Underwater

Chapter 15: The Backstory

Reina woke up to a face full of chest muscle. She shifted in her husband's arms as he snored softly. She lay on her back as she looked up at the unfamiliar ceiling. Her head was lifted from the bed not by the pillow, but by Delwyn's sizable arm.

"Oh."

The previous night had been the deadline for processing much of the paperwork. She and Delwyn had worked late into the night to get all the work done. They were then so tired that instead of retiring to her room as usual, they had returned to his, the emperor's quarters, which was closer to the office.

She looked to the door on her right, the one belonging to the bathroom. It was across the connected living space, past a series of couches and coffee tables and through a small alcove leading to the door of the bathroom. She didn't feel sick yet, but she wondered if she should start the journey to the bathroom, just so she could make it there in time.

This was why she didn't want to move into a bigger room. How was she supposed to efficiently manage her time in a room this big?

Her hand automatically fell to her midriff, fingers gliding over the bump. She had finally started to show. She stroked her swell as she thought about the last week or so. She hadn't been back to the library since she started helping her husband with the paperwork. It was fine – she wasn't really working on much. The matters pertaining to the school had put everything else on hold and she couldn't really do anything with that yet, anyway. She had to start her business first.

Delwyn, who seemed to be feeling guilty about the fact that he couldn't help any more with her plans of opening a school, continuously asked her about it. He wanted to help in any way he could.

She hadn't honestly expected him to be able to deliver any results this soon. It hadn't been a month since she asked him for help with opening a school. These things took time, as she kept trying to tell him, but he still felt bad. Ah, who was she to try and dictate how he should feel about things?

She rolled back onto him, cuddling against his side. He was warm and she liked that. In truth – she had really enjoyed the last week or so. She found helping with his paperwork fulfilling and it was genuinely interesting to see how the empire of Aquina operated. Reina was almost disappointed as the piles of parchment around the room began to diminish.

At least her husband seemed a lot more relaxed these days. She previously believed that he despised paperwork, but he seemed to be smiling while he worked on the documents.

"Mm," he groaned softly as he rolled to his side as well, his arms coiling around her, pulling her flush to his chest. He burrowed his face in her hair and his breathing evened back out.

Was he always this clingy? She felt like in the first few weeks of their marriage, he wasn't anything like this. Even though they fell asleep entangled from sex, she'd often wake up to find him all the way at the other end of the bed, resting as far from her as was possible.

But she couldn't deny that she liked the physical security that came with being in his arms. It made her feel safe and warm. Is this why Sylvia keeps sitting in his lap?

Sylvia. She inwardly sighed. She pitied the siren, honestly. But at the same time, Reina was a firm believer of the idea that you reaped what you sowed. The circumstances were horrible, sure, but Sylvia had chosen to be bitter about it instead of accepting it.

Reina received a message through Leth from Calan, that Sylvia had visited the library. While she was there, one of her handmaids had accidentally torn some of Reina's plans for the school. She wasn't sure how a person went about 'accidentally' tearing things.