Chapter 100: Heartbreak Level: MAX
There was a two-hour cycle of combing and re-combing Ace’s hair until it looked like each strand had been carefully placed on his head.
Finally, barely satisfied with his look, he rushed down to the private dining room, spending another massive bout of time rearranging the silverware and checking the dishes.
The servants were so stifled by the Duke’s stern arrangements that they could barely breathe.
Ace even brought in a massive vase of rare red roses, placing them dead center on the table.
But as he looked at the crimson petals, his mind suddenly flashed back to their previous dinner together in the Alvarez Estate, that ended... terribly.
He paused.
"No, no roses," Ace whispered to himself, a wave of anxiety hitting him instantly, "She’ll think I’m trying to force a moment."
He hurriedly ordered the servants to remove them, replacing the vase with an elegant arrangement of fresh northern wildflowers, "She will like these better," he muttered softly, adjusting a blue petal with a gentle finger.
The doors finally opened, and Evelina walked in.
Ace turned, his breath catching sharply in his throat.
Evelina was wearing a loose silk nightgown beneath a beige robe. Her long hair was slightly messy, falling loosely over her shoulders, and her face was completely bare of any makeup.
She was barely even dressed.
But having not seen her for days, Ace could barely take his eyes off his wife. She looked divine!
Evelina halted in her tracks. She looked at Ace who was standing in a perfectly tailored midnight-blue doublet, smelling faintly of high-end fragrance that reached every corner of the dining room... and blinked slowly.
"Why are you all dolled up like a groom?" Evelina quirked a brow, "Is it some special occasion today? What am I missing out on?"
Ace’s face instantly flushed. He fumbled with his cuffs. "Um, we..."
Evelina waved a dismissive hand, "Anyways, let’s just sit. We need to talk."
Clearing his throat loudly to hide his intense embarrassment, Ace hurried forward and pulled out her chair for her.
As she sat down, he leaned in slightly, curiously whispering in a low tone, "Do you like it?"
"Hmm? Like what?" Evelina looked up at him, genuinely intrigued.
Ace remained silent, his dark eyes shifting pointedly toward his outfit, then to her face.
Evelina completely misread the Duke’s message of ’asking for a praise’.
She looked at the dining table, "The food looks excellent."
"I didn’t mean the food," Ace murmured, rather grumpily, "I meant... me."
Evelina paused, staring at his striking features, his sharp jawline, and the intense eyes that had haunted both her lifetimes, "Oh..." she murmured softly.
She leaned back, looking at him scandalously before whispering, "If I have to be completely honest, you really have a hotcake kind of a face."
Ace froze, blinking in utter confusion, "Huh? A... hotcake?"
"The kind they pay the most for in the luxury brothels," Evelina whispered, "Like a top courtesan.’’
It’s no wonder she fell for it so blindly in her past life.
Ace’s entire brain short-circuited.
His jaw went slack, and he stared at his wife with a completely blank expression, utterly crushed by the fact that he had just been compared to a high-class courtesan.
Realizing he could absolutely not carry on with this specific direction of the conversation, he quietly took his seat across from her.
They ate in silence for some time.
Finally, Ace broke the ice, "You have been incredibly busy recently."
"Mmm," she acknowledged, not looking up from her plate.
He hesitated, his fingers tightening around his wine glass, "Is everything alright? If anyone caused you trouble, I..."
Evelina stopped eating. She placed her fork down gracefully and met his gaze.
Reaching into the wide sleeve of her robe, she pulled out a neatly folded document.
She placed it flat on the dining table, extended two fingers, and gracefully slid it across the smooth surface.
The paper swirled slightly before landing directly in front of Ace’s plate.
Ace arced a dark brow, "What is this, my duchess...?"
His words completely trailed off as his eyes locked onto the bold official lettering stamped at the top of the page.
Divorce papers.
Ace sat there frozen, his breath completely trapped in his chest.
The midnight-blue doublet that he had spent hours fretting over suddenly felt like a suffocating cage.
He slowly raised his head. All the nervous embarrassment on his face had vanished, replaced by a sudden, deathly paleness.
"You want to divorce me?!" his cold voice through the quiet room.
Evelina paused, her hand hovering over her glass.
A distant memory from her past life flashed before her eyes.
"If I could, I would divorce you right here and now. I don’t want to have anything to do with you," Ace’s voice was laced with disdain.
Her face had turned hot by her own tears as she had choked out, "You... how can you want to divorce me? I... what have I done wrong?"
"Even if you do all the right things, I still despise you, Evelina Snow."
Back to present.
"You are so heartless."
Evelina gradually recovered from the past memories as she glanced at Ace.
"Your Grace, I already discussed the divorce with you when we were in the Capital," Evelina stated nonchalantly, "You cannot act ignorant about it now," She picked up her glass and took a small, slow sip of juice, never breaking eye contact.
Across the table, Ace’s fingers clenched and unclenched against the white tablecloth, wrinkling the fabric into tight knots.
Suddenly, behind Evelina’s eyes, the system screens violently sparked.
The Heart-Wrecker points, which had been reset to zero after she removed the mysterious seal on the secret storage iterm began to fluctuate heavily.
[WARNING: MASSIVE EMOTIONAL SPIKE DETECTED!]
[Heart-Wrecker Points: +5,000... +12,000... +30,000... Points are skyrocketing!]
[Target Ace’s Heartbreak Level: MAX. Emergency Points Awarded: +100,000!]
[Current Heart-Wrecker Points: +100,000]
[Notification: Host is doing a great job provoking the Target! If you keep exploiting the Duke’s feelings, you can buy endless things with the way the points show no signs of stopping. Good game!]
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