(Setting: My Master Suite, Serenity Hotel)
WOOHOO!!! THE EVENT IS OVER!!!
The scream never left my lips, but inside, I was cartwheeling across the room, confetti exploding in every direction. My feet ached, my back felt like a snapped violin string, and my cheeks still hurt from hours of forced smiling—but at least it was over.
Finally, I was back in my suite, alone. Free.
…Or so I thought.
The moment I collapsed onto the bed, exhaustion hit me like a wave. I should've drifted into sleep instantly. I wanted to drift into sleep instantly.
Instead—
TOSS.
I rolled onto my side.
TOSS.
Onto my stomach. Then my back again. The sheets rustled like they were mocking me.
Why… why couldn't I sleep?
A restless, jittery tension coiled inside me, winding tighter every second. I clenched a handful of the blanket, fingers trembling faintly.
Maybe it was the shock of hearing those words…
But then—
BA-BUMP.
My heartbeat kicked, sharp and too fast.
BA-BUMP.
What was wrong with me?
My breath hitched as warmth gathered under my skin, spreading through me like ripples from a single touch—his touch.
Why did those places where Eiser and I brushed against each other still feel hot?
Slowly, almost timidly, I brought my hand to my chest.
TOUCH.
It felt the same as it had earlier, when his fingers grazed me.
Warm.
Lingering.
Impossible to ignore.
Come to think of it… it's always been like that.
No matter how brief, no matter how accidental, Eiser's touch never faded quickly. It clung to me for hours afterward—like an ember lodged beneath my skin, refusing to go cold.
A strange, unfamiliar sensation.
Feverish.
Unsettling.
"…How strange," I murmured into the quiet, even though no one was there to hear.
But before the thought could settle, another memory cut through my fatigue—sharper, clearer, too vivid for comfort.
His face.
His expression.
That fleeting crack in his usual cold composure.
And then—
"I've never hated you. Not for a single moment."
The words replayed in my mind, soft yet searing, as if spoken against my ear all over again.
I stared at the ceiling, yet all I could see was him standing in front of me—stern, composed, impossibly handsome, and wearing an emotion I couldn't decipher.
I slowly pressed my fingers to my lips, almost absentmindedly, as though trying to steady the ghost he left behind in my thoughts.
I wonder…
What happened between those two?
What history weighed on his shoulders?
What shadows followed him that made even his gentlest touch feel like a scorch?
And what exactly did his words mean?
Not for a single moment…
What did he truly feel?
(Eiser's Perspective)
The silence of the bedroom was finally broken by a tiny, furious sound.
HISSSSSS.
I drew my hand back with a wince as a pair of needlelike claws raked across my skin.
Tch.
So small, yet so vicious.
I stared down at the culprit—a snow-white puffball with mismatched eyes and an attitude far too large for her size. I had only tried to stroke her belly. Gently, even.
"Such a nasty temper this tiny thing's got…" I muttered, rubbing the faint sting on my hand.
Honestly. How did she manage to find a creature exactly like her?
The kitten Lady Serena rescued tonight—dragged home despite the protest of every servant in the mansion—was a perfect miniature replica of her.
Cute. Graceful. Soft, when she wished to be.
And then—
MEEEOW!
A dramatic, offended cry.
A single twitch of her whiskers.
Instantly fierce when displeased.
I watched the tiny creature roll across the sheets, her paws flailing as she stretched.
YAWN. ROLL. ROLL.
Completely careless. Completely at ease.
A slow breath escaped me, and I ran a tired hand through my hair—fingers snagging slightly on the strands I'd tugged at too many times tonight. The thoughts I had tried to bury since the evening continued to claw their way back, stubborn and relentless.
Did he touch that woman…?
Her voice—no, the memory of her voice—cut through my mind.
Soft. Defensive. A little scared.
And threaded with a jealousy so sharp it could wound.
Jealousy of another man touching her.
And yet… the question that burned in me was different.
Darker.
Did he… touch her the way he touched me?
Her possessive fears echoed inside me, but my own thoughts twisted them, reshaped them, made them something far more dangerous. It was ridiculous—none of this should matter. Not her thoughts. Not her fears. Not the way her pulse jumped when she looked at me.
I rose from the bed with a quiet exhale, the weight of the mansion's silence pressing against me like a second skin.
"It doesn't seem like she will be until morning…" I murmured.
My feet carried me to the window almost of their own accord. Cold air met my skin as I brushed aside the curtain.
