The sultry heat dominated the Duke’s bedroom.

Despite the spaciousness, it felt suffocating, as if only Caden and she existed in a small box, alone in the world. Emma’s mind was clouded with the foolish thought that she might suffocate from the man’s intense heat before her eyes.

It was the last night she would spend at Blackwood. So, Emma Brown decided to have the man she loved without regret. If she couldn’t have his heart and future, she had to at least have his body. Only then could she leave without regret.

“I love you, Caden.”

“I know.”

Caden replied, pressing his lips to Emma’s neck. His tone was casual, as if nothing could be more obvious. Watching his handsome lips curl slightly, Emma asked.

“And you?”

She tried to hide it, but her voice trembled foolishly. It was a question she had never dared to ask before. Even though she knew the answer, she wanted to confirm it just once. She felt the hot lips that had been teasing her neck pause.

Caden, who had been burying his face in Emma’s skin, slowly raised his head.

“Love? Me, love you?”

A light laugh echoed over her bare shoulder. Emma silently stared into Caden’s jet-black eyes, searching for any hidden piece of sincerity.

“That’s the funniest thing I’ve ever heard.”

“Ah…”

She had hoped, but of course. It was a clean denial. There wasn’t even a speck of sincerity. Caden’s laughter soon became daggers, clawing at Emma’s exposed body and heart.

‘Baby, don’t listen.’

Unconsciously, Emma wrapped her arms around her belly. It wasn’t something she wanted to hear, even though there was no one to hear it.

‘I know. There’s no way the Duke would love me.’

Her voice was so small it was barely audible, like a candle flickering in the wind. Detecting the hidden tremor, Caden’s brow furrowed slightly.

“Why ‘the Duke’ again?”

Reading the mischief in his sunken voice, Emma smiled gently. As if nothing had happened, as if it was always like this.

“It was a joke.”

“What?”

Caden let out a hollow laugh, as if it were absurd. He reached out his large hand and wrapped it around Emma’s slender neck. Tilting his head, he hungrily captured her delicate lips.

“Gasp…!”

The kiss was somehow fierce and irritable. Emma, taken aback, struggled, but he didn’t back down. He only delved deeper, more persistently.

Maybe it was because they hadn’t been intimate for days due to a cold war.

Even with Emma in his arms, he felt a constant thirst. He wanted to knock on Emma’s soft and tender places, open the door, and delve into the deepest parts to explore the hidden spring.

He felt an inexplicable urgency, fearing she would slip away if he loosened his grip, that she would leave forever the moment he let go. Caden clicked his tongue inwardly.

‘How far do you intend to sway me…?’

Since meeting Emma Brown, Caden often felt lost. Such a self was unfamiliar, absurd, but not entirely disliked. After all, Emma Brown was perfectly his. No one could take Emma from his embrace. Not Prince Marcus, nor the Grand Duke of Staria. Her body and heart were all Caden’s.

Because Emma Brown only loved Caden Blackwood.

Even knowing that fact better than anyone, Caden kept feeling strange.

‘I don’t like it.’

Emma, who wore the face of an ascetic secretary, was a woman who knew no fear in the bedroom. She was a siren luring men to their doom, a witch driving them into hellfire. Sometimes she became a bold warrior leading him.

Yet today, Emma was unusually passive. As if she had become a saint who knew nothing of a man’s body.

‘Is she unwell…?’

Surely, she must have been anxious about Lady Lillian for some time.

He had acted coldly, unable to bear seeing Emma and Marcus getting along. Not only that, he even tolerated Lillian’s blatant advances. It must have upset Emma, who loved him, in many ways. Caden decided to forgive Emma with a generous heart.

‘After all, she came to me on her own.’

Though he didn’t say it, coming to his bedroom was akin to asking for reconciliation. Her face, which had recently grown gaunt, appeared particularly pale.

Caden felt a bit sorry for Emma. So he decided to act like a generous employer and a sophisticated partner.

Did she notice his softened expression?

“I have a request.”

As if reading his mind, Emma made an unexpected remark.

“A request…?”

A puzzled expression appeared on Caden’s face. Emma Brown, though fond of money, was a woman who always asked precisely for what she worked for.

