint."
His thumbs kept moving across her wet cheeks. "But I can’t. Because you remind of her. My Yuline. You have the exact sa features. The sa soothing voice. The sa silver hair. And the exact sa gentle eyes that used to look at like I was the only man in the world."
His voice dropped to sothing barely audible. "When I first saw you, I thought the world itself was correcting its cruelest mistake. That it was giving her back to . But then I realized you were the woman bound to my best friend. And that truth is the exact reason I have been swallowing my own greed. Because Damian ans more to than my own happiness."
Isadora’s tears were falling directly onto his thumbs now. She whispered. "What should I do, Your Majesty? Tell . Because I don’t know anymore."
Jax pulled back slightly. Just enough to look at her face properly. "Tell what you desire, Isadora. Not what anyone else wants. Tell what you truly need right now. I swear to you I will do anything in my power to make it happen. Just trust . Open your heart and tell exactly what your mind is screaming for in this mont."
She closed her eyes for a long ti. When she opened them the vulnerability sitting in those eyes made even Jax feel another stab of guilt that he quickly buried.
"I want out. I want the marriage cancelled. Without any consequence falling on or my family." She looked at him desperately. "Can you promise that?"
Jax nodded slowly as if he was considering sothing that weighed more than any throne. "I won’t lie to you, Isadora. That will be extrely difficult. Damian is stubborn beyond reason. And his ego, once wounded, doesn’t just retaliate. It decimates. I know him better than anyone alive. If I simply try to reason with him on your behalf, his paranoia will flare. He will dig until he finds the truth. And I promise you the fallout will crush your entire house."
He watched the hope drain from her eyes. Then caught it right before it disappeared.
"But there is one way."
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