Debbie ran her tongue over her lips.

“You know what? How about you be my first?”

Her words clearly flustered him.

“Are you talking about me?”

His posture wavered slightly.

“You have plenty of s*xual experience, don’t you?”

Debbie decided to hold onto him.

Whether she slept with any random man or this particular one, having her first experience with someone she didn’t know would be the same either way.

Above all, this man seemed better than any other she had seen so far.

She decided to trust her instincts.

* * *

Though all that remained was a terrible hangover and pain, a smile spread across her face when she checked the column she had scribbled under the influence of alcohol.

She wasn’t entirely sure, but it was at least several times better than the interview with Henrietta. She washed her face and fixed her hair, pretending she hadn’t spent the night at the publishing house.

She chose modest clothes from the costume room, thoroughly cleaned up any traces of her intimate encounter, and then smoothly revised her column.

‘I must be a genius.’

She couldn’t hide her satisfaction while looking at her completed work. Employees began arriving one by one.

Despite paying a steep price, anyone would appreciate such a result. Even though she was in tears from the pain with every step, obtaining such good writing made it bearable.

“Huh? How did you get in first? Isn’t Team Leader Louis in charge of the keys?”

Mary from accounting was surprised as she tried to unlock the door, just as Team Leader Louis arrived.

“Strange, I locked up when I left…”

“Ah… I got permission from the editor-in-chief to work overnight.”

Debbie lied, using the editor-in-chief as an excuse.

She planned to claim he had casually given permission even if he denied it. Meanwhile, other employees continued to arrive.

“Ouch!”

Suddenly someone roughly bumped into Debbie, startling her. A woman with luxurious blonde hair rushing past looked familiar—Debbie thought she had seen her in the art department a few times.

“Ashley’s early today too.”

Team Leader Louis awkwardly raised his hand after she had already passed. His gesture looked embarrassing, but Ashley didn’t look back.

The editor-in-chief, whom Debbie had been waiting for to proudly show her column, didn’t arrive until nearly lunchtime.

“Good morning!”

Team Leader Louis jumped up to greet him, followed by other employees warmly welcoming the editor-in-chief.

But he entered with an icy atmosphere, barely acknowledging the greetings before storming into his office.

“Why is he so gloomy?”

The employees whispered among themselves.

“These days, he’s practically stalking his ex-girlfriend’s neighborhood. He should just move on—he’s the only one who can’t let go.”

“Ah, I see.”

“That woman wasn’t even that great.”

“I don’t understand what he finds so appealing that he keeps chasing after her.”

“With his abilities, he lacks nothing. Why is he acting so pathetically?”

“He can hear everything. Watch your words.”

“He’s been neglecting his duties lately, and we’re the ones picking up the slack.”

Listening to the employees’ gossip, Debbie hesitated about whether to bring her column to the editor’s office, deciding to wait until his mood improved.

‘Come to think of it, he does seem pitiful.’

There were women who would reject someone like the editor-in-chief.

Debbie stared at the empty editor’s office.

According to Henrietta, Gray had persistently followed her around, saying he didn’t want to break up. Henrietta apparently had no affection for him, but Gray felt differently.

Was he attracted to bad women? She couldn’t understand why he would cling to such a woman, but today his shoulders looked particularly shabby.

Perhaps it was because she now knew about his situation.

I loved sincerely, but the other person didn’t.

What must Gray have felt when he confirmed this fact? Debbie had never been in love, so she couldn’t imagine his sense of loss.

An unattainable love. A love where only one person remains in the same place.

Somehow, peculiar sentiments arose, and she quickly pulled out her notebook to write a short poem.

Inside the closed editorial office, Gray was heaving with intense breaths.

By now, everything should have exploded. He had prepared everything perfectly to give the competing newspaper a story.

Including, of course, the decisive evidence stolen from the Imperial Palace. But the competitor who had promised to publish betrayed him and was now pretending nothing had happened.

Damn it!

Unable to contain his anger, he threw a wooden box from his desk against the wall.

Even that wasn’t enough to quell his rage, so he kicked the wall and pounded it with his fist. Though he knew he would only hurt himself, he needed to vent his frustration somehow.

‘After all the effort I put into this!’

By now, people should have recognized the existence of the phantom thief. But people still treated the phantom thief’s existence as mere rumors.

He had carefully crafted a way to prove he wasn’t the phantom thief. He made people believe he was wasting time circling around his ex-girlfriend, unable to forget her.

The interview with her, in particular, was a perfect opportunity to make people think his attention was completely focused on Henrietta, unable to separate his personal and professional life.

But the competing newspaper he had given the planned article to had buried it.

Moreover, the rookie trainee reporter, instead of doing her assigned interview, had sneaked into the publishing house for a night of pleasure and ended up witnessing him.

Nothing had gone according to plan.

Damn! Damn! Damn!

This was all because of Dowager Empress Stella. Gray’s eyes burned with fury.

