As I climbed onto Theo almost as if pouncing on him, his ears, which had only just returned to their normal color, turned even redder than before.
I leaned close and whispered into his ear,
“Even though I was completely out of it, I still made sure to put on something especially nice for you. And this is how you treat me?”
I whispered softly, then teasingly pulled away just before our lips could meet.
Theo wrapped one arm around my back and tried to follow me.
I kept retreating just enough to make him chase me, and the blue sea in his eyes began to ripple impatiently.
But there was only so much room to keep escaping on the narrow bed.
Our playful teasing quickly became more heated, and before things could go any further, I hurriedly pulled away.
I was starving. I had barely eaten all day, having survived on several cups of strongly brewed tea.
There was no way I could handle hours of strenuous activity in that condition.
“Rebecca.”
Perhaps annoyed that I had started things only to run away, Theo called my name in a slightly husky voice.
His expression, however, made it obvious that he was far from giving up.
“I’m hungry. Really, really hungry.”
Pretending not to notice the heated atmosphere in the room, I emphasized how pitifully empty my stomach was.
Theo frowned in displeasure.
“You know you’re being unfair, right?”
He ran a hand roughly through his neatly textured golden hair and complained.
“After dinner. Okay?”
We’ll deal with that special outfit after we finish eating. Sorry!
I gave him my most innocent smile and tried to placate him.
“Really?”
Theo’s eyes were slightly reddened from the heat of the moment as he pressed me for confirmation.
What’s with that look? Why are you looking at me like that?
So shamelessly seductive.
I was weak to temptation, and, as usual, I found myself wavering.
It wasn’t as though I had been unaffected by being separated from the lover I had once seen almost every day.
Unlike before, however, I found it surprisingly difficult to promise that we would simply leave things for later.
Noticing my hesitation, Theo’s voice became even softer and more teasing.
“Then later, can I do things my way?”
He narrowed his eyes into a sweet smile and rubbed his cheek against my palm as he pleaded with me.
It was terribly cunning.
For a moment, I felt as though I were sinking completely into a swamp called Theo.
The battle inside my mind was fierce.
The heat that had risen and then begun to cool suddenly started building again.
Theo continued teasing me affectionately, making it increasingly difficult to hold on to my remaining common sense.
I have to stay rational. If I give in now, this is going to turn into an extremely intense workout on an empty stomach.
They say that romantic desire isn’t one of the three basic human needs, but I was beginning to wonder whether I was even human, because two very important needs were constantly colliding inside me.
After a dramatic battle, reason barely managed to gain the upper hand.
I quickly pulled my hand away and tried to regain my composure.
Theo looked slightly disappointed.
“Did you not like it?”
“That’s not it. Of course I didn’t dislike it. It was an accident.”
I instinctively tried to hug my sulking lover to make up with him.
I regretted it almost immediately.
My lover, whose intentions were perfectly clear, naturally did not let the opportunity slip away.
He obediently leaned into my arms, pretending to be innocent, and rubbed his cheek against my shoulder like a spoiled child.
But there was nothing innocent about his behavior.
By the time I realized what he was doing, our positions had already changed, and I found myself caught in his arms instead.
His teasing became more persistent, and my composure steadily disappeared.
“So, when are you going to give me your answer?”
The tyrant who hadn’t even given me a proper chance to answer seemed determined to make me pay for keeping him waiting.
I tried to push him away, but even I knew that my attempt was far too weak to count as a genuine rejection.
This time, however, Theo willingly backed away.
He clearly knew that I was already being drawn into the mood and was simply enjoying the advantage.
I struggled to catch my breath, unable to even straighten my disheveled clothes.
Besides, my heart had already tipped toward one side long ago.
I would have regretted it if Theo suddenly changed his mind now.
My lips parted slightly as I finally gathered my courage.
There was nothing embarrassing about admitting that I wanted him.
What embarrassed me was how easily I had fallen for his temptation.
Seeing that I couldn’t take that final step, Theo smiled provocatively.
