BXBX NOVEL Chapter 252 - Trick?
"He wants to serve me?" Adeline kept on staring at Edwin for a whole minute. She was unsure whether what she heard was true or it was just her ears playing tricks on her.
And seeing Adeline standing there like a statue, Edwin took the initiative to talk about that in detail and asked Adeline, "Sister, if you have some time then I would like to talk further about this. I don\'t want to put any kind of pressure on you, I just want you to hear me out. That is if you are willing to listen to me."
Adeline tried her best not to show any negative expressions on her face. Considering his previous records, she was sure that Edwin would try to trap her in his schemes against the Kingdom. "How naïve do you think I am that I would fall for your tricks?" she thought to herself. But at the same time, she was also curious to listen to what he was going to say to her.
Also, he was talking to her nicely, and he had already served his house arrest time. So she thought that hearing him out was the least she could do.
"Sure. I will hear what you have to say. Why don\'t you follow me to my workplace?" Adeline turned around and then headed toward her workplace. And Edwin followed her.
When Adeline reached to her workroom, Bennett was already there as usual. And the moment he saw her, he came running to her and bowed. And then he asked in a worried voice, "Your Highness, I heard that you had disappeared from the Palace. I was really worried about you. Are you alright? Did something happen to you?"
Adeline couldn\'t help but smile seeing her assistant like that. He was the one to always be calm and composed and this was the first time she was seeing him breaking his character like this. And she felt really sorry for him.
So she replied in a consoling tone, "I am alright, Bennett. I just went out for some air and everybody thought that I had run away. That\'s all. You don\'t need to be worried."
"That\'s good to hear." Bennett could see Prince Edwin standing a little further away from the door. So he glanced at Adeline and said, "I assume that Your Highness has a meeting right now. I will leave you two then."
Adeline nodded and Bennett bowed to her again before leaving the room. Adeline went and sat down in her chair. Then she gestured at the chair in front of her and then asked Edwin, "Please, take a seat."
Edwin gently smiled and entered the room. He settled down a bit stiffly. And then he started the conversation in an apologetic way, "Adeline, these two years in house arrest have been an eye-opener for me. I had a lot of time in my hand to reflect upon the actions of my lifetime."
He took a deep breath in before reflecting back to their childhood days, "I always picked fights with you even when I am more than a decade older than you. I guess I just saw my mother\'s hate towards you and accepted that you were to be hated at."
"But now, I have come to realize that all those years of hating you for no reason was one of the greatest mistakes of my life. Because that was when I started becoming more and more aggressive and hateful towards everyone else as well. And by the time I became an adult, I became the typical spoilt Prince who loved violence. And I ended up performing several sins just to satiate my desire for violence."
Adeline kept on listening to Edwin with a straight face. She was trying to figure out the reason why he was saying all this to her. Yes, she couldn\'t agree more that he was a horrible person even when he was a kid. He used to make her cry a lot.
And she was thinking to herself, "But why bring all this up now? Is he trying to gain some kind of sympathy by making me believe that he has changed?"
Seeing Adeline\'s dilated pupils, Edwin then came straight to the point, "Adeline, first of all, I want to apologize to you for all those years that I tortured you by saying things that I should never have. And secondly, as I said earlier, I would like to serve you for the rest of my life."
Adeline fidgeted her legs because she was unable to digest everything that he was saying to her. And she asked, finally unable to hide her distaste, "Uh huh…" she cleared her throat and continued, "Let\'s say that you feel remorseful towards everything that you have done, to me and to the Kingdom."
She puckered her lips and then asked in a serious tone, "But why would you want to serve me when I am the one who was responsible for punishing you, destroying your reputation throughout the Kingdom, and I don\'t know… depriving you of any contact with your wife and daughter…"
Adeline tried to incite him on purpose because she wanted to see his anger towards her. She wanted to reveal his true nature rather than hiding behind this fake mask that he was using right now.
However, Edwin was not angered at all. He was as calm as before and he replied, "You did the right thing by punishing me. I committed a crime and I had to be punished sooner or later. And you didn\'t ruin my reputation, I had already ruined it myself. Yes, I didn\'t get to see my wife and my daughter but that was a part of the punishment."
"I have my reason for wanting to serve you. And trust me when I say I have a very selfish reason." Then he puckered his lips and added after a scoff, "I guess the saying about the Karma is not wrong after all. I have always hated you for the most years of my life. And now, my whole life has been bound to you."
Adeline knitted her brows in tune and then asked, "What… what do you mean by that?" She frowned and then asked a bit sternly, "Are you trying to imply that I did some witchcraft on you?"
"No, I didn\'t mean to say that." Edwin looked into Adeline\'s eyes and he was going to be truthful to her, "What I meant was that I was punished by the Dragon Immortal. He saw right through all of my sins and then he punished me."