‘Did something happen in her hometown?’

Otherwise, she wouldn’t have brought up a request so abruptly. Was her mother’s condition worsening, or had something happened to her twin brother? He was just about to ask. Emma’s breath tickled his ear.

“…!”

Emma, placing her lips on his earlobe, whispered secretly.

“Please be gentle tonight. Don’t hurt me.”

Caden let out a small laugh.

“So that’s all it was?”

It seemed she wanted to enjoy the night differently today. His secretary, who was sometimes naive, sometimes sly, and sometimes boldly daring, was making a request for the first time.

In that case, he had no choice but to grant it.

“Alright. I’ll start by melting you.”

As he finished speaking, Caden’s lips claimed Emma’s deep well.

“Hah…!”

His sharp tongue probed between the layered secret petals. Feeling the moist texture and the bumps on its surface, Emma arched her back.

It was the beginning of a long, sticky night.

* * *

About three months after Emma entered Blackwood, a significant change occurred in the relationship between the superior and the secretary, who had been nothing more than that.

That dawn, Emma awoke in her superior’s bedroom.

“…!”

Looking down at the emptiness below, Emma let out a silent scream. What should have been there wasn’t.

She was completely n*ked.

“Crazy…!”

Yes, last night Emma Brown had mixed bodies with Duke Caden Blackwood.

The master of the north, suffering from madness. The difference in status was like heaven and earth, yet this rookie secretary, who had only worked for him for three months, had caused a major incident.

“I need to escape first!”

If the Duke woke up, it would be a disaster. Emma waved her hand over Caden’s sleeping face. Fortunately, he was asleep.

‘Was it thanks to the sleeping pills?’

Otherwise, Caden, sensitive to even the slightest disturbance, wouldn’t have remained unresponsive.

Last night, Emma had witnessed a foreign courtesan putting something in Caden’s wine glass. Concerned, she had followed the two to the bedroom, which was the start of the incident.

‘I shouldn’t have meddled where I didn’t belong.’

Even amidst her turmoil, Emma couldn’t take her eyes off Caden’s sleeping face.

His hair, black as the night sky, was scattered over his smooth forehead. He looked as gentle as a child. In contrast, his nose, towering like the Graal Mountains of the north, and his thick, lush eyelashes exuded the mature charm of a grown man.

Finally, Emma’s gaze stopped at his unusually red and plump lips. She vividly remembered what those lips, often spewing venomous words, had done the previous night.

“Don’t run away. Don’t show your back. I want to chase and bite.”

Recalling how Caden’s sensual lips devoured her own, Emma’s face flushed hotly. It wasn’t the time to be lost in sticky imagination.

First, she had to escape the Duke’s bedroom.

‘Stay calm, Emma Brown. Nothing happened! Just sneak out of the bedroom and return to your quarters. Submit your resignation in the morning. Say your mother is critically ill! Somehow, it might work’

Of course, it wasn’t a simple matter.

“If you resign from the secretary position within three months, you must compensate ten times the contract amount.”

The last clause of the contract weighed on her mind. Today was exactly three days before the three-month mark since she signed the contract. But she couldn’t just wait. She had to escape before her identity was discovered.

‘First, go back home. Then prepare for the civil service exam again. If I pass, I can get a royal civil servant loan. Then, I can repay the penalty.’

Thinking of her family, who had been overjoyed when she got the job as the Duke’s secretary, left a bitter taste. But resigning was a hundred or a thousand times better than having her identity exposed to Caden.

Emma didn’t want to give up the position of Blackwood’s secretary. Regardless of the work intensity, it was the best-paying job. But she couldn’t gamble her life on it.

For Emma, a “safety-first” person, survival was the top priority.

‘If the Duke finds out my identity…’

What would happen if it was discovered that a bespectacled plain girl had stolen a night with a nobleman? She didn’t even want to imagine. Even if she was lucky enough to survive, she might be maimed or dragged to a dungeon.

She briefly considered confessing and clearing up the misunderstanding. But the risk was too great. Emma wanted to survive, no matter what. Only then could she pay off her debt and take care of her family.

“Is resignation the only option after all?”

After all, didn’t the Duke dislike her?