Chapter 16

Whilst he was looking more and more embarrassed as the silence stretched on, Delphina decided to grant mercy to him by asking her 'Mother' what she meant by that.

"Anything I don't already know?"

Delphina's Mother laughed heartily at this statement.

"No, you were too young at the time, but now you're almost old enough. I might as well tell you about how we got married!"

Delphina perked up at this. Audiobook versions of novels were something she loved to listen to in past lives. And with essentially a non-holographic three-dimensional rendering acting it out in front of her. It was simply a bonus.

"Now, as a former de Luna, our family always had minor friction with the de Velasques. Especially once we realised they had received the lion's share of the recognition for solving the issues that occurred 800 years ago."

Delphina nodded her head at this.

"For one reason or another, your Father and I ended up crossing paths at a few masked balls in the Capital. Back then, you had to go with a chaperone; now things are even more risqué. You can go to open-air masquerades?"

Delphina just nodded again; she had a feeling she knew where this was going.

"Shortly afterwards, we discovered who the other person's family was. We passionately started to hate each other!"

No, you've skipped some stuff there, haven't you?

"So Medinador proposed a contract!"

Were her ears not working correctly or something? How did we get here? Who's Medinador?

"But my Family was strongly against it, so he had to practically kidnap me to get me safely to the de Velasques Home!"

Delphina just nodded at this statement. Her eyes began to glaze over as her mind's theatre worked to fill in her Mothers unreliable narration.

Translation: Her Mother and Father met at masquerade parties semi-permanently, having almost certainly had passionate affairs away from their chaperones. Or their chaperones were in on it. Then one day, they met barefaced and each realised they were from enemy families.

Something something, her Father (whose name is apparently Medinador) needed Delphina's Mother to work with him, so he proposed a contract engagement/marriage. She agreed, but the de Lunas found out about it and stopped her from meeting him.

Delphina's Father then kidnapped her Mother.

"The flowers grew really well that year on the Estate."

Scratch that, kidnapped her and killed anyone who disagreed.

"So once the contract was complete, I had to go back to the de Luna Estate. That's how I found out about the flowers by the way!"

A deep voice interrupted her Mother at this point.

"Elvira, please."

Looking back towards Medinador, Delphina caught her Mother, Elvira, practically beaming.

Delphina could once again only nod. Yeah, he treated her like trash even though he kidnapped her 'for the contract' right, totally not because of obsession or possessiveness?

And Elvira had tearfully run back to her home estate only to find everyone who was against Medinador was no longer around. Regretful husband chases the wife through a crematorium?

"So he courted me for at least two years!"

Yes, a regretful husband yields after learning that all he did was wrong.

"But then, after I almost died, we decided it would be safest to have the wedding at the Velasques Home."

There she goes again, skipping a bunch of juicy details. But you know that's what brought them closer together, or she realised that she loved him truly all along. Something sappy like that. He will never let her leave again, and so on.

"We lost the baby not long after the wedding as a result."

Wow, that was dark and entirely out of left field. Why even bring that up? But the shotgun wedding trope is confirmed.

"So we waited ten years before we finally had you and your brother…"

Elvira had wrapped her story up with a soft smile, but the contents that were hidden behind that smile certainly weren't bright.

Delphina practically wanted to take a step back to assess the situation. But right now wasn't the best time, and she physically couldn't do so right now without a good reason.

The invisible chain on Elvira's ankle was, in fact, a fully reinforced dog lead she kept hidden behind her back and had lovingly wrapped it around the Duke's neck.

Does she stay in the House to keep Medinador here? Would she scheme and have any lady's eyes gouged out if they looked at him for too long? Intelligent and emotionally manipulative yanderes were, in fact, characters she didn't vibe with well. Just raw base personality clashing.

A harsh knock on the door woke Delphina up, and she realised she had been staring at Elvira for too long.

"It certainly sounds like a passionate love affair, I'm sorry to hear we might have had an elder sibling, though, Mother. But speaking of siblings, shouldn't that be Pietro by now?"

Elvira laughed once again, this time with a quiet titter.

"Let him in, he's late enough as it is!"

As the door swung inwards, it was natural to look in its direction. However, Delphina was doing her best not to seem too interested. She knew what Pietro looked like in the game. But there were no guarantees he'd be one hundred percent similar. So far, many discrepancies between The Game and The World have already been proven.

Was he the handsome and captivating man he was supposed to be like in-game, or was he more true to what either Elvira or Medinador looked like?

Taking a shallow, calming breath, Delphina moved her face to point in the direction next to Elvira. Where Pietro was heading to sit, of course, he wouldn't sit next to her. It was a fact that the two were estranged in-game. And judging by what Jenkins said earlier, that wasn't too far from the truth in this reality.

So when she looked into his eyes, and realised he was smiling at her. Genuinely. All she could think was "who the fuck is that".