Meanwhile, Jürgen, who had been quietly looking down at her, was perplexed. Why is she crying? Diez had never cried in front of him before. She had been a woman who was dry and withered, let alone tears.

Suddenly recalling what she had said before, Jürgen felt as if his heart had sunk.

‘……At those times, I deliberately screamed and cried.’

‘Why?’

‘Because I knew it would improve the Duke’s mood a little faster.’

He had made Diez cry. It was as if he had committed the same act as his father, whom he despised.

Realizing this, Jürgen couldn’t remain still. His mind was consumed with the thought that he had to make her stop somehow.

“Miss Schleicher.”

“I’m, I’m sorry……”

“Look at me.”

At that, Diez finally raised her head and met his eyes. Her small, white face was flushed red and stained with tears, a complete mess. Irregular breaths escaped between her lips, not yet fully contained.

Even in the midst of confusion, a thought suddenly occurred to him.

Did she make this face in front of my father too?

That man, seeing Diez crying…… did he satisfy his desires while looking at a face like this?

Jürgen’s expression hardened once more. It wasn’t because he was displeased. Rather, he felt afraid for a moment. Afraid that his true feelings might leak out in a moment he couldn’t control.

Whatever the nature of those true feelings, he could instinctively sense that they should be hidden and suppressed. The moment he was dominated by this unknown emotion, he would be finished.

Taking out a handkerchief from inside his jacket, he wiped Diez’s face himself.

“Stop. Calm down.”

He spoke in the coldest voice he could muster.

“Never show tears in front of me again.”

Diez managed to nod slightly. Even now, her eyes remained moist.

Jürgen desperately suppressed the thoughts that were trying to surface and consciously emptied his mind.

He would not harbor any emotions toward her.

No private sentiments or evaluations either.

Especially, thinking that Diez’s tear-stained face was pretty was one of the things that should never happen again.

* * *

Having barely stopped her tears and regained her composure, Diez was seized by even greater tension than before. For a while, no conversation passed between them.

Finally, it was Jürgen who broke the silence first.

“Why did you cry?”

That question was easy to answer. There was a clear reason why she couldn’t hold back her tears.

“For a moment, I remembered the past.”

“Was this a salon you frequented?”

“……Yes.”

The two fell silent again. If they faced the staff without trying on any clothes, it would surely cause misunderstandings.

‘I have no choice but to try it on quickly and leave this place.’

Diez, with a face as heavily set as Jürgen’s, undid the fastenings one by one. Since it was still embarrassing to expose her bare body in front of the son of her former master, she kept her head bowed.

As she hurriedly put on the dress, Diez suddenly hesitated. This dress was somewhat difficult to wear alone. She needed to fasten the pearl buttons on her back, but her hands couldn’t easily reach there.

Before she could say anything, Jürgen approached first.

“Don’t just stand there hesitating, ask for help.”

Diez remained silent, with her hands clasped together. The shoulder blades revealed below her white nape particularly caught his eye. As he tried to maintain his composure while touching her body, he felt her tense up, her fine hairs raising.

Whether she was uncomfortable or not, he should have left her among the staff and departed.

With belated regret, Jürgen quickly fastened the buttons and swiftly stepped away from her.

By now, Jürgen too wanted to leave this place as soon as possible.

“Is it uncomfortable?”

When he asked mechanically, Diez nodded.

“We have no more time to waste. Keep wearing that dress and let’s go back. I’ll take care of the rest with instructions.”

With those words, Jürgen left the dressing room as if escaping.

Soon after, the oblivious staff approached Diez, who was left alone, with smiles.

The reason he had instructed them to bring old dresses instead of buying new clothes for Diez was simple.

He didn’t want to feel like he was doing the same thing as his father.

He didn’t want to play with Diez like a doll, as that man had enjoyed doing. From what he had heard, buying and dressing her in new clothes was one of the most frequent games the late Duke played with Diez.

That’s why he had gone through the trouble of taking her to the salon where he had entrusted the clothes.

As soon as he returned to the mansion with Diez, Jürgen immediately shut himself in his office and didn’t come out until nightfall. When a servant recommended dinner from outside the door as the sun was setting, he refused.

