She seemed to recognize that the person who had brought her here wasn’t her friend but him.

Gillian swallowed a sigh.

“Get yourself together starting tomorrow.”

“I don’t know. Whether I’ll be able to forget her…”

Andrea muttered, then her breathing gradually slowed. Gillian looked down at the sleeping Andrea for a moment, then got up from the bed to leave.

She’d figure out how to get home when she woke up in the morning.

Suddenly, someone grabbed his clothes from behind.

“…!”

He hadn’t predicted it at all, and unfortunately there was a rug under the bed, so his feet slipped forward and he nearly cracked his head open on the floor.

“Are you leaving too?”

Panicking, Gillian braced himself against the bed and sat down on the floor, slightly annoyed at having felt his life was in danger, and turned around.

“Weren’t you asleep?”

But Andrea, lying face down on the bed, didn’t answer and just stared at Gillian blankly with unfocused eyes. Then she hugged her armful of clothes, rustling them, got down from the bed, sat in front of him, and gazed at him intently.

Gillian hesitated.

“What…?”

“You really do look similar.”

Andrea thought she was talking to herself, but naturally Gillian knew exactly who she meant he looked similar to.

Then Andrea suddenly asked, “Could you give me just one kiss?”

It was absurd.

“What kind of crazy talk is that?”

No matter how similar he looked, was this something to say to a strange man whose identity wasn’t even certain?

But Andrea seemed unable to accept the rejection and pouted like a sulking child.

“I won’t be able to do it with the person I like anyway, so it’s okay to do it with someone who looks like her, right?”

“What kind of nonsense is that?”

Did she even realize she had met him for the first time today?

“I’ll probably marry some man my father chooses soon.”

But out of nowhere, Andrea started to sniffle.

“Someone old and fat who helps father’s business. Or someone gaunt with only his eyes glowing brightly, with a sinister look, someone who’ll benefit the family.”

It was a description that seemed familiar somehow.

“I’ll have to marry him. Someone I don’t even love.”

“Your father could arrange you with someone young and handsome.”

He said this trying to calm her down somehow, but Andrea shouted angrily.

“There’s no one like that around father, so what kind of wishful thinking is that! I hate ugly people. I hate ugly people!”

She lay down and started bawling like a child throwing a tantrum.

‘Is this drunken behavior, or was the personality I’ve seen so far all an act?’

Gillian really had a pounding headache and held his temples. Soon he lowered his hands and said cynically.

“So in the end, you liked the face.”

Then Andrea shot up her head defiantly and shouted.

“When a pretty person is kind and elegant and wonderful at everything, how could I not like her!”

“…”

Why did those words make him feel like he’d been slapped?

When Gillian didn’t respond, silence fell. Andrea, who had been sniffling continuously, soon gathered herself up. Like a crying child who stops crying on their own when left alone, she seemed a bit embarrassed after crying her heart out by herself.

Andrea said with a dejected face.

“I’m sorry. That was nonsense. I guess I drank more than I thought.”

That was certain.

“Then now you should probably…”

He grabbed Andrea’s wrist as she tried to get up.

“Just a kiss.”

Then he pulled her toward him and their lips collided.

He had only pulled lightly, but Andrea was drawn to him like she weighed nothing and bumped into him. And whether her attempt to get up had been an act, she didn’t resist once and embraced his neck, responding to the kiss.

Honestly speaking, he thought she was cute.

Her white face looked like it would taste sweet if licked, her features were delicate and pretty, and her bright blonde hair and clear blue eyes were doll-like. Saying her impression was vague was just an excuse. Even among countless blondes, that sweet color resembling honey had caught his attention. He simply wasn’t in a situation or condition to accept Andrea’s feelings.

He had thought that once he rejected her confession, he wouldn’t get entangled with Andrea again, but somehow he was kissing her so hotly his head was spinning.

Her lips were as soft as they looked, and her tongue was small and tender. When he caught her flinching tongue and sucked it roughly, Andrea gasped in surprise.

“Haah.”