Outside, beyond the grounds and the carefully trimmed hedges, a tree loomed in the dimness.
On one of its branches—just visible from this very room—hung a single red ribbon.
Bright.
Unmistakable.
Fluttering like a drop of blood in the wind.
The signal.
A summons to step into the other life I lived.
The one Serena could never know.
A world of coded messages, midnight meetings, danger wrapped in the elegance of royal protocol.
One glance at that ribbon meant:
Come.
Report.
Receive orders.
Move.
But I didn't move.
I couldn't.
"…I can't leave the manor right now."
Because Lady Serena—who had promised she'd return before nightfall—was still not home. And whether she knew it or not, my duty to her… my watchfulness over her… chained me here more strongly than any order ever could.
The ribbon called from outside.
But inside this house—
she tethered me more.
(Serena's Perspective)
CLICK. CLACK. CLACK.
The front door shut behind me with a clean, final snap, and the sound of my heels striking the marble floor echoed through the vast, silent foyer.
I was home. At last.
The carriage ride back had been little more than a shapeless blur. I remembered staring out the window, seeing nothing—just replaying his words over and over until they scraped raw against my thoughts.
"I've never hated you, not for a single moment."
Even now, standing inside the cold safety of the mansion, my heart refused to slow.
BA-BUMP. BA-BUMP.
Each beat loud enough to rattle my ribs.
I curled my fingers into a fist, feeling again the phantom heat of his touch—an imprint that lingered too vividly on my skin.
Eiser's touch always stayed with me, long after he stepped away.
Warm.
Burning.
Deep enough to leave an echo that refused to fade.
How strange… how impossibly, infuriatingly strange…
But that confusion evaporated in an instant.
Because he was there.
Waiting for me.
Eiser stood in the foyer like a statue carved from shadow and discipline. The soft glow from the chandeliers touched the sharp lines of his face, but it couldn't soften them. He looked stern, composed, unreadable—exactly the way he used to look at me before everything fell apart.
That look… I knew it painfully well.
The way I once looked at him—with anger simmering in my chest, suspicion twisting my thoughts, discomfort tightening every muscle in my body.
And now…
Now all those feelings were staring back at him.
At the man in front of me.
His eyes met mine—those cutting green eyes that always gave the illusion of seeing too much and revealing nothing at all.
He stepped toward me, his voice calm, steady, polished to perfection.
"You had something to tell me, Lady Serena?"
A simple question.
A simple tone.
But it struck like an arrow.
Because the purpose of my return tonight—the reason I had rehearsed my words again and again in the carriage—was anything but simple.
Two years.
Two years spent forging barriers, shaping myself into a woman who would never again be blindsided, never again be vulnerable. A fortress built from fear, resentment, and necessity.
Apparently, there is something important she wants to speak to me about…
His expression didn't change, but I could almost feel his guarded curiosity.
I swallowed. My throat felt tight.
Does she mean to send me away?
That unspoken question lingered in the space between us, heavy and cold.
A bitter taste filled my mouth.
Send him away…
Wasn't that exactly what I had planned?
Wasn't that the point of all this—the defensive strategy that kept me safe, kept him at a distance, kept the past from repeating itself?
My guard rose instinctively, a shield snapping into place so quickly it almost hurt.
And yet…
Even as I tried to gather my composure, the memory of tonight lingered—his hand on mine, his voice low, the look in his eyes when he said he'd never hated me.
Two thoughts clashed violently inside me:
The calculated need to remove him…
And the agonizing, disorienting warmth of everything that happened earlier.
I still have things left to do here…
His silent determination felt like a tension in the air, a cord pulling taut between us.
I clenched my jaw, forcing back the turmoil twisting in my stomach.
The foyer—wide, cold, echoing with too much space—seemed to demand something decisive from me. A conclusion. A command. A declaration.
But when I opened my mouth—
Nothing came out.
The words caught.
Hung in the air.
Refused to move.
(Serena's Perspective)
I met his gaze head-on, refusing to let even a flicker of hesitation betray me. His eyes were intense—too sharp, too perceptive—and for a moment I saw the familiar shadow in them: anger, suspicion, discomfort.
Except this time…
They weren't his emotions.
They were mine.
And I projected them onto him with deliberate force, using the heat of my own turmoil to forge a mask of icy resolve.
"You had something to tell me, Lady Serena?"
