The illustrations of the Duke looking coldly at women clinging to his trouser legs begging him to take responsibility, while turning his head to kiss another woman. 

 ‘Does he think of me as just another one of those women?’ 

 Right after, a part of her mind whispered. Of course he would. He wasn’t someone who should be involved with someone like her in the first place, and he must have plenty of women around him. There would be more than enough women willing to open their bodies to him even if it wasn’t her. She was just one of those women. 

 Thinking that made her angrier. Nelie finally couldn’t hold back and snapped. 

 “……Did you do this to others too?” 

 “Others?” 

 “……To the other ladies you’ve met, Duke……” 

 The Duke raised his eyebrows as if he had heard something ridiculous. He looked ready to scold her. 

 “Hmm.” 

 However, after appearing lost in thought for a moment, he quickly changed his expression. Then he smiled as gently as an angel. 

 “No.” 

 “……” 

 “How could I treat noble ladies like this?” 

 “Then, only to me……” 

 “Though I don’t see why that matters, yes.” 

 The smile hanging on the Duke’s lips deepened radiantly. 

 “I only treat you this way, Miss Heich.” 

 It was like words laced with poison. 

 “……I see.” 

 “Are you perhaps upset?” 

 “Of course not.” 

 Even as she deliberately turned her head away while answering, her heart crumbled a little at that brilliant smile. Just as she was about to feel depressed, she remembered her father’s words again. 

 ‘Now I’ve really……” 

 She had really hit rock bottom. 

 Even when the Duke visited yesterday she had felt hopeless, and though she hadn’t thought she could sink any lower, she had. What could possibly make the situation worse than playing the role of a noble’s pr*stitute? 

 ‘So things can only get better.’ 

 Only better things remained ahead. She should focus on that. Be brave. It would be a shame to crumble over something like this when she had always been so strong. She hadn’t come all this way just to fall apart here. 

 ‘Yes, it’s okay, Annelie.’ 

 Fortunately, Nelie recovered quickly. If she hadn’t, it would have been difficult when her father fell apart, and when she experienced various hardships after coming to the city. So now she just needed to walk out of here. 

 ‘Wait.’ 

 However, a realization that blocked that thought raised its head. 

 ‘The charges?’ 

 Wasn’t this whole situation because she was trying to avoid defamation charges in the first place? 

 Yet she realized she still hadn’t received a proper answer from the Duke about that. After hesitating, Nelie opened her mouth while fidgeting with her hands. Even if she was leaving, she wanted a clear answer about this. 

 “Duke.” 

 The Duke raised his eyebrows and looked at Nelie when she called. His face seemed to ask why she wasn’t leaving yet and what else she had to say. 

 “……About the defamation……” 

 “……” 

 “Are you not going to press charges?” 

 Her lips felt heavy as she struggled to speak. As if they were coated with glue. Without realizing it, her voice became desperate. The Duke just stared steadily at Nelie. 

 The moment the woman called out to him in a desperate voice, Elroy held back a hollow laugh. 

 ‘Is she still worried about that?’ 

 Originally, he hadn’t planned to say such things. 

 He had planned to ask if she intended to keep staying in such a room, and magnanimously offered to let her use this building if she didn’t want to go to a welfare facility. This was one of the townhouses he used as a refuge whenever his grandmother’s nagging became too much. He didn’t even keep servants here. In case reports went back to his grandmother. 

 Naturally, this was the first time he had brought someone into his private sanctuary that he used alone. The fact that it wasn’t just anyone, but this brazen woman who had drawn impudent illustrations of him and repeatedly done outrageous things to him, made him want to laugh hollowly. 

 ‘Still, I can’t leave her in a place like that.’ 

 As the morning sun illuminated the n*ked body of the woman who had fallen asleep as if she had fainted after their lovemaking, her already perky br*asts were swollen from being sucked so much, and her face, sleeping with her mouth open in a way he would normally call stupid, looked tired. 

 She was a woman who slept so deeply she was even drooling, completely dead to the world. A woman who looked even more innocent with her eyes closed. It was hard to believe she had drawn those kinds of illustrations with such a face.

Looking down at her body, which was in disarray with all sorts of marks, he felt self-loathing. 

 That feeling intensified when he saw between her legs, where white fluid had clumped thickly. No matter how much the woman had seduced him, he felt incredibly stupid for falling for it so quickly. It bothered him, and he wanted to at least clean between her legs, but there was nowhere to wash. 

 “What kind of room is this.” 

 Only then did he slowly look around the room again, and it truly resembled an animal’s den. The worn-out walls and the mattress with straw poking out everywhere. The chair and desk with legs that had already broken once and needed supports added. The ceiling covered in mold and the floor with water pooled in the corners. 

 Somehow, he didn’t feel like leaving the woman alone in such a place. Of course, it wouldn’t matter and no one would say anything, but just imagining the woman waking up later with her ravaged body and looking around this old room with dazed eyes left him feeling somewhat unpleasant. 

 ‘At least coming inside her was my mistake.’ 

 He had brought her here thinking he should take responsibility for at least that much. 

 And while cleaning her body, he made up his mind. He would advise her to stay in this townhouse instead of that room and find a more respectable job. Once she found a decent enough job, he could send her away from here too. Wasn’t it unreasonable mercy to show such kindness to a woman who had drawn such pictures of him? 

 However, the woman who had taken his first time with an innocent face and without hesitation brought up another man. And she blushed while talking about him. While his attention was drawn to how her clear face sparkled like a shy maiden, the fact that she showed such an expression while talking about another man……. 

 ‘Jerome, she said.’ 

 He could intuitively guess who that was. The man who had held hands with the woman at the art museum. She had been making eye contact with him but immediately broke into a bright smile upon seeing that man. She even casually intertwined hands with the man just as she had held his hand. 

 ‘What a fool.’ 

 Elroy spoke spiteful words to the woman while self-deprecating. Seeing the woman’s eyes waver for a moment made something sting. Indeed, this image suited him better. Rather than being swayed by a woman who might be harboring a seductress beneath her innocent face. 

 Who was he, after all? None other than Duke Tevant. 

 On the other hand, seeing her hurt eyes made him feel unpleasant again. So he wanted her to say she would go to the welfare facility even now. To say she would stay in a brighter, warmer place rather than that musty animal den where she drew those dirty illustrations, where that man was. 

 Instead, the woman asked him. If he treated other women this way too. It was as if she saw him as quite the lewd man. 

 Rather than refuting that brazen question, Elroy told her. That she was the only woman he had ever been intimate with, so she was the only one he treated this way, honestly in his own way. 

 Then she asked again. If he wouldn’t press charges. 

 Despite having trembled and cried and dripped wet beneath him in pleasure. As if confessing that it wasn’t pleasure, that she hadn’t thrown herself at him because she liked him, but had only seduced him to avoid the charges. 

 That particularly irritated him. 

 “Well, Miss Heich.” 

 Perhaps that’s why he gave such an answer. Even while thinking this would be the last time he’d be involved with the woman and he’d never see her again. 

 “That depends on you.” 

 “……What?” 

 “I mean we might see each other again soon.” 

 With such a lie, at least the woman would anxiously wait for him. 

 Imagining the woman waiting for him seemed to improve his depressed mood somewhat. The woman kept looking at him for a long time with wavering eyes.