Slave to the Emperor

nts, but at that moment, I couldn't help but be in awe of my own beauty. I chose not to wear as much makeup as I had the last time I saw him, and I wore a royal blue

sn't happy when I saw my mother approaching me and, to make matters worse, she was grinning inconveniently. "Oh my gosh, my love, you look so beautiful! She complemented me, glancing over my entire body. "There's absolutely no way Stephen wouldn't fall for you, especially not when you're looking this breathtaking." I truly wanted to roll my eyes at her, but at this point, I was pretty well accustomed to her stupidity and nothing she said warranted an eye roll. We're not quite the ideal representation of a mother and daughter relationship, my mom and I. We don't really communicate much unless it's necessary, therefore we weren't very close. Despite this, I don't really have any problems with our relationship because I liked it that way. Please understand that I love and care about my mother and have nothing against her, but I was never able to connect with her personality or way of thinking. Mom was quite materialistic, with her social standing being the focal point of everything around her. She was really fixated on appearing flawless to the public, and she never tolerated errors or imperfections of any type. She genuinely grew up believing that she was superior than everyone else and that a person's importance exclusively depended on their social standing because she was born and raised in an affluent home. She even openly acknowledged that the main reason she married her father was because of his prosperity, saying that she never would have considered being with him otherwise. "Thank you, mother," I said, ignoring the fact that she had implied that I seemed attractive in an attempt to win Stephen over. To be honest, I dressed up to appear nice, but not so that I would impress him, but rather so that I wouldn't feel small or scared by him. "May I inquire as to why you appear to be so uncomfortable? I find it hard to believe that she would genuinely ask such a simple question, yet you seem like you're about to cry any moment now. "Mother, you have a problem if you are unable to come up with an explanation for why I would appear this way. I really wasn't in the mood for her bullshit, so I told her, "I honestly don't have the time to start trying to explain myself to you." She wasn't entirely naive, I'm sure of it, but she probably doesn't care because she thought this marriage would benefit her more than hurt her. "Are you still depressed about having to wed Stephen, please? "Amara, are you serious?" she questioned. How are you still fixated on it, Sweetie? Have you not met the guy yet? Does he have an unattr