Eiser's voice was unbearably calm, steady in a way that scraped painfully against the chaos inside me.
I lifted my chin. Straightened my back. Pulled every confusing feeling—every trace of warmth, every memory of his voice, every phantom burn of his touch—deep, deep into the coldest part of myself.
In front of me wasn't Eiser, the husband whose words haunted me.
He was Frederick.
The tool. The role. The function I had assigned him.
And tonight, I would use that name as a blade.
I breathed in, letting the air sharpen me.
"Frederick."
The name landed between us with the weight of a verdict.
"Two years ago," I began, my tone crisp and practiced, "I wanted to protect myself from a potential threat. And so I kept you by my side… and placed a small gun in the annex."
Not a tremor crossed his face. Not a twitch. He was infuriatingly calm—so calm that my own heartbeat felt too loud, too human, too exposed.
But I watched him. Closely.
Because he had been the weapon I feared most.
A bodyguard meant to shield me, yes…
But also someone strong enough to kill me if my husband ever intended it.
A man whose loyalty I controlled with title and hierarchy, not trust.
A man I once believed I needed to survive.
And yet somewhere along the way, the lines blurred—dangerously.
"But after some time passed," I continued, my voice growing quieter but sharper, "something else occurred to me. The question of whether I had placed you and that gun in the appropriate places."
The air thickened with silent accusation, with two years of unspoken tension.
He was the wall between me and the world.
Between me and Eiser.
Between me and my own fear.
But that wall had shifted.
Tilted.
Cracked.
And now I needed to tear it down before it swallowed me whole.
My eyes hardened, determination steeping my veins in steel.
"It's no longer necessary."
The words rang through the marble hall, echoing off the grand, empty space like a royal decree.
I felt the truth settle in my chest—not gentle, not comforting, but final.
"It's no longer necessary…"
I repeated, clearer.
"For you to accompany me 24 hours a day… and protect me."
This was the truth I had fought against for months—the truth I had only accepted tonight.
"Eiser is not a threat to me anymore."
The words felt unreal on my tongue.
Releasing.
Crushing.
"Because I'm no longer in danger."
No longer in danger of him.
No longer in danger of being powerless.
No longer in danger of needing Frederick.
The real danger now…
Was the warmth that lingered on my skin where he touched me.
The memory of his voice echoing in my chest.
The way the lines between protector and man had blurred into something I could not allow.
I forced myself to breathe, to ground the final blow with ice instead of emotion.
"I don't need you anymore, Frederick."
The declaration sliced through the tension—clean, merciless, absolute.
I waited.
Every muscle tight, every breath held in my lungs.
I had revealed everything—my calculated use of him, the truth behind his presence, the decision I had made long before I walked through the door tonight.
Now all that remained…
Was his reaction.
Here is the expanded, intense
(Serena's Perspective)
The look on his face after my cold, calculated dismissal of "Frederick" was… nothing.
Or perhaps too much, buried so deeply I couldn't read a single shard of it.
Eiser simply stood there—shoulders squared, posture disciplined, eyes unblinking—as if absorbing the blow in silence. The perfect soldier. The perfect wall.
But the tension around him had changed.
This wasn't Frederick, the obedient guard.
This was Eiser—the husband who had looked at me earlier tonight with that fractured softness and said:
"I've never hated you, not for a single moment."
Those words had sunk into me like a stone dropped into still water, breaking everything. The ripples had followed me all the way home, rattling the structure of the neat, ruthless plan I had built for two years.
I clenched my jaw hard enough to ache.
GRIT.
I had to push through it.
Push through the confusion twisting in my chest.
Push through the heat that still clung to my skin wherever he had touched me.
Push through the memory—unwanted and intrusive—of wondering about him and that woman.
No more drifting. No more weakness.
I took a deliberate step toward him.
Not toward Frederick—
Toward Eiser.
The man who owed me something.
"I am going to hold off on hating you…"
The words scraped painfully up my throat.
My vision blurred for a moment as the threat of tears pressed forward—tears I refused to shed, not here, not in front of him. They were two years' worth of exhaustion and anger. Two years of suspicion. Two years of building a fortress around myself because I thought I had no one else.
"…and hold back the tears threatening to spill down my cheeks."
I forced myself to meet his gaze—
those unmistakable green eyes, no longer masked by Frederick's neutrality.
These were Eiser's eyes.
The man.
The husband.
The source of every scar I carried… and the one person who might be able to undo them.
