"I'm pregnant."
Even though it was akin to dropping a bomb, Dalia's face remained completely calm. Her voice, which one might expect to tremble even slightly, carried no inflection, as if she were merely exchanging pleasantries.
Dalia placed a hand on her stomach and waited for the man's reaction.
She could no longer hide it. The flowers in full bloom were beginning to wilt, and the once long sleeves of her dress were growing shorter.
Her flat stomach would soon start to protrude from the lower abdomen, and then there would be no hiding it from people's eyes.
So, before it was too late, she had to tell the man herself.
If only to prevent the rumors that would soon spread throughout the mansion and avoid any misunderstandings with the man.
"Pregnant?"
As expected, he froze, as if hearing news he should never have heard. The pen in his hand stopped mid-stroke, and smoke from the cigar resting between his fingers curled up before dissipating into the air.
Unlike the sunny weather outside, the man leaned back in his chair in the dim study, looking every bit like a mafia boss from a movie.
He did not look like a husband hearing news of his wife's pregnancy.
'Hey, hey, don't freak out.'
After all, this novel is the pregnancy-escape + regret genre.
That guy loves me; he just hasn't realized it yet, that's all.
Faced with the man's chilling expression, Dalia calmed herself by recalling the novel she had reincarnated into.
"Yes. Yours and mine. Our child."
"..."
She emphasized that it was his child to prevent any misunderstandings.
Despite her efforts, the man's hardened expression showed no signs of softening.
His jet-black hair, neatly swept back, and eyes red as if filled with blood.
He had the strikingly handsome features that practically screamed, 'I'm a possessive male lead.'
If this were 2D, she might have felt her heart flutter no matter how intensely he stared, just because he was so handsome.
'Wow, damn. Seeing him in real life is genuinely terrifying.'
She could fully understand why the original heroine left behind money, status, and everything else to run away.
The dark room and heavy silence inside, so different from the bright world outside, only intensified the man's menacing aura.
How much time had passed in silence like that?
The man, who neither refuted nor questioned Dalia's words, alternately glanced at her face and her still-flat lower belly before muttering.
"A child."
He smirked.
The man, pulling his lips into a long, silent smirk, harshly stubbed out his cigar. The once-straight cigar was now crumpled and ruined.
Then he stood and approached his "beloved wife" who was now carrying his child.
Dalia swallowed dryly as she listened to the sound of his footsteps on the carpet and watched the growing shadow in front of her.
'Just stick to the plan.'
Dalia had imagined the man's reaction to her confession of pregnancy dozens, no, hundreds of times. She had already prepared responses for any possible reaction.
But.
"Congratulations."
That reaction wasn't among the hundreds of simulations she had rehearsed.
His expression was so genuine that she wondered if she had misheard due to sheer shock.
But somehow, it felt... strange.
Before she knew it, he was standing right next to her, gently placing his hand on her stomach.
"Our child."
His expression was far from words like joy, delight, or happiness.
It felt more like he was studying something strange.
Just as Dalia tried to decipher his expression.
The man broke the silence.
"Then I have no choice but to kill it."
"What? What do you mean...?"
For a moment, it felt like someone had struck her on the head.
Kill? Suddenly? Who? Me? Why?
As she stammered like a malfunctioning machine.
Soon, people rushed into the study.
"Take the duchess to the tower."
Excuse me? What?
The man, who had now stepped away from her, gave the command.
"Until I give further orders, make sure she doesn't leave or anyone enters."
Lock me up? Isn't this a bit extreme?
"From today until I say otherwise, no one is to bring her even a drop of water or a bite of food."
Hey, come on.
Not even food? That's crossing the line!
Finally regaining her composure, she grabbed the hem of his clothes.
"W-Wait a second! Why are you locking me up? I told you I'm carrying your child!"
Looking at the woman clinging to his clothes, Clayton murmured in an unusually gentle voice.
"Yes, exactly. Why did you do it, Dalia?"
As he said this, he gently cupped her cheek with the same hand that had earlier caressed her stomach.
"Now I'll have no choice but to kill you myself."
The warmth of his touch on her cheek felt cold.
"Don't you agree, my dear wife?"
With those words, the man flashed a twisted smile and pried her hand off his hem.
The old ancestors' sayings were never wrong.
When everyone around you insists on stopping you, there's a reason. She should've obediently left when everyone tried to help her escape from this place.
'Ah. I really should have just run away.'
It seemed like she was royally screwed.
* * *
A late afternoon with the sun beginning to set.
Amidst rustling sounds, a woman got out of bed and stood in front of the mirror.
Silver hair that shimmered like light breaking on water and amethyst-colored violet eyes.
The woman, exuding a sorrowful atmosphere fitting of the heroine in a regret novel, was Dalia—the protagonist into whom I had reincarnated.
