Andrea watched Riley accept what he offered and eat it without thinking, then laughed as he swiped the cream from the tip of her nose with his index finger and licked it.

The soft sweetness spreading through his mouth and his own playful laughter seemed to keep Riley from noticing how close together they were sitting.

By then, Andrea’s attention had already moved elsewhere.

“What’s this?”

He picked up a newspaper left on one side of the table.

It was open to the job listings section, and he found a circled entry, and his expression tightened slightly.

“What, you’re thinking of becoming a tutor?”

Riley, who had been eating a scone spread with jam, smiled sheepishly and nodded.

“Yes. I need to find work now.”

Even if not as a live-in tutor for a noble family, she thought she could manage something like an etiquette instructor for a middle-class or gentry household.

But Andrea frowned with some unnamed displeasure and stared blankly at this person who kept trying to move beyond his reach.

A vague irritation and unease crept up in him, and he said sharply.

“Why would you want to do something like that.”

“Well…… I need to earn a living.”

“I gave you a generous severance.”

“You bought me this house. I have to pay you back. I’m returning that money.”

The absolute firmness of her words made Andrea press a hand to his forehead and exhale slowly.

“……I’ve told you several times that you don’t have to.”

The quiet stubbornness of this one made him anxious, and it only deepened his certainty about his own feelings.

He did not want to send her out into the world.

Into the company of strangers, least of all.

Andrea decided to try breaking her resolve again with the same excuse he had used when buying her the house.

“If Mother knew I had let you come to this, she would never forgive me. So absolutely not.”

……She wants to go out and earn money……!

Andrea shook his head with exaggerated disbelief, and seeing Riley about to argue back, he quickly offered a solution.

“Come to think of it, you’ve been drawing cartoons and things for the Minerve.”

“……Yes. But isn’t that more like making amends?”

Riley had been continuing to send illustrations and satirical cartoon submissions to the Daily Minerve, but that had always felt closer to unpaid labor.

She had committed a crime, so working without pay until Andrea’s anger subsided seemed only natural.

But his next words surprised her.

“I’ll pay you for your work, starting this week.”

“Pardon? Are, are you serious?”

“Yes. So stop looking for jobs.”

He simply could not tolerate the idea of Riley going somewhere and bowing her head to strangers and working like a commoner.

“Then how much will you pay me?”

Andrea looked down at her. She had clasped her hands together and was blinking up at him with those lavender eyes.

Guileless as a child, white cream on the corner of her mouth, asking about money without a hint of self-consciousness.

He felt something squeeze unexpectedly at the edges of his heart.

He exhaled a long, slow breath without meaning to.

What was he going to do with someone this unguarded.

Andrea made a silent vow that he would never let this one be sent out into the rough and corrupted world, and wiped the cream from the corner of her mouth with his thumb.

Right, who could possibly resist this kind of guileless charm.

He had fallen for her helplessly even when she was dressed as a young man, and looking like this, anyone would……

Andrea looked her over slowly from head to toe.

Even as Raul, she had been exceptional at presenting herself with style, but now that she was no longer working against her natural femininity, she was impossibly endearing and lovely.

A round, guileless forehead. Eyes like bright stars set into her face. Fluttering lashes. Full lips that made his chest stir without his permission, lips he wanted to press his own against.

And now her neck and arms and legs, no longer hidden.

He lowered his head toward Riley without realizing it.

Those softly moving pink lips looked sweet.

Tilting his head a little further, Andrea drew those slightly parted lips against his own.

A tremor ran through him.

The soft, warm flesh was exactly as he had imagined, melting against his lips.

A rough desire to go deeper surged in him, and then he felt Riley, caught off guard in his arms, draw in a sharp breath.

That movement brought his scattered thoughts slowly back.

Andrea pulled away from the lips he had been lightly holding, and a faint wet sound followed.

He had barely done anything, and yet every muscle in his body had drawn taut. Slightly embarrassed by that, he looked down at Riley, who was still startled, with lowered eyes.

She had stopped breathing and was only blinking, and in those lovely pupils, his own reflection stared back, full of want.

Something electric seemed to pass along his nerves and across his skin.

˗ˋˏ ♡ ˎˊ˗

That night, after Andrea left, Riley could not sleep.

She tossed and turned and sighed, and finally threw herself upright and pulled the curtains open at the window.

Moonlight poured through the leaves of the apricot and peach trees, and the white blossoms in full bloom drifted like scattered jewel dust.

When Andrea had insisted on buying her this small but rather expensive house, she had accepted reluctantly because of this beautiful garden.

But even the view that had pleased her so much was not reaching her now.

Her mind was too full of something else.

Riley turned from the window and burrowed back under her pink poplin duvet.

What had happened that afternoon would not leave her head, and sleep seemed out of the question.

Hah…… what do I do……

Heat rose to her face, and her heart gave small, unsteady knocks.

“Why did he do that?”

She kept lifting her hand to touch her own lips.

He had kissed her out of nowhere.

She had been so startled she had frozen entirely. But in that brief moment when she had nearly stopped breathing, she had not failed to feel the soft, warm sensation.

When their lips met and the flesh was gently drawn against his, Riley had felt a sharp, tingling chill run down behind her ears.

Even recalling it now, the sensation came back vividly and flustered her all over again.

Why on earth? Surely he didn’t……

Riley frowned, then shook her head, then clutched her pillow tightly, behaving in ways that might have looked like emotional instability to anyone watching.

Even so, the question in her mind only grew louder.

Why did he do it?

She knew Andrea took a small, private pleasure in teasing and unsettling her, but this was not the kind of thing he would do just to tease.

“Come to think of it……”

She had known for a while that his manner toward her was different from how he treated others.

But her identity had only just changed. Could feelings like that really develop so quickly?

Could something sprout in such a short time?

Or had he truly just been teasing her?

Different thoughts drifted endlessly through Riley’s mind.

She thought again of Andrea, who had let out a long sigh in front of her bewildered face after the kiss.

He had muttered something like ‘this is a problem’ and then, lost in some private thought, his face had gone slightly red.

Caught up in the awkward atmosphere he was giving off, she had gone completely red herself.

She had turned and pushed against Andrea’s chest to free herself, and he had stepped back without resistance, lips moving as though there was much he wanted to say.

Even so, the clarity in his gaze as he looked straight at her had been striking.

In the end, he had broken the awkward silence and spoken first.

‘Well, I’ll leave for today. But I have one question before I go. Have you ever once seen me as a man?’

He had watched her with a thoughtful expression and added.

‘All those days…… you may have pretended otherwise, but your true self was always ‘Riley.”

He had stopped himself from saying more, paused, and then made his request with that characteristic air of authority.

‘You’d better have an answer ready. I can’t spend all my time just playing around with you.’

Riley had been too stunned to even see him out.

And she had been tossing and turning ever since, unable to settle the turmoil inside her.

She pulled a large feather pillow against her chest and rubbed her chin against it as she kept thinking.

He was always fussing and scolding, but the truth is he’s always been good to me.

But even so, could feelings really spring up the moment Raul became Riley?

Unless she had transformed into some great beauty, it was the same face as before.

Riley sat bolt upright and went to stand in front of the mahogany-framed mirror she had bought from the antique shop the other day.

Inside it stood a woman with flushed cheeks and wide eyes, still looking like a young boy in some ways.

Her hair had grown out a little, and she looked…… actually not bad.