"What you were doing in the annex," I said, my voice tight but intact. "What you felt you had to apologize to me for…"
I held my breath as the memory of his apology—his guilt—flashed in the corner of my mind.
"I am giving you a task regarding that matter."
His expression didn't change, but the air between us thickened.
A contract forming.
A final trial.
"One final action," I continued, every word measured, heavy. "One final chance to settle this history between us."
My heart was beating too loudly. Too hard.
BA-BUMP. BA-BUMP.
Every pulse felt like it might crack through my ribs, escape into the cold air between us.
"The outcome of that task will determine everything," I said, the truth slicing out of me like a blade drawn from a sheath.
"…and whether that will cause me to resent you…"
My breath trembled.
"…or forgive you."
The marble floor shimmered beneath us under the chandelier's glow, as though the room itself were holding its breath.
My marriage, my safety, my carefully built walls—
everything hung suspended in this single fragile moment.
Then, with every ounce of courage I had left, I threw the challenge at him like a gauntlet slammed to the ground:
"Well? Will you do it?"
(
The challenge hung in the air between us like a blade suspended by a single trembling thread.
"Well? Will you do it?"
My voice had been calm—cool, even—but inside, the question reverberated with an intensity I refused to show. As Eiser's gaze locked onto mine, unblinking and unbearably direct, I felt the sharp contrast between my outward composure and the storm he stirred beneath it.
What he saw was a demand.
What it truly was… was an equation. A mechanism. A trigger.
He would either choose forgiveness through action—or confirm my deepest resentments with a simple refusal. The answer would determine whether he walked into my plan as an ally… or revealed himself as yet another enemy I needed to guard against.
In that suspended moment, my mind drifted—backward and inward.
My operations had grown far beyond the modest scale of their beginnings. I had first taken on the alias Sera in desperation, quietly purchasing art pieces under that fabricated name. It was my hidden way of reclaiming what once belonged to Serenity Manor—works sold off during the darkest days, when repaying our debt meant carving chunks of our history away.
What began as recovery became something else entirely.
Piece by piece, transaction by transaction, Sera's portfolio had expanded. What started as a private, emotional reclamation gradually hardened into a business. A network. An empire-in-miniature with branches that stretched further than I had initially intended.
To such a degree… it had become far too much for just Sui and me to manage alone.
I allowed my gaze to drift for the briefest second, imagining Sui's tired yet stubbornly composed expression as she moved between her many duties. The truth was simple: I had placed too much on her shoulders.
Besides managing the acquisitions tied to Sera's activities, she also oversaw the manor's household affairs, ran constant interference on my behalf, watched my back more than I watched my own, and—most recently—had been forced to step into clandestine secretarial duties when I assumed control of the hotel.
Even if Sui obeyed Grandmother for her own reasons, I wasn't blind to the invisible chain between them.
Nor was I happy about it.
Although I trusted her more than anyone, that constant reporting back of small details—minutiae, as if my life were part of some endless ledger—had always left a faint sour note in my heart.
And so… entrusting yet another layer of my schemes to her was no longer feasible.
Frederick, on the other hand, was a different matter entirely.
Given everything at stake, he was currently the best possible choice.
The dismissal I had just delivered to him wasn't impulsive. It wasn't born from emotion.
It was a trap—carefully built, elegantly disguised, perfectly placed.
By assigning him these duties, I could place him where I needed him most: under my direct line of sight, within reach of my scrutiny. Not only was he already aware that I was Sera, but involving him on that front made it far easier to set snares on neutral ground.
It was far simpler to test someone inside Sera's isolated world than within the labyrinth of my own connections.
Sera's identity was tightly sealed. Her operations discreet, compact, controlled. The flow of information around her could be monitored to the smallest drop.
If someone tried to meddle… I would know.
This was my grand architecture—my silent war.
My mission to retrieve my family's legacy and track down the puppeteer still pulling strings behind closed doors.
And for that mission… I needed a new weapon.
A new tool.
And Eiser—my husband—was the most qualified, whether he realized it or not.
The emotional risk of involving him was immense.
The strategic necessity… even greater.
His acceptance of my challenge would mean more than words. It would be the hard, undeniable proof that he was willing to earn forgiveness, not merely claim it. Proof that he was not the threat my instincts still whispered he might be.
So I stood there, spine straight, expression unshaken.
I waited for his answer.
Inside, my heart ham