He held her waist, so thin it fit in both his hands, and intertwined their tongues again. Andrea panted heavily, trying hard to keep up. Her strength seemed to be draining as she leaned all her body weight against him, and he could feel every curve of her body. Especially her chest…

Usually it wasn’t noticeable because the lace on her dresses was so elaborate, but where they touched, he felt an unexpectedly substantial weight.

Even though he lived cross-dressed, Gillian was a one hundred percent heterosexual man who liked women. Cross-dressing hadn’t been his choice to begin with.

Whether the smell of alcohol was making him drunk too, the soft sensation pressed between their bodies gradually heated him up, and he found himself more absorbed in the kiss than expected.

“Ah…”

He realized his hand had slipped under her skirt and was caressing Andrea’s bottom when she flinched and made a sound.

The person most surprised was Gillian himself. He had said with his own mouth that it would be just a kiss, but his hand was somehow gripping and kneading her bottom. With touches that bordered on harassment!

‘Stop it, you crazy b*stard.’

He thought this, but it really was ‘just’ a thought.

Andrea was so absorbed in the kiss that she might not have known what was happening below, just breathing heavily.

When he gripped one side of her bottom tightly, Andrea visibly flinched. But she showed no signs of pushing him away or resisting. Rather, she seemed to encourage him by trying hard to follow the kiss.

‘Push me away.’

Gillian slid his hand from the outside to the inside of her bottom. Her skin was so soft it felt like he was sliding.

When he pressed firmly at the center of her underwear, Andrea gasped and lifted her body.

“Ah…”

Even her sensitive reaction was cute.

But only then did their lips part, and Gillian made an effort to come to his senses. He clenched his hands into fists to hold onto his drifting reason.

He had to stop here.

Honestly, sleeping with a woman he’d just met wasn’t a big problem, but he couldn’t make Andrea a one-night partner. 

It wasn’t simply a matter of preference like ‘no virgins,’ but the problem was that Andrea was the daughter of Theodore Ulrich, that ruthless merchant who would even charge homeless people for the newspapers they slept under.

People said about Theodore Ulrich that ‘he could see the flow of money with his eyes.’ The talk that for him, not only his children but even the underwear he wore could become sellable goods wasn’t idle gossip.

He didn’t want his already complicated life to become even more hopelessly tangled by messing with the daughter of a ruthless businessman who would try to get business help by marrying his daughter into a good family.

His lower region, which had too much tension, was starting to hurt, but…

Starting to hurt?

Suddenly, Gillian looked down at his lower body.

Small hands were groping the large arch forming in his pants. Though hesitant, he was a bit surprised since he hadn’t expected her to suddenly put her hands there.

‘She’s bolder than she looks…’

He was thinking this when the groping hands seemed strange somehow, more like confirming something than caressing.

“…?”

She groped around here and there like a blind person checking braille. It definitely wasn’t the touch of caressing.

“What are you doing…?”

He asked in disbelief, and Andrea looked down at what her hand was touching and made a bewildered sound.

“Oh… really?”

She seemed to have assumed that Priscilla might have been disguising herself as a man, and her guess was partially correct.  

‘So that’s why she asked for a kiss,’ he thought.  

It was to confirm—not because she actually wanted him.  

Realizing this, Gillian felt his irritation flare up as if a switch had been flipped, and his blood began rushing through his veins.

Meanwhile, Andrea was dazed, looking at Gillian.

‘This isn’t Lady Priscilla?’

She had naturally thought Priscilla had come out wearing men’s clothes.

While staring at a face that no matter how she looked at it could only be Priscilla with makeup removed and wearing men’s clothes, her mind became even more confused. No, how could another face with such perfect features exist?

A crooked smile appeared on that ‘perfectly featured face.’

“Does it seem fake?”

His voice was low. Lower than most men’s. She wondered if it didn’t suit a face that brought to mind the word ‘stunning beauty,’ but rather the gap was strangely bewitching. What was certain was that it wasn’t Priscilla’s voice.

“Check for yourself.”

Then Gillian grabbed Andrea’s hand and suddenly put it inside his pants.

Jerome had said about Gillian, ‘Face of a princess, equipment of a monster.’

Indeed, Andrea’s eyes widened. With eyes that couldn’t hide her bewilderment, she looked down once, looked at his face once, then looked down again while groping around.