Standing before the mirror, I traced the reddish marks scattered on my body with my fingers and murmured.
"This confirms the pregnancy."
Yes, it was certain.
Last night.
As I collapsed in the arms of a man who seemed to have no intention of letting me go, I realized one crucial fact.
That I had reincarnated into a novel I had once read.
To be precise, the romance fantasy novel Don't Look for the Missing Duchess.
As the title Don't Look for the Missing Duchess suggests, the novel I found myself in was about a pregnant heroine who runs away from the male lead.
What's commonly referred to as a "pregnancy escape."
Yes, I had reincarnated into a novel where the heroine runs away while pregnant with the male lead's child, raises the child alone for seven years, and suffers countless hardships.
Damn it.
Faced with a situation that warranted nothing but curses, what made her despair even more was…
The fact that she had already slept with the male lead and the strong certainty that last night had resulted in pregnancy.
She had never imagined she'd experience the prowess of a 2D male protagonist in 3D.
"Sigh…"
She let out a deep, earth-shattering sigh and turned her head to look out the window.
The scenery beyond the window, where bright light seeped through the glass, was the picture of spring.
"Let me think. The timing of when the heroine runs away…"
It was around the end of autumn, when she could no longer hide her growing belly under clothing, that she escaped from here.
And in the dead of winter, she gave birth alone in a rundown house that was little better than a stable.
"What is she, the Virgin Mary?"
To think she left this lavish mansion to give birth in a place like that.
She held back another curse and lay back on the bed.
For someone who had never scheduled more than one appointment a week and lived like a total homebody during the COVID lockdown, this was an unbearably harsh trial.
My name is Na Taeyeon.
As my name suggests, I had lived a lazy, reclusive life, and it seemed like I had died at home.
I didn't know the cause of my death or why I had reincarnated.
What mattered was that I was now in a situation where I would soon have to run away from here.
"But why did the heroine run away again?"
As she lay blankly on the bed staring at the ceiling, she sat up and tried to recall.
Then, as if something came to her, she clapped her hands together.
"That's right. The male lead said he'd kill me if I had the baby."
A classic but reliably entertaining cliché of the pregnancy-escape trope.
The male lead, Clayton Sayer, did not want a child.
He wanted to end the Sayer family bloodline with his generation, claiming he didn't want to pass down the family curse.
That's why his gaze landed on this body—the one I'd reincarnated into.
Dalia Molden.
The eldest daughter of the declining Molden barony, and a woman who had been abused by her family.
She was famously known as a spinster across the empire.
Due to the fatal flaw of being unable to have children, she couldn't secure a proper marriage and was about to be sold off as the second wife of an old nobleman when Clayton appeared before her.
"Will you marry me? You can think of it as a kind of deal."
Dalia had no reason to refuse the proposal of Clayton, considered the empire's most eligible bachelor.
To be honest, for the heroine at the time, any match was better than becoming the second wife of an old man.
Moreover, she even felt grateful to the male lead for proposing, knowing she couldn't have children.
That's why Dalia lived quietly, enduring even the mistress who frequented the mansion so often it wore out the door.
At least until she overheard that conversation.
"What will you do if the madam is pregnant?"
"It wouldn't be my child."
"Then what about the child and the madam…"
"I'll have to kill them."
Without a moment's hesitation, Clayton's words drove her to flee the mansion to protect her child.
But you should always listen to the whole conversation.
As is typical in pregnancy-escape novels, that conversation was, of course, a misunderstanding, and the heroine fled without knowing the male lead's true intentions.
"Wait a minute."
As she reviewed the novel's plot piece by piece, her eyes lit up as if she had just remembered something important.
"Then all I have to do is not run away, right?"
The original male lead loves the heroine, Dalia.
He just doesn't realize he loves her until she runs away.
And what's more, the mistress he thought was his lover is actually…
"I know the original story, so there's nothing to misunderstand!"
The original heroine, having grown up abused since childhood, was timid and suffered from a persecution complex, believing that everyone around her hated her.
Because of that personality, she faced many misunderstandings, not just with the male lead but with everyone around her.
But now, there was no heroine steeped in paranoia.
Having reached this realization, she slowly looked around her surroundings.
A luxurious bed she had never seen the likes of before and a life of abundance where a single pull of a cord could solve all her needs.
And on top of that…
"Dalia doesn't even participate in social activities, does she…?"
Because of her timid nature, she avoided social gatherings altogether, and even the duties of managing the mansion as the lady of the house were left to the butler.
This was truly…
A life of wealth but without fame…
The very life of a wealthy recluse she had long dreamed of.
Realizing this, she let out an internal scream, covering her mouth with both hands.
Then, she flopped onto the bed and flailed around.
Pregnancy?
Fine, a baby. I can handle giving birth to one.
Running away?
What's that? I'm absolutely not running away!