Devoted Love, Mr. Hayes’ Darling Wife

Micaela is now afraid of the snow.

Because he is.

When Nico returned to the bedroom, he crawled under the covers and Micaela woke up groggily, snuggling into his arms and murmuring, “Sleep, it’s not good for your health to stay up all night.”

Nico is one of those people who naturally sleeps little and is able to feel good, so it doesn’t matter if he stays up late or not.

He looked down and kissed the top of her hair and spoke in a deep muted voice, “Micaela, I’ve come back alive, the snowstorm couldn’t kill me, I’m even grateful for the avalanche that delivered you, to me.”

Micaela is fully awake.

Her back was groggy and she turned her head to look at him in the half-light, “Grandma told you that?”.

“It’s snowing outside, so if you’re afraid, hold me and I’ll never leave you halfway again.”

Her voice is firm and strong and makes you feel safe.

Next to him, the warmth of his body and the beating of his heart are real and alive, and there is nothing more solid than that.

Micaela looked at him and smiled, her eyes slightly moist, “Nico, if you had fallen in love and married someone else, maybe you wouldn’t have had to go through all these ten years, and you would have had a successful wife and children, have you ever regretted it?”

Nico cupped her face and lowered his head to rest his forehead against hers, smiling warmly and lightly as he said, “Idiot, ten years hanging around, that’s just with you, that you’d be happy with anyone else. There’s only one Micaela in this world, and she’s here with Nico.”

He took her hand and placed it on the left side of his chest, where his heart was.

His gaze, dim, warm, determined, the reflection of his dark eyes, full of her.

He said, “I have a bad temper, little patience, I am easily irritated and not very kind and considerate; to be my wife, I have to condescend to you.”

Micaela shook her head, not resigning herself to the fact that he had long since given her all the tenderness and patience he could muster.

How could being his wife be condescending?

Micaela buried her wet face in the back of his neck and said in a slightly muffled voice, “Nico, we’re going to go get the marriage license tomorrow.”

Nico froze and laughed, “I had forgotten if you hadn’t reminded me, we’re still driving without a license. It seems like a century has passed, Micaela, let’s have a wedding this time, it’s time to pay you back for the one we owed you three years ago.”

“As long as I marry you, whatever is good. The wedding is just a formality, it doesn’t matter.”

“But it does matter to me, and I can’t wait to tell the whole world that I married Micaela, and that from now on Micaela is all mine, all mine. You don’t have to do anything, just be there, that’s all I have for Nico.”

Micaela wrapped her arms around his neck and bargained with Nico, “When I get well, Nico, I want to give you a baby.”

“I didn’t say no, Sein didn’t even suggest you have a baby, and if you have a hemorrhage in childbirth, I…”

Before Nico could finish his sentence, Micaela had reached up to cover her thin lips, she stared at him and said, “I just want to try, my luck is not that bad, my fate has been hard on me for the first twenty-eight years of my life, and sometimes I wonder if all my luck, served to meet you.”

“I don’t envy those who have children, and I don’t like children very much, I just want to show … that I love you. I’ve always known that even Matthew and those people think I love you less than you love me, they always think I’m lying to you because I have too miserable a face, I don’t care what they think of me, whether they think I’m cunning and calculating or using you, I never care.”

“But what I do care about is what they think of you. I’m afraid they’ll say Nico is incompetent, that he can’t even get his wife pregnant, or how sad it is that Nico’s wife doesn’t want to have a child for him. Nico, I don’t want them to say that about you, even if it’s just to show off.”

Nico looked at her with red eyes and a wooden look and said, “But Micaela, I’ve never cared what people think of me.”

“But I do care what they think of you, because you are also the person I put here.”

Micaela took his hand and placed it over her left heart, her eyes sparkled as she looked at him, smiling warmly and lightly, “I never wanted to be a mother, but if the father was Nico, I wanted to take a chance that my luck wouldn’t be so bad. The worst that could happen would be a miscarriage, or a hemorrhage during delivery. If the seeds aren’t right by then, don’t have the baby, and I know he’ll fight to the death to keep me.”

“Micaela…”

Nico leaned his forehead against hers, his fingers gently wiped the clear tears from her face, squeezed his eyes shut and sighed, “Do you have to make me? I’ve never cared what people say about me, put up with that I can’t be human, just enough to keep the rotten flowers out, why would I need you to give up your life to have a baby to plug those yo-yos, it’s not worth it.”

“Then let’s go with the flow and try it when it’s there.”

Micaela is stubborn and once she’s made up her mind about something, she won’t be able to back out of it.

Nico said reluctantly, but tersely, “Even if you want to prepare for pregnancy, you have to wait until you’re better, and Sein said you can’t get pregnant while taking those pills.”

“I know, we’ll try it when we get off the medication.”

Nico frowned and said firmly, “Just one try, and if it stops once, never again, Micaela, I’ll only let you take your body for granted this once. After that I won’t let you do anything.”

“Okay, try it once, and if it doesn’t work, then it’s God’s will, and I’ll listen to you from now on.”

…

The next morning, Micaela woke up early to the smell of medicine.

Someone is preparing the medicine in the kitchen.

She reached out and touched her side; no one was there.

Nico is up.

Micaela rolled over and opened her eyes to look at the small alarm clock on the Japanese bedside table; it was only half past seven.

It was 7. 30 in the morning, very early in the winter morning.

Micaela lifted the sheets and came out of the bedroom to see Nico standing by the kitchen stove looking at the casserole.

Medicine was cooking there.

Micaela rubbed her neck and shifted a little, leaning against the door and looking at Nico.

A beautiful man cooking medicine is a delight to behold.

Nico thought he felt a warm gaze on him and turned to see Micaela leaning against the door with her eyes fixed on him.

“Why are you up so early?”Ccontent © exclusive by Nô/vel(D)ra/ma.Org.

Nico walked over to her.

Micaela said, “The smell of this medicine is so strong that I don’t want to sleep when I smell it.”

Nico growled coldly, his tone grim, “Scared? It’s not too late to regret last night’s decision, otherwise you’re in for a lot of drugs, and if you back out now, I’ll consider that you were dreaming nonsense last night.”

Micaela gave him an amused look and raised an eyebrow and let out a laugh, “We’re all adults, a promise is a promise, you’re not willing to get up early to cook my medicine, are you?”

“I’m afraid you’ll drink until you vomit, this medicine, I have enough trouble just cooking it and smelling it. But giving birth, you may have to take more medicine, I can’t give birth for you, the pain of childbirth is all yours, even if my heart is broken, it’s still yours, so I advise you to retire soon. Maybe if you take half a month’s medicine, you will break that idea.”

Micaela reached up to cover her thin lips and put a hand around his neck and said, “I’d rather you encourage me more than tell me to back off because you promised me a try.”

Nico sighed in frustration and bent down to pick her up and carry her to the kitchen table. “You’re having a good time and you have to create a bear to ruin it. One sip and you won’t want to have another.”

Nico figured it would take her a long time to recover and in the meantime, there would be a way to dissuade her from the dangerous idea of having a baby.

Asking her to play with her body and her life, he couldn’t do that.