Jayden would bring several suits, ties, and accessories, and Andrea would pick something and dress himself.

He had grown indifferent to everything, and on top of that had taken a sudden dislike to anyone else’s hands touching him. What could be done.

His thoughts were always drifting to Riley’s house at 1 Meymond Street, outside the palace walls.

But Riley, knowing none of this, was defeated by professional habit and began smoothing Andrea’s disheveled hair.

“Why won’t you let them attend to you. What will you do if you lose your top spot as a fashion icon.”

Andrea looked up at her with an expression that, uncharacteristically, was almost plaintive.

“Anyone else touching me feels wrong. Except you.”

Riley’s hands paused for a moment, and her face turned red in an instant.

Did he have to use the word ‘touching.’ Now she was getting strange ideas.

Suddenly aware of Andrea looking up at her, Riley’s heart gave a small, unsteady knock. She looked away and tried to move past the moment.

“Oh, Jayden would be hurt to hear that.”

A moment later, Riley finished tidying Andrea’s hair and tried to step away immediately.

His words had made her oddly self-conscious too.

But Andrea’s hand moved faster, catching her by the waist and pulling her down to sit beside him in one smooth motion.

“Oh.”

The fluttering hem of her skirt and the glint of her shoes struck him as charming, and Andrea laughed low, murmuring “So you really are a woman,” which finally made Riley bristle.

“I know you keep coming here just to laugh at me like that. I find it uncomfortable too, so please stop.”

“No, I don’t find it uncomfortable at all. I was just looking because I thought, this is who you really are.”

Riley frowned, thinking he was teasing her again, but there was no trace of mischief in Andrea’s face as he drank his tea with unhurried grace.

He even added something that carried weight.

“If you had kept pretending to be a young man, it would have been difficult. I would have kept……”

But he stopped himself and was quiet for a moment, then turned to look at Riley, drew it out, and finally said it.

“I would have kept tormenting myself. Doubting my own mind.”

Riley blinked, not quite understanding what Andrea meant. He caught her expression, let the corners of his eyes curve slightly, and changed the subject.

“So. Tomorrow. What are you going to do?”

Noticing that Andrea had tilted his head close and that they were sitting pressed together, Riley quietly shifted sideways.

She could feel Andrea’s body heat through the shirt stretched taut across his broad shoulders.

Riley silently scolded herself for suddenly being so aware of him and deliberately composed her expression.

“I was thinking of going to buy a few more things for the house. There’s still quite a bit I need.”

“What? You’re still going out to buy things like that yourself? I’ll have Alfonso arrange a delivery for tomorrow, all at once——”

Riley shook her head quickly.

“No! I like going out on foot and finding things that are affordable and useful. The process itself is enjoyable.”

The house was already a burden, small but quite elegant, and he had forced it on her.

But he had said something along the lines of ‘if Mother knew I was letting you go like this, she’d rise from her grave,’ and the peach and apricot trees filling the little garden had won her over, so she had accepted it reluctantly.

Any further generosity from Andrea was something she intended to decline.

He looked at Riley with an expression that said he could not understand why she kept refusing his consideration.

His hand, draped over the back of the sofa, was idly winding Riley’s slightly grown-out curls around his fingers.

Andrea already knew she was the type who loved accessories and small things and liked to be thorough, and yet he asked anyway.

“Why go to all that trouble.”

He was offering to send his attendants with everything she needed in one go, so why was she being so inefficient about it.

The truth was that Andrea had not yet realized he was simply dissatisfied with Riley moving freely outside his line of sight.

Riley glanced at him and asked in a subdued voice.

“Your Highness, why are you doing all this for someone who committed a serious offense and ran away?”

At that, Andrea, who had been looking down at Riley with an arrogant tilt of his chin, let out a sigh.

“That’s what I’d like to know.”

The tone carried the weight of something left unsaid.

Perhaps because of that, he clearly had no intention of leaving Riley alone.

“Either way, things have quieted down for me lately, so I’ll come along when you go out tomorrow.”

He wanted to see what this person, who knew so little about the harsh world, was getting up to now that she was out in it wearing a skirt.

But Riley turned to look at him and pushed out her lips.

“Your Highness, aren’t you busy these days? Around this time of year you’re always occupied with approving the first-half budget.”

“That’s all done. With the queen gone, the factions that opposed every measure disappeared too, so everything has been moving smoothly.”

Even the king, who had been finicky about granting final approvals, was currently preparing for his third royal marriage and had stopped putting the brakes on anything Andrea did.

In short, Andrea was quietly consolidating authority over the political sphere, on top of the military.

Riley was beginning to feel unsettled.

She had thought leaving the palace would sever their connection entirely, and had said a polite farewell, written him a letter by hand saying she was truly grateful and would never forget his kindness, and left.

But far from being severed, the connection had only grown deeper, with Andrea involving himself in her daily life more than ever, showing up every other day.

A few days ago he had gone even further.

He had stopped by on the day the furniture arrived and casually dropped a bombshell.

‘I’m thinking of setting up the room across the hall as mine.’

Riley’s jaw had dropped.

But Andrea pretended not to notice, and went ahead and had a bed and a wine cabinet moved into the empty room.

He had simply claimed a room for himself.

He bumped her shoulder with his and smiled with a faint edge.

‘Why not. We’ve been together all this time. It would be strange to start acting formal now. Of course, ‘Raul’ has become ‘Riley,’ but still.’

It had been said teasingly, but watching Riley’s genuine discomfort, Andrea had felt oddly aggrieved at the time.

So he had decided to make use of his room starting today.

“It’s late and I happen to have no schedule tomorrow, so I’ll sleep here tonight.”

Before Riley could say a word, Andrea crossed his thick arms and pulled his shirt off in one motion.

And then, without the slightest surprise at his suddenly bare torso, Riley began folding the shirt neatly with both hands.

It was entirely natural.

Wherever they were, Riley would catch Andrea’s movements and automatically fall into attending him.

It was briefly amusing, watching the two of them carry on out of habit without even noticing, but then a question occurred to Andrea.

Come to think of it, this one did not even blink when he undressed.

He put his hands on his bare waist and looked down at Riley with a displeased expression as she straightened the shirt and folded it with crisp edges.

His eyebrow twitched with something like irritation.

Could it be……?

Had she seen him so many times by now that his body held absolutely no appeal for her?

A vague, unpleasant feeling began to take hold.

Stung by a perverse impulse, he undid his waistband as though he were in his own bedroom and dropped his trousers.

Riley muttered ‘are you really not going to leave?’ and quickly picked them up, then set them on the table with precise folds and began brushing them down.

She was entirely unmoved by his state of undress.

Andrea watched her with flat eyes, and Riley looked up and asked.

“Will your attendants bring your clothes for tomorrow morning?”

She asked with wide, guileless eyes and not a trace of shyness.

Thoroughly unself-conscious.

Andrea had been standing there nearly undressed, staring at Riley with a sullen expression, and then he stepped toward her.

Without his clothes, the sheer size of him cast a long shadow over her.

Riley nearly bumped her nose into the broad plane of his chest, and stepped back with his trousers still in her hands. Andrea reached out and caught her by one arm with a sharp motion.

“Tell me. Is it because you’ve seen my, my bare body so many times that you feel nothing? No reaction at all?”

He could not bring himself to ask outright whether she did not see him as a man. His pride would not allow it.

He was even stumbling over his own words, which was absurd, but the question had been tormenting him and he had no choice but to spit it out.

“……Pardon?”

Riley’s eyes, lifted to meet his, trembled visibly.