“That’s why…”
Unlike me, who was already partly undressed, Theo’s shirt had been buttoned neatly all the way to the top.
One by one, the buttons slowly came undone beneath his fingers.
A glimpse of his strong physique appeared through the plain shirt.
My gaze gradually followed Theo’s obvious intentions.
Just as he seemed about to continue, he suddenly stopped and took his hands away from his shirt.
“Dinner first, or me first?”
The temptation was far too strong to resist.
Naturally—
“You.”
It had only been a single day of rest, but the price I paid for it was brutal.
As soon as I returned to the trading company’s office, I was greeted by another mountain of paperwork.
Ugh. I feel like throwing up just looking at those papers.
What could I do even if I didn’t want to see them? The piles of documents weren’t going to disappear unless I dealt with them myself.
I let out a series of deep sighs and sat down in my chair.
Still, perhaps because I had finally gotten a proper break for once, I was able to process the documents surprisingly quickly.
I read through them mechanically.
Just then, I heard a frantic knock at the door.
Knock, knock, knock. Knock, knock, knock, knock.
“Master of the Trading Company! Master! We have a big problem!”
Before I could even answer and tell her to come in, my secretary, Lucy, hurriedly opened the door and rushed inside.
Lucy was generally cool-headed and calm about most things. Her emotional state tended to fluctuate almost entirely according to the balance in her bank account, so I immediately shot to my feet, wondering if something truly serious had happened.
“Why? What is it? What happened?”
Did the warehouse catch fire? Or did one of our clients switch over to a rival trading company?
For a brief moment, every possible disaster that could happen right now flashed through my mind.
Lucy must have run all the way up from the first floor because she was breathing heavily.
When I impatiently urged her to speak, she seemed to notice how terrible my expression looked and awkwardly opened her mouth.
“No, it’s not something bad. Actually, it’s something good—huff—it’s good news.”
Lucy barely managed to get the sentence out before stopping again to catch her breath.
At least that’s a relief, but, Lucy…
There are two ways to make a person angry.
The first is to stop talking in the middle of a sentence.
And the second is—
Can’t you hurry up and say it?
If it wasn’t a big deal, why had she come running up here and scared me like that?
“If it’s nothing important, you should know that your bonus this year is getting cut in half.”
At the threat involving her bonus, Lucy suddenly seemed to recover her lung capacity.
Her pronunciation became perfectly clear, as though she had never been out of breath in the first place.
“A messenger from Duchess Harriet just came to the reception room. She said they would like to have our trading company supply goods for the Young Lady’s engagement ceremony, so she asked you to visit them sometime in the near future.”
“What? Duchess Harriet?”
It was such incredible news that I could finally understand why Lucy had been making such a fuss.
She was the Empress’s closest attendant and one of the most powerful figures in the Empire’s social circles.
Her maiden name was Collins, and she belonged to one of the only three ducal families in the Empire.
That means she was born a duke’s daughter and then became a duchess herself. Talk about being born with a diamond spoon in her mouth.
The Duchess’s daughter was scheduled to marry the heir of a marquess family whom she had been promised to since childhood sometime around this spring.
And that engagement ceremony was coming up soon.
Rumors were already spreading that the ducal family was spending an enormous amount of money preparing for their only daughter’s engagement ceremony.
House Harriet was counted among the five richest families in the Empire. Since the family had decided to spend money without restraint, the event had become one of the most closely watched occasions not only by trading companies based in the capital, but by trading companies throughout the entire Empire.
Whenever the heads of trading companies held meetings, or when business owners who knew one another gathered privately, the engagement ceremony of the Young Lady of House Harriet inevitably became a topic of conversation.
There was even a story about one trading company that had supplied the ducal family with vintage wine produced in the same year as the Young Lady’s birth.
Apparently, the ducal family had purchased the entire stock exclusively from that company, allowing them to make an enormous fortune.
With the size of our trading company, there was no way we could even dream of getting involved in something like that. All I could do was sit on the sidelines and be jealous.
“What items did they order?”
