Finally, as her interview subject entered, Debbie prepared to greet them enthusiastically. Their eyes met—Debbie and a woman dressed in elaborate stage costume who had just stepped into the room.

“Oh!”

“Oh my!”

Neither could say who exclaimed first. Both screamed in surprise the moment they recognized each other’s faces.

“Lorraine?”

“Debbie?”

Thump, crash. Pitter-patter.

Simultaneously, the woman who had entered the room fled without looking back.

“Lorraine! Where are you going? Lorraine? Lorraine?”

Debbie ran until she was breathless, but Lorraine, who knew the building’s layout well, disappeared without giving Debbie a chance to catch her. It was definitely Lorraine—the daughter of one of the vassals sacrificed in the aftermath of the Terium Province rebellion. 

Though they weren’t close friends due to their similar ages, they knew each other’s faces and names.

Debbie had remained in Terium and enrolled in Alobachia Prestigious School, but Lorraine and several other children, unable to bear the stigma of being labeled traitors’ children, had disappeared one by one.

Despite their chance encounter, which should have been a happy reunion, Lorraine clearly wanted no further contact.

“Is she ashamed of becoming a showgirl at an entertainment establishment?” Debbie wondered, feeling a bitter sensation like sand rolling around in her mouth. “I just wanted to ask how she’s been doing all this time.”

Neither of them had likely fared well. Having shared the same pain, Debbie simply wanted to comfort and console her.

“Miss Debbie Jones, the president would like to see you for a moment,” Fret approached and said.

Gulp.

Count Barnabas had specifically summoned her, so whether she liked it or not, she had to follow.

‘Why does he want to see me? This is so uncomfortable,’ she thought as her stomach suddenly churned and cold sweat broke out.

If he had at least given a reason for summoning her, it might have been different, but having to meet him privately without knowing anything made her want to avoid the situation altogether.

“Please follow me.”

Fret personally guided Debbie. She had heard he was Count Barnabas’s right-hand man, so why was he handling such trivial tasks? He soon led Debbie to a white-haired gentleman who had come to escort her, then bowed politely.

“Have a good time.”

Hearing those words, her eyes widened even more.

Hmm? A good time? What kind of good time?

“I am the butler who serves the Count. The Count’s residence is on the top floor. This way, please.”

The top floor?

Following the butler up the white staircase, she looked out the window and felt her legs trembling as the ground seemed increasingly distant. Why the top floor of all places? And why summon her to his residence?

Her heart pounded violently. The higher they climbed, the more her anxiety intensified with the realization that escape routes were diminishing.

Why would someone who owns an entertainment establishment want to see me?

Debbie recalled the moment during the company dinner when he had placed his hand on her shoulder. She startled at the memory of how his thumb had grazed the nape of her neck while pretending to pat her shoulder.

Should I have brought someone along? Maybe the photographer? There’s no reason to summon me to a private setting for work-related matters—those could be discussed at the publishing house.

Suddenly feeling goosebumps rise, she wrapped her arms around herself and rubbed them up and down. He was no longer the lonely little boy crying in the orchard. That’s why his summons frightened her.

The hotel’s top floor was truly royal. The veranda garden visible through the open windows was beautiful, and the massive central hallway was grand enough to host exhibitions or balls. At the end of this hallway stood large double doors rimmed with gilded decorations, resembling a small banquet hall.

“He is inside,” said the butler, standing before the doors. “Count, Miss Debbie is here.”

Trembling like a lamb being led to slaughter, Debbie was gently pushed through the heavy doors by the butler.

“Welcome,” Blake greeted her, wearing only a nightgown, having apparently just finished bathing.

“What would you like to drink?” he asked, pointing to several bottles of alcohol in an ice-filled wooden tub. “Shall we talk over a drink?”

He selected a wine from among them and filled his glass. Then he glanced back, discovering Debbie’s pale, ashen face.

Unable to understand what had caused her to turn so pale, he tilted his head in confusion and took a sip of wine to moisten his lips.

“Do you have any idea why I called you here?”

With her keen perception, she might notice something upon seeing him in just a nightgown—that he was the man who had spent the night with her.

In truth, what puzzled him most was how she had recognized him as the phantom thief after seeing him just once. He never intended to reveal himself originally.

No matter how hard he tried, it seemed nearly impossible to expose the suspicions about his birth through the press, so he had borrowed the identity of a character from a popular novel to become a famous thief.

Afterward, he had exposed only glimpses of his masked appearance to become the talk of the town. Yet his existence was only whispered among publishing house employees, never appearing even in cheap tabloids.

While pondering how to attract attention, Debbie had immediately identified him as the phantom thief—the very figure at the center of recent gossip.

Given her perceptiveness, Blake found himself unconsciously expecting something from her. She had always been needlessly brave. But now she was just trembling like a mouse before a cat, which disappointed him.

“Miss Debbie?”

There’s a saying about trembling like an aspen tree. Like aspen leaves that shake violently at the slightest breeze, Debbie’s body wouldn’t stop trembling.

Has she recognized me and gone into shock?

