![](https://pic1.mangapicgallery.com/r/avatar/84/u611517_50x50.jpg?2)
I don't think it was an act tbh, but I don't think he was genuinely in love with Rashta either. It seems that he's more in love with the idea of being in love. He never intentionally sought out a lover, her just happened to find her when he went out hunting. Rashta was beautiful and pitiful, and quite frankly she was all over him. This boosted his ego and she acted the way he wished Navier did towards him, so he saw his opportunity and took it. It was after this that he started to piece together that dumbass plan of his...it was later revealed that he was in love with Navier, but too little too late for him I guess lmao.
SPOILER
The emperor was never in love with Rashta and he only took her in so she can carry his child.
As it turns out when Sovieshu and Navier were little they ate cookies that were supposed to make them infertile and because Navier ate more he suspects that she's the one who's infertile (they've tried for a baby but she couldn't get pregnant) so he finds himself a concubine and when Rashta gets pregnant he is certain he was right (this one I don't know for sure but there's a high possibility that the child Rashta is having isn't his) but because Rashta is just a concubine her child can't be a heir to the throne so he asks Navier to adopt it.
She obviously refuses so he makes this plan where he divorces Navier makes Rashta the empress and then waits a year or smth (till the child can become a legitimate heir) divorces Rashta and marries Navier again (that's why he doesn't want her flirting with other men).
In conclusion the emperor is a piece of shit and deserves to die ヾ(❀╹◡╹)ノ~