Senior, I Won’t Call You That

Poke.

“……Mmm.”

Giselle frowned at the touch waking her and pulled the blanket up over her face. But the touch persisted, trying to wake her up as if urging her to get up quickly.

Unlike her usual nanny who woke her every morning, it was a somewhat rougher touch.

Poke. Poke.

“Nanny, I want to sleep a little more…… Ow, ouch!”

Giselle was about to whine sleepily when she suddenly screamed as her hair was pulled.

There’s no way her nanny would grab her hair just because she was oversleeping.

She forcibly lifted her heavy eyelids to see who was pulling her hair.

A cat was sitting at the head of the bed, swinging its front paws at her.

“Elizabeth? Why are you…… Gasp!”

Giselle blinked, still half-asleep, then belatedly remembered last night’s events and hurriedly sat up. As a result, a few more strands of her hair were pulled out by the cat’s claws, but she had no time to feel the pain.

“Uh……”

A few strands of pink hair fell gently onto the bed sheet where she had been lying, sparkling in the sunlight.

The cat rolled around on the bed, poking at them as if they were its prey.

“How did this……”

Giselle looked at the sunlight pouring in through the window and quickly got out of bed. After hastily putting on her slippers, she hurried to the window.

She could see the sun high in the sky.

“Oh my. Did I oversleep?”

She muttered with a dazed expression, holding her messy hair with both hands.

To oversleep, not in her own house, but in someone else’s.

Moreover, in Lucas’s house.

“……!”

Giselle’s face turned red as she thought of Lucas. She quietly lowered her gaze to look at the clothes she was wearing.

It was the shirt he had taken off and left for her last night.

“Sigh…… This is all because of you, Elizabeth.”

“Meow.”

She sighed deeply and glared reproachfully, but the cat meowed with an nonchalant expression and jumped up onto the windowsill.

The cat’s eyes moved busily left and right as if trying to chase a bird on a branch outside the window.

As Giselle was blankly watching this scene, there was a knock at the door.

— Miss, are you awake?

“Ah, yes! Come in.”

She hurriedly tidied her clothes and called out towards the door. Then the door opened and the maid who had checked on her bed last night entered.

Giselle greeted her with an awkward smile.

“Good morning. Um, is it too late to call it morning?”

“It’s a very good morning after the rain has stopped and the sky has cleared, Miss.”

The maid’s eyes widened as if she hadn’t expected Giselle to greet her, but then she returned the greeting with a kind smile.

“Did you sleep well? I was worried you might have been uncomfortable in an unfamiliar bed.”

“Ah, I slept really well. As you can see, well enough to oversleep.”

Giselle blushed with an embarrassed expression. In fact, there was a bit of a lie in saying she slept well.

She had only fallen asleep at dawn.

She had tossed and turned all night, unable to sleep, thinking about how she had made a fool of herself in front of Lucas. If she were to count the number of times the blanket on the bed had fluttered in the air throughout the night, it would easily be dozens of times.

‘Come to think of it, it’s fortunate that I overslept. At least I don’t have to face Senior directly.’

She asked the maid a question to confirm her thoughts.

“Has Senior, I mean, has the President gone to work?”

“Pardon?”

The maid, who had gone into the bathroom to prepare the bath water, poked her head out and continued.

“Of course not. He’s waiting to have breakfast with you, Miss.”

“……What? He’s waiting?”

Until this time?

Giselle looked out the window again, surprised by the unexpected news. The sun was almost at its zenith, approaching noon.

‘And he’s at home at this hour? Not going to work?’

A man who dislikes wasting not only money but also time, just to have breakfast with her…….

She wondered if the maid was teasing her. But not only were they not close enough for such familiarity, but the look in the maid’s eyes was also utterly serious.

“Oh, is that so.”

“Yes. I thought you already knew, so I didn’t mention it earlier.”

Knock knock.

Just then, there was another knock at the door. The one who entered the room next was the head maid.

“Did you sleep well, my lady?”

The head maid bowed politely in greeting, then glanced at another maid who had come with her. That maid then entered with a large box.

“I apologize again for the inconvenience caused by not having women’s sleepwear prepared.”

“No, it’s fine.”

Giselle tried to hide her embarrassed expression as she touched her clothes. Despite saying it was fine, her face flushed hot as she stood there wearing just a man’s large shirt.

She stroked her heated cheeks with her hand and changed the subject. There was also an unfamiliar object that seemed appropriate for changing the topic.

“Um, what’s that box?”

“It’s a dress for you to wear, my lady.”

“……Pardon?”

Giselle looked at the head maid with round eyes. In response to her gaze that seemed to ask ‘Why suddenly a dress?’, the head maid elaborated a bit more.

“The President gave instructions early this morning. He said to prepare a dress for the young lady to wear this morning. We prepared it in a hurry, but I hope it’s to your liking?”

As soon as the head maid finished speaking, the maid who had followed her opened the box to show its contents.

It was a dress too beautiful to have been prepared in a hurry. It was incomparable to the few outfits she owned.

She was at a loss for words, but the head maid seemed to misunderstand her silence and continued apologetically.

“I suppose it might be a bit plain for a daily dress……”

“Ah, no. I like it. It’s really a pretty dress.”

Giselle quickly waved her hands to dispel the misunderstanding before it deepened.

“I’m glad it’s to your liking, my lady. Then, may we assist you in getting ready? Have you bathed……”

The relieved head maid was about to continue speaking when she suddenly noticed Giselle’s attire and raised an eyebrow. She seemed to realize that the shirt she was wearing was not the one from last night.

“Ah, this shirt……”

Flustered, Giselle was about to make up an excuse about the previous night’s circumstances. But before she could speak, the head maid gave a strange smile and then continued in a calm voice.

“Let’s start with a bath, my lady. You must have sweated a lot during the night.”

“……Pardon?”

‘Sweat? Why does she think I would have sweated?’

Unlike her room where she couldn’t freely use even a single log in the fireplace, this place was generous with firewood.

Thanks to that, she had spent a warm night, but it wasn’t hot enough to make her sweat.

Giselle wore a puzzled expression, unable to understand the head maid’s words. But she never got to resolve her confusion.

This was because the head maid urged Giselle to get ready with an inexplicable smile.

* * *

“Ahem, hem.”

The sound of the butler clearing his throat reached Lucas’s ears as he was reading the newspaper. When he looked up over his glasses, Bushin bowed his head and apologized politely.

“I apologize, Master Lucas. Ahem.”

Despite his words of apology, Lucas could see the corners of his wrinkled mouth twitching.

Lucas furrowed his brow and sighed at the butler’s peculiar behavior that had continued since last night. Unable to bear it any longer, he opened his mouth to say something.

“Bushin, as I said repeatedly last night, it’s all a misunderstanding…”

But Lucas’s words were cut short. The dining room door opened and someone entered.

No, he couldn’t pretend not to know who it was by calling them ‘someone’.

Giselle was the only one he waited for, even pushing back his work hours just to have breakfast together.

“Ah…”

Giselle entered as the head maid opened the door and stepped aside, but she stopped when she saw Lucas. He too, in the middle of speaking to the butler, closed his mouth when their eyes met.

Simultaneously, both their faces turned bright red.

They must have recalled the events of the previous night.

“Uh, umm…”

When her eyes met Lucas’s, Giselle’s mind went blank, and she could only move her lips without uttering a word. She didn’t even have time to feel awkward about her attire, which had been prepared by the skilled maids of the Taylor household.

Her mind was filled only with the events from the bathroom last night.

“…Did you sleep well, Giselle?”

Lucas was the first to compose himself and change his expression. After a light cough, he greeted her as if nothing had happened.

“Oh, yes… Yes! Good morning, Senior.”