It seemed to be no ordinary shock—she couldn’t even speak a word. The shock must be substantial. After all, the man she thought was her first s*xual experience had now appeared without his disguise.

She had mixed with someone she believed was a polite, experienced senior reporter, only to discover he was actually the company president. Moreover, he had orchestrated all kinds of notorious rumors about himself.

Though he had briefly strayed once. When he realized that living a ruined life wouldn’t attract Dowager Empress Stella’s attention anyway, everything lost its appeal. Since then, he had spent his time on thorough self-management and exercise.

Even gaining notoriety takes effort. Above all, it ruins the body and wastes time. If there was nothing to gain despite all that effort, there was no need to actually live up to his bad reputation. He merely needed to spread rumors subtly.

Owning a publishing house and entertainment establishments made spreading rumors quite easy.

“Answer me. I asked if you know why I called you here.”

Blake gently swirled the wine glass in his hand. Debbie, still trembling, slowly nodded her head up and down.

“Oh?”

Interest flickered in his eyes.

“Do you remember meeting me when we were children?”

When he mentioned childhood, Debbie’s face turned bright red. Seeing this, Blake couldn’t help but chuckle.

“Interesting. I thought you wouldn’t remember.”

He recalled the young Debbie. The girl who told him he could live a different life was now an adult, standing before him with her head bowed.

With an expression so embarrassed she looked ready to kick the blankets in frustration, her trembling from shame further piqued his interest.

How much does she remember?

“Blake, if other people see you, I won’t let it slide! If rumors spread, you’re dead!” Blanche used to make such a fuss back then. So he would secretly hide and watch children his age playing around the orchard.

When she told him he could live a different life, Blake thought of Blanche’s wigs and makeup. Then, with clumsy (but very serious) disguise, he approached Debbie.

“You’re a new child? Did you just move here?”

Debbie hadn’t recognized him. So they were able to play hide-and-seek together. Debbie was “it,” and Blake hid in the bushes with his heart pounding. Then Blanche, who came looking for him after noticing his disappearance, caught him and dragged him away.

“How did you know it was me?” he had asked, only to have to run away from her threatening to hit him with a broom.

“Who would fall for such a sloppy disguise? You ruined my expensive makeup!”

Blake couldn’t believe it, blinking in confusion before Blanche caught him. He thought he had fooled her completely, but Debbie had only pretended to be deceived. The boy’s face turned red with embarrassment.

“Oh? Did you move here too?”

When he went wearing a poor-quality wig he had barely managed to steal from Blanche’s room, she brazenly pretended not to know him again.

“Do you like playing hide-and-seek too? But you won’t go home without saying anything while hiding, right? Last time I played with a newly moved child, and that child just left, so I searched until sunset and got scolded by my mother. You shouldn’t do that. Understand?”

Blake was too perplexed to respond. He couldn’t tell if she was pretending not to recognize him despite knowing, or if she truly didn’t recognize him. Or perhaps she was being considerate, taking responsibility for her advice that “you can live a different life.”

He occasionally visited Debbie to play hide-and-seek. And he waited for when she would finally recognize him. Contrary to this desire, his disguises became more sophisticated day by day. Because he was waiting for the day when she would truly be fooled, not just pretending.

At Debbie’s admission that she remembered him, Blake pulled up one corner of his mouth crookedly.

“Then you must know that your parents’ deaths are somewhat connected to me.”

Debbie, who had been looking down, suddenly raised her eyes sharply. With a face flushed differently than before, she stared directly at Blake.

“I won’t make excuses. Nothing can compensate for those deaths.”

Blake drained the remaining wine. Putting down his glass with a hardened expression, he said, “But I also don’t know why I became the lord. I don’t know why the rebellion conspiracy was suddenly exposed and the leaders and associates were hastily punished. I’ve wondered about the inside story of how I, a snot-nosed child, was suddenly given the position of lord afterward, supposedly to clean up the mess. But I couldn’t uncover anything.”

Blake observed Debbie’s expression.

“Whether you believe it or not, I’m still trying to dig into their issues. And I promise you this—I will reveal the truth behind your parents’ injustice. But I can’t do it right away. That’s why your employment terms were so exceptional. I just want you to understand that it was my small gesture of sincerity.”

Tears welled in her eyes, and her trembling lips revealed the intense emotions swirling in her heart.

“Debbie, become my person.”

Blake had hesitated countless times before uttering those words.

Do you know? The casual words you once spoke. How much comfort that single phrase gave to my young self—telling me that not only bad children exist in the heart, but good ones too.

It raised my rock-bottom self-esteem and gave me, who had been busy hating myself, a chance to forgive myself a little. Even the fact that my other pen name is AB—it all came from you.

He had taken in children whose parents had been unjustly killed as traitors and made them his loyal followers. Each had resisted and shown resentment toward him, but none refused when offered the chance to “clear their parents’ names.”

But he hadn’t summoned Debbie. He wanted to leave her as just a childhood memory and hoped she would live a happy life somewhere, unrelated to revenge. Yet she had come to his publishing house without being asked, and immediately saw through his identity.

So he had to either draw her to his side or bind her to prevent her from interfering with his work. Because she was different from others.