Chapter 255: To Regain Control
Catherine clenched her jaw.
For days, Dorian had been dropping subtle hints, and she had managed to deflect every one of them with a convenient excuse—a lingering headache, exhaustion, a fever that came and went. Each excuse had bought her another day. Tonight, however, the reason for his visit was painfully obvious.
He had come because he wanted her.
For one reckless moment, her gaze drifted toward the heavy glass water jug resting on the bedside table. The thought arrived before she could stop it. She could grab it, smash it against his head, and end everything before it even began.
The image vanished as quickly as it came.
No.
Not yet.
More than anything, she could not bear the thought of him touching her. She had already given herself to him once in another lifetime, believing it was the duty of a queen and a wife. She would never willingly offer him that part of herself again.
Her pulse thundered in her ears, and every muscle in her body locked with dread. For the briefest moment, panic threatened to swallow her whole.
Then reason asserted itself.
This was exactly the moment she could not afford to lose control.
If she surrendered to fear, she would only trap herself inside it. She had survived him once. She would survive him again, not by strength, but by keeping her mind clear when he expected her to crumble.
So she waited.
She listened to every sound behind her, every shift of the mattress, every quiet breath, trying to understand what he intended before deciding how she would respond.
Dorian simply moved closer.
The mattress dipped further beneath his weight as his hand reached toward her waist.
Just before his fingers touched her, Catherine slowly turned over to face him, blinking as though she had only just awakened.
"Dorian..." she murmured, her voice still thick with sleep.
"You’re awake," he said quietly, moving even closer.
The dim bedside lamp cast soft shadows across his face. He was close enough that his breath brushed against her skin as his hand rose to cradle her cheek.
Her stomach tightened.
She knew exactly why he was here.
"Do you remember our first time?" she asked softly.
The question caught him completely off guard.
As she looked at him through the muted light, another realization settled over her.
She had hated Maximilian when they first met in this life. She had distrusted every word he spoke and rejected every kindness he offered. Yet whenever he came close to her, what she felt had never been this.
Never this suffocating dread.
Never this instinctive need to escape.
This was the same feeling she had buried throughout her marriage to Dorian in their previous life. Every time he approached her. Every time he invited her to drink with him. Every time night fell and she knew what was expected of her.
She had always wanted to be somewhere else.
Back then, she had believed that was simply what marriage was. A queen fulfilled her duties regardless of her feelings.
Now she knew better.
After experiencing what it felt like to be cherished by Maximilian, she finally understood what had been wrong all along.
She had never loved Dorian. She had never even wanted him. Her body had known the truth long before her heart had found the courage to admit it. Every embrace had filled her with anxiety, every intimate moment had left her tense and fearful until even the smallest touch became painful.
For years, she had believed that pain was simply a woman’s burden.
It wasn’t.
It had only been painful because every part of her had been unwilling.
The realization came far too late.
She remembered welcoming news of Dorian’s mistresses, convincing herself it was because she no longer had to "serve" him. Even then, relief had always been accompanied by fear that another woman might replace her as queen.
Fear.
When she looked back now, she realized that fear had defined almost every day of her marriage. Fear of displeasing him. Fear of saying the wrong thing. Fear of failing in duties she had never chosen. She had spent years walking on eggshells, mistaking obedience for peace because she had believed she had no other choice.
But this life was different.
This time, she did have a choice.
Dorian frowned, visibly unsettled by her question.
Truthfully, he had never liked remembering that time either. Even then, something about it had felt... imperfect. He had long since convinced himself that making her queen had compensated for everything that came before, and he preferred not to examine the memory too closely.
"I was so frightened," Catherine said, her voice carrying a wistful softness that concealed the turmoil beneath it. "I was so young. I’d heard so many stories about you before we married."
She let out a quiet laugh that sounded almost nostalgic.
Inside, however, the memory twisted like a blade.
She remembered the tent. The crushing helplessness. The pain she had endured in silence because she knew she couldn’t say no. She had wanted to scream at him, to push him away, to run.
Instead, she had endured.
"It’s strange," she continued after a pause. "If something like that happened today..." Her gaze drifted thoughtfully toward the ceiling. "People would call it sexual assault. You were older than me, far more powerful, and I had no real choice. The power imbalance alone would make it..."
She let the sentence trail away.
"Is that what you think?" Dorian asked quietly.
His hand had already fallen away from her cheek.
"Is that how you see me?"
Catherine noticed the subtle distance he had put between them.
The desire that had brought him into her room seemed to have dissolved, replaced by something harder to read.
She blinked in apparent surprise.
"What? No." She shook her head lightly. "I was only comparing two different eras. We can’t judge the customs of our time by the standards people live by now. Society was completely different."
The more she tried to explain herself, the colder his expression became.
Realizing she had pushed him farther than intended, Catherine lowered her eyes.
"I’m sorry," she said softly.
She inched away beneath the blanket, allowing silence to settle between them.
Dorian watched her without speaking.
Something about her had changed.
Whether she had become numb to him or simply reckless, he could not tell. The hesitation that once governed her every word was fading. She apologized, yet she no longer seemed afraid of disappointing him. She withdrew instead of yielding, and somehow that quiet refusal stung more than outright defiance.
Humiliation settled heavily in his chest.
She knew she had somewhere else to go.
She knew that if she walked out of Blackwood Manor today, the Preston family would welcome her without question. For the first time in either of their lives, she possessed an escape.
Perhaps that was why she dared provoke him.
His thoughts turned cold.
If the Preston family lost everything—if their businesses collapsed, their influence disappeared, and every avenue of support vanished—then Catherine would have nowhere to return to. She would have no choice but to rely on him.
The thought lingered only briefly.
Not yet.
He still needed her.
And whatever happened, he would never lower himself to beg.
The silence stretched between them until Dorian finally broke it.
"Would you like to work in our laboratory?"
Catherine’s lashes fluttered.
She slowly sat upright, lowering her eyes before he could see the spark that had flashed through them.
So...
Sebastian had made his move.
Everything was unfolding according to plan.
Relief washed over her so suddenly that she almost laughed. She had to bite the inside of her cheek to suppress the smile threatening to appear.
Instead, she lowered her head, allowing her shoulders to sink as though the question itself had exhausted her.
"No," she answered quietly.
Her voice was so soft it was almost swallowed by the darkness.
"I don’t aspire to anything anymore."
For the first time that night, genuine surprise crossed Dorian’s face.
He had expected quiet delight. He had not expected complete indifference and blatant refusal.
In their past life, she wanted to poke her nose into his affairs. She still carried that spirit this life too.
The woman who had once argued passionately with scholars, challenged established theories, and buried herself in research until dawn, and was willing to wage a war for her research, was telling him she no longer wanted any of it.
He searched her face, trying to find the lie.
But all he saw was quiet resignation.
And somehow... That disturbed him far more than resistance ever could.