Chapter 12
“…Miss Irene?”
At the sound of Chloe’s voice, Irene blinked and abruptly came back to herself. She looked up.
“Yes?”
“If you’re tired, you should head back for the day.”
“No—no, I’m fine.”
Blue eyes turned toward Irene as she waved her hands in denial. Eyes like the sky, like the sea, like a flawless blue sapphire. The instant they met them, Irene immediately lowered her gaze.
She couldn’t bear to look.
Because eyes too, too, too much the same kept popping into her mind.
To cool the heat rising in her face, Irene took a drink of the ice-laden apple juice.
Thank goodness summer had arrived, replacing the usual hot tea with chilled fruit juice.
That very morning, after jolting awake from a crazy dream, Irene had been overcome with crushing self-reproach.
Beside her pillow lay the popular romance novel she had fallen asleep reading. It was the newly released title that had supposedly been pulled from shelves for being too explicit, but Chloe Whitmore, an avid collector of popular romances, had managed to get her hands on a first edition through sheer determination.
‘The discontinued first edition is the real deal.’
Eighteen-year-old Miss Chloe Whitmore had finished the book without so much as a flicker crossing her face. Then she handed it to Irene and said:
‘Read it before you go to bed.’
By coincidence, Irene had been reading exactly the sort of story she liked best — a novel where an insufferably arrogant man got the downfall he deserved. And so, quite unintentionally, she had ended up following Chloe’s advice, only picking up the new release at bedtime.
<Lady Scarlet’s Secret Hobby> was the sort of novel that made it obvious from the very first page why it had been pulled from circulation.
She had fallen asleep reading a story so scandalously explicit that it made her wonder what the author, the publisher, and even the printing house had been thinking.
‘I’m going insane. I’ve completely lost my mind. Honestly, how did I even… Of all people, how could I dream about him!’
The truly insane part was her own body. Merely recalling that devastatingly handsome face looking down at her was enough to make her thighs twitch. I’ve really gone mad.
“…Are you unwell?”
“Hm? No, not at all.”
“Have you finished <Lady Scarlet> yet?”
“Oh, not yet. I fell asleep while I was reading it last night…”
Unlike Irene, whose face had gone bright red, Chloe merely gave a small nod, her expression as impassive as ever.
“It’s nothing but bedroom scenes, so it isn’t particularly interesting, but it’s certainly provocative, isn’t it?”
“It was shocking. But, Miss Chloe… are you really allowed to be reading something like that?”
Although eighteen was old enough to marry with a guardian’s consent, it was still not considered full adulthood.
Who in the world had so little conscience that they would sell a book like that to a young lady who was still meant to be under her family’s protection?
Especially one with the cover torn off so it couldn’t be recognized at a glance…
“It doesn’t matter. I only bought it because everyone was talking about it. It wasn’t really to my taste.”
Then again, Chloe’s preference had always been stories where promiscuous men got what they deserved. <Lady Scarlet’s Secret Hobby>, on the other hand, was nothing more than a chronicle of Lady Scarlet’s scandalous s-x life.
“If you’re worried, then you should keep that book, Miss Irene.”
“Hm? Oh… all right.”
“So, did you enjoy it? It’s the sort of thing you like, isn’t it?”
“M-Me? It isn’t.”
“Don’t you like stories where a beautiful woman wraps several men around her finger?”
“Wraps them around…”
The blunt choice of words left Irene too flustered to answer. Seeing her hesitate, Chloe broke into a grin.
The doll-like young lady’s radiant smile made Irene want to burst into tears. The instant she saw it, the remnants of that dream came rushing back.
‘Now that I’ve indulged you and fxcked you exactly the way you begged me to, you should at least say thank you. Hmm?’
Please let me forget that insane dream as soon as possible.
* * *
Returning from a dinner engagement that had been arranged at the last minute, Dominic rubbed a tired hand over his eyes. The reason the ever-busy Crown Prince had gone out of his way to detain him had, unsurprisingly, been marriage.
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