You Are Gentle, But You Don’t Love Me

Juliet’s fiance fell in love with her older sister.

Devastated and directionless, Juliet was pushed into an arranged marriage with a man she had never met—Cassio Bellanea, the illegitimate son of the royal family.

“Take care,” he had said, and nothing more.

Almost immediately, he left the castle, disappearing beyond the horizon to the battlefields. There was no promise of a safe return. Juliet closed the castle gates that day—and with them, her heart.

Three years passed.

“Hello, Juliet.”

Cassio Bellanea, once the royal family’s forgotten son and now a celebrated war hero, had returned to Sardinia at last.

“I’m sorry I’m not him.”

“……”

“But I am your husband.”

He was the man who had spent only a handful of days with her before leaving. Yet the man who stood before her now felt like a stranger—a stranger who was impossibly gentle.

“I came back for you, my… Juliet.”

Where did this unexpected kindness come from? What could it mean?

Juliet didn’t have the answer.

Not yet.