She was quietly watching both Riley and Andrea.

Riley sipped her cocktail and began gazing up at the crystal ornaments hanging from the ceiling like a child, while Andrea was busy presenting her with a domed dish.

When the lid was lifted, cream sauce scallops, smoked duck in wine, saffron risotto, and crepes with grape jam surrounded Riley in a spread of tempting dishes.

“You need to put on some weight.”

Regardless of the stunned looks from the rest of the team, Andrea personally picked the meat from the bone and slipped it into Riley’s mouth.

A few days earlier, he had been unable to hide his displeasure when she confessed that she had always kept herself underweight, reasoning that staying thin made it easier to pass as a man.

Since then, he had been making a continuous effort to feed her.

Fortunately, her appetite was good, and his efforts seemed to be paying off.

Whether it was food or dessert, he kept bringing her things that were sweet and rich, and she ate everything he gave her without complaint, so she appeared to have filled out a little over the past few days.

Her cheeks were rounder, and the only problem was that it made him want to touch them and bite them, but everything else pleased Andrea enormously, and a contented expression spread slowly across his face.

Hah, adorable.

With her pearl-trimmed headband and neat pale blue dress, Riley was severely adorable today. The problem was that apparently he was not the only one who thought so.

Every one of them perched on the sofa arms or the back of the sofa and gathered around Riley to talk to her.

“By the way, Miss Riley, or should I say, Miss Artist? You were actually my type even as Raul. Any chance you’d consider dressing as a man again?”

Roso leaned in with a show of familiarity and asked.

Andrea clicked his tongue at the blatant flirting and pushed Roso’s forehead back with the tip of his index finger.

“Roso, this is not the underground club you frequent.”

Roso pouted at the sharp warning, then suddenly looked as though something had clicked.

“Ah, I think I know who it is now.”

Not long ago, Andrea had come to him for advice on how to make himself appealing again as a man to someone who had ‘seen his body so many times they felt nothing.’

That someone was Miss Riley. Without a doubt.

Well, I’ll be.

Roso gave Andrea and a bewildered Riley a meaningful look, as though to say he understood everything now, and drifted away.

The rest of the team, who had not followed Roso’s realization, still could not miss the current flowing between Riley and Andrea.

Had Andrea, rumored to have a long history with women, ever produced this kind of warm, soft atmosphere with anyone?

No. Never.

So there was no other conclusion to draw. The two of them were currently in a relationship.

A romance between the newspaper’s owner and its illustrator……!

Edwin, who had been watching the two of them being sweet with each other long enough, made a dry remark.

“Really now, only Your Highness gets to bring a partner and act all cozy like this?”

Andrea lifted his gaze from Riley at last and replied without much effort.

“She didn’t come as a partner. Riley is a proper member of the Minerve.”

“Oh, come on, that’s a meaningless thing to say.”

Everyone agreed with Roso’s retort and let out quiet laughs.

So after defeating all his enemies, His Highness, who had been expected to follow the proper royal path of courtship and marriage, was indulging in this kind of detour. It just goes to show that people need room to breathe.

But Nina alone, sunk into a sofa at the far end of the room, sipped her wine with a rather grave expression.

She watched Andrea wipe cream from Riley’s cheek with his knuckle and wear a deep smile no one had ever seen on him before.

I saw worse than that.

Nina felt as though all her effort, all the pride she had poured into placing Andrea in a position no one could challenge, was being shoved face-first into the mud.

Had she fought so fiercely all this time only to watch His Highness get tangled up with a woman like that, like any ordinary man?

She was his guard knight.

A knight who wielded a pen.

How many enemies had she brought down with her sharp, piercing writing?

She could feel something boiling deep in her gut, unable to tear her eyes from the two of them, when a voice pulled her back to herself.

“Hey, want to dance?”

It was Edwin.

As the two of them began a light waltz in one corner, the ensemble raised the tempo to match the dance.

Edwin, who had a fair sense of what was going on inside Nina, offered a quiet word of caution.

“Forget about those two. They only have eyes for each other. It’s not something we can do anything about.”

“But……!”

Her feelings had been found out before she realized it, and Nina’s face went red.

She wanted to ask him whether he intended to just stand by and watch His Highness make this reckless detour, but she stopped herself.

Edwin’s calm, unhurried gaze seemed to carry a warning.

Nina bit her lip and pulled her eyes away from Andrea.

˗ˋˏ ♡ ˎˊ˗

After feeding Riley to his heart’s content and idling away the time playing with her soft hair, Andrea got to his feet.

He draped his coat over Riley’s shoulders and addressed the team with deliberate casualness.

“We’re heading out. My dear younger brother’s birthday party is tonight.”

“Oh……!”

“Goodness……”

Everyone was startled.

None of them had received an invitation, but Prince Henry’s birthday banquet was indeed being held at the palace that evening.

“Did you receive an invitation?”

Andrea, straightening the buttons on his cuff, let out a quiet laugh.

“No. But there’s nowhere in the palace I can’t go.”

That was true enough, but why go out of his way to rub it in the face of a half-brother he was not close with and whose standing had already diminished?

Prince Henry had barely managed to keep his royal title after Queen Fabienne’s confinement and still remained within the palace.

But the political world’s consensus was that, given his immaturity and poor conduct, it would not last long.

Sure enough, Henry had not stopped causing trouble even right after his mother was driven out in disgrace. He had been suspended from the Royal College for a s*xual harassment incident and returned to the palace, where he continued to harass the maids and even ran gambling dens within the palace grounds.

With the king’s patience nearly exhausted, the oblivious Henry hosted his own birthday banquet and sent invitations to his remaining supporters.

Andrea had decided to attend with Riley, since he needed her to see Henry’s face for herself.

˗