“It’s from the bank. Why is this…….”

“Read it.”

She took the paperwork and sat back down on the edge of the bed. She read through it with a mild expression at first, then turned serious as she reached the second page. By the third page, she crumpled the paper. A long, pale, fed-up face shrugged.

“Where did you get this ……?”

“It’s a mess, even for you, isn’t it?”

It was a mess, since she didn’t even know Liam is in debt; he hadn’t told her anything about it. Aiden smirked, as if he liked her embarrassment. He leisurely stretched his long legs around her, asserting.

“You were taken advantage of.”

“……That doesn’t make sense. How am I supposed to believe this is real?”

Her words were more of a raw refusal to believe. Even if the creditor’s signature had been forged, it bore the seal of the president of Redfort Bank. She knew best that it couldn’t be a forgery. Belviana dropped the letters into her lap. Her hard expression fell from her face, and her voice cracked.

“For the hundredth time, even if this is real, he owes only a little money.”

“A little?”

“Just enough to pay it off with the sale of a few of the trinkets in my …… jewelry box. I can’t say he took advantage of me based on that alone.”

“Okay. You’re free to believe whatever you want, though I didn’t think you would after seeing this.”

“Yes, it is my business, and I didn’t realize you cared so much about what happened between us.”

Aiden’s normally relaxed expression hardened at her cold response. The verbal distance between them, the sarcasm that said, “How dare you think there’s any room for you between Liam and me,” must have gotten on his nerves. He pushed himself up from his desk.

She flinched and drew back her hips at the subject of his intended hurt, but there were only so many places she could duck on the narrow bed. Stepping closer, his fingers tugged at the necklace on her dress, pulling it open. Her white, smooth neckline was dotted with his marks. He narrowed his eyes at her.

“Let’s make a bet, shall we? If you’re so sure of the lowly bastard, write him a letter. Tell him you couldn’t secure the money, that you’ve given your body to your pampered servant time and time again, and we’ll see if he really loves you or if he loves ‘other’ things.”

“……He’s not my property, or anyone to covet, and at first Liam thought I was…….”

Belviana blurted out that he hadn’t even realized she was Lester’s lady. In her first encounter with Liam, she was obviously dressed like she had just stepped out of a ball. If he didn’t recognize her as a young lady of the House of Lester, he could have easily guessed she was a noblewoman, and when she didn’t speak easily, Aiden added kindly.

“Then it will be no trouble to write a letter.”

It was a subtle way of speaking. By not accepting the bet, she was admitting that she no longer trusted Liam. She clutched at the hem of her skirt, looking like she might cry at any moment. The papers in her lap fell to the floor, but she didn’t bother to pick them up.

She’d rather tear them all up. She felt strangely hurt that she’d had to find out about Liam’s affair this way, in front of Aiden and no one else. His piercing dark green eyes glowed with anticipation.

“……Yes. Suppose you’re right that Liam might have used me. Does it make you feel better to hear me admit it out loud? What’s in it for you? What’s the point of all this ? Write a letter? You just want to brag to Liam that you had my first!”

“If your first means anything to me, it’s only because of you, because I can see in your naively calculating head how much you’re going to attach to your first man.”

“…….”

“I don’t care whose hand you ride or not, I don’t care how much seed you take from some asshole other than me, if I was going to give you up for those things I wouldn’t have even started, it’s the outcome that matters, not the process.”

Aiden paused, as if to catch his breath, and smirked. It was a gorgeous smile that took my breath away.

“You’ll be by my side in the end anyway.”

His tone was strangely calm, as if he was reciting an established fact. It was a direct betrayal of his promise to end tonight, but she couldn’t even point that out. Her stomach churned as if she’d heard a prophecy that was sure to come true, or some terrible confession. She barely swallowed the emotion that was rising. She couldn’t believe it, but it was like…….

“From the way you talk, it sounds like……, you’re in love with me?”

“Yes.”

He admitted without much shame. Aiden gently cupped Belviana’s cheeks, which had a dazed look on them. Her lips, as fresh as a flower in the rain, pressed lightly against his dry fingertips.

“Yes. Silly, lovely Belviana, I love you, and I have from the moment I laid eyes on you.”

It was so sweet, just the nakedness of the words lustful and obsessed wrapped in a single layer. Suddenly, through her blurred vision, she saw a younger version of them, a girl and a boy. When the little girl said over and over again that she would marry him when she grew up, the boy nodded enthusiastically, as if mesmerized.

It was the boy who distanced himself first, after only a few seasons from those warm days; he always did. He always did. He drew a line in the sand, and if she crossed it first, he paroxysmally distanced himself. He was afraid that her status, his miserable condition with no title, would be a stain on her. It was Aiden who had spent years pretending not to know her, addressing her as Miss, and it was Belviana who had accepted that distance without question all her life.

Despite Lester’s vast wealth, Belviana was never meant to be the family’s heir. Aside from the small amount of property she received as a dowry when she married, she could not inherit a single thing in her name, so she must have given up. No matter how good he was, he was a commoner, and there was a certain limit to how high he could rise. In many ways, he believed that being a glamorous duchess was a good choice for her, rather than risking life as a commoner’s wife.

But his patience must have dried up quickly when he realized that the man she had chosen was a shoemaker as lowly as himself. In hindsight, it was all too obvious.

“I’ll do anything to get you, even if it means hurting you.”

“…….”

“I never expected to have you in one piece, because you’re too much of a woman for that, and I only need you to stay alive.”

“…….”

“That’s the happy ending I had planned.”

He laughed happily, like a man who had finally pulled the sun down. Her vision kept blurring. She thought she loved Liam. The moment she realized that those feelings were becoming increasingly tinged with guilt and doubt, maybe the realization had already set in.

Her love for Liam was more of an intoxication than a true emotion. The kind of love that’s willing to run away from everything, the kind of love that overcomes class differences, the kind of love that’s childlike in its promise of happily ever after. Aiden was too hot for those lukewarm feelings.

Falling for him was like falling into a quagmire. You don’t realize you’re drowning, and before you know it, you’re being eaten to the bone. Once she admitted it, everything was clear. He was every stimulus in her life, her fallen law, her childhood ideal, and even after all the years had been peeled away, he was still too good to be true.