It felt like she was dismissing him as a mere flea, not even worth squashing.

— Do as you please.

Gray imagined her faintly smiling with her face half-hidden behind a fan.

Recalling that image, something surged from deep within his chest. He covered his face with one hand, lifted his head, and laughed maniacally.

Insignificant. I’m still too insignificant to reach you.

I’m not a ghost—I exist like this, in reality.

After trying so hard to survive, how long will you treat me like I’m invisible?

He wanted to shout that to Dowager Empress Stella. But she had consistently ignored his existence.

She completely ignored him, refusing to give him a glance no matter what he did.

Gray made a sound that was neither crying nor laughing, then tightly gripped his injured hand.

Go ahead, keep ignoring me.

He gritted his teeth and wiped all anger from his face.

Huff.

I’ll make sure you can’t ignore me anymore.

Perhaps it wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say he had lived solely for that purpose.

He couldn’t capture her attention yet, but he muttered to himself that someday she would certainly look at him.

Knock knock.

Just then, someone knocked on the editor’s office door. He took out black gloves from a drawer to hide his injured hand and spoke.

“Come in.”

Debbie peeked her head in. Despite the commotion in the editor’s office earlier, when she opened the door, everything was spotless.

Debbie entered, fidgeting nervously, while Gray pretended to be examining deadline manuscripts.

Gray flinched when he saw her flushed face.

‘Has she recognized me?’

Truly, if he hadn’t dropped the envelope with the imperial seal on the floor, he wouldn’t have become Debbie’s first partner.

‘It’s frustrating to think about it again. After all my careful planning, to be caught by a rookie.’

As she drew closer, Gray’s heart pounded fiercely. She looked like a walking bomb.

With his carefully planned phantom thief exposure ruined, it would be disastrous if she revealed his identity too. He could face an insurmountable crisis here.

Before she could get too close, he spoke in a sharp voice.

“State your business.”

Fortunately, Debbie stopped three steps away, flinching.

Gray instinctively adjusted his collar, worried that the marks she had left on his neck the night before might be visible.

“I…”

Debbie fidgeted again. Her squirming greatly irritated Gray’s nerves.

“I wrote the column. Please review it.”

“Leave it there and go.”

He deliberately avoided looking at her, pretending to be busy. But Debbie hesitated after putting down the column, seemingly wanting to say something more.

Gray’s eyes narrowed further. As he waited to see what bomb she would drop, Debbie slowly parted her lips.

“I’m sorry. I was rejected for the interview, so I couldn’t do it. Instead, I conducted a different interview on my own initiative.”

When Gray glared at her intensely, Debbie became flustered.

“I know. I overstepped my bounds. You went to the trouble of arranging the meeting, but I ran away during the interview because of my inexperience. However, I tried to make up for it. Even if you get angry, please read the column first, then scold me. I’ll accept whatever criticism you have.”

With that, she hurriedly fled, slamming the door behind her.

He was momentarily surprised by her hasty retreat without him saying anything, then narrowed his brows as he looked at the manuscript she had brought.

“Tsk. She should have just done the interview properly…”

Was she pretending not to know, or did she truly not know?

He clicked his tongue at the sight of her writing a reflection based on their intimate experience and then presenting it to him to read.

“Is she trying to mock me?”

Based on mere circumstantial evidence, she had deduced that the man she encountered last night was both an employee of this publishing house and the phantom thief.

Caught half-n*ked and then becoming intimate, he had expected to be immediately identified.

Why was she pretending not to know about yesterday’s events?

Go ahead and report me if you want. Even if Debbie reported the case that the Dowager Empress had covered up, the police were unlikely to investigate.

Snorting, Gray slowly examined the manuscript Debbie had brought.

“Physical intimacy is an act of consideration.”

That was the first sentence of the manuscript.

The new columnist, Miss Patch, interviewed a woman she met spontaneously and transcribed her first experience into the column.

She said she felt cared for by her mysterious partner. Her first step into an unknown world was pleasant, warm, and heart-burstingly exhilarating.

The satisfying first step gave her courage to walk toward a different world. Along with a deeper understanding of life.

That was essentially the content. Perhaps because of her background in poetry, she had written short sentences that vividly suggested the next action.

The writing had a rhythm that made one want to read it aloud, and Gray found himself reading it out loud before closing his mouth.

“Words sometimes lead to misunderstandings. To understand deep, intimate feelings, why not approach more closely?

Trembling breaths, hesitant gazes, careful touches.

Anything that’s a first is as tender and wistful as a fluttering heart. An unfamiliar way of communication brings heart-pounding sensations that could be excitement or tension.

Is the pounding of the heart because ‘it’s the first time’ or because of ‘inexperience’?

One key to unraveling a relationship is s*x.

It’s time to remove the masks and thin fabrics that have been blocking each other and return to a primal state.

It’s the moment to embrace hidden truths and face a new phase.

How wonderful this is.