It was late at night when Jürgen, who had been immersed in non-urgent paperwork for hours as if trying to empty his mind, finally collapsed from exhaustion.

Leaning back in his chair with one arm covering his eyes, he finally felt a sense of liberation and rose from his seat. If it were any other day, it wouldn’t matter, but today he didn’t want to think about that woman anymore.

Seeing that he was too tired to think about anything, burying himself in paperwork had been a good strategy as expected.

He decided to end the day and returned to his bedroom. Lying in bed in his robe, Jürgen stared at the darkness-stained ceiling before closing his eyes.

In his dream, he was still in bed. However, Jürgen was not alone. A frightened blonde woman was curled up in a thin chemise that revealed her n*ked body, sobbing.

Y-Your Grace.

She called to him in a pleading, timid voice. With each small intake of breath, her n*pples, protruding through the chemise, trembled intermittently.

Moonlight filtering through the curtains illuminated her body with a pale glow. Diez’s face, barely hidden by shadows, was flushed red and stained with tears.

Jürgen could read numerous emotions in her eyes. Fear. Tension. Diez’s pupils trembled as unstably as her breathing, or even more pitifully.

As if begging to be released.

If I don’t let you go…… will you writhe and cry in despair and agony?

His pants felt painfully tight with arousal. The moment Jürgen, unable to hold back any longer, reached for his belt buckle, he woke from the dream.

Having slept for only a few hours, the bedroom was still shrouded in darkness. Due to the unusually vivid dream, it took a few seconds to realize it had been just that—a dream.

Of course, Diez was not by his side. However, that fact provided him no comfort at all.

Facing his c*ck that had swollen to the point of bursting, just as in the dream, Jürgen finally spat out a curse.

“Damn it.”

Not only that, but his entire body was drenched in sweat. As if he had just finished actual intercourse……

Jürgen got up with rough movements and headed to the bathroom. His steps could be described as somewhat hasty.

First, he planned to wash himself.

It will subside while I’m washing.

With that thought, Jürgen stood under the water pouring down on his head, but felt his er*ction not only failing to subside but expanding even more, causing him to let out a hot sigh in a miserable mood.

Finally unable to endure, he grabbed his c*ck and slowly stroked it.

This was his first time m*sturbating since his distant boyhood. No, perhaps this was effectively the first time? He wasn’t certain. Determined not to resemble his father who lived obsessed with women, he had deliberately avoided all s*xual stimulation, including women and even m*sturbation.

That’s why Jürgen couldn’t believe that he had an er*ction painful enough to hurt. All because of that stupid dream.

The woman who appeared in that dream was none other than Diez Schleicher.

The moment he recalled her tearful face, the c*ck in his hand stood up even more firmly. He moved his hand up and down, wanting to find release as quickly as possible, but the more he did so, the clearer Diez’s image became in his mind.

In his imagination, he imprisoned Diez inside his body. She was soaked in tears to the point that the tips of her ears were bright red. The chemise covering Diez’s body, which heaved with intermittent sobs, was irritating.

“F*ck.”

While cursing himself, Jürgen grabbed Diez’s br*ast with one hand in his imagination. She let out a high-pitched moan along with a soft, tender sensation.

Ah, Your Grace.

Half filled with anger, he squeezed and released Diez’s br*ast as if about to burst it, while rubbing his c*ck with one hand. But that wasn’t enough.

He needed something more.

Something that would satisfy him……

Your Grace, it hurts.

Diez began to plead. Even as he was overcome with self-loathing, Jürgen found that sight, that face begging and sobbing toward him, maddeningly good.

Your Grace, please……

What should I do with you.

Diez Schleicher, what should I do with you……

Instinct broke down the wall of reason and poured over him like a tidal wave. I want to see more. He felt he could imagine even more intense scenes, but Jürgen gritted his teeth and endured.

No more.

He had to free himself from this filthy, perverse desire somehow.

Forcibly erasing Diez’s image from his mind, Jürgen roughly rubbed his c*ck to induce ej*culation. Soon he expelled whitish s*men along with a sense of exaltation that enveloped his entire body. As the sensation of ej*culation faded and he finally regained his reason, he tightly closed his eyes while standing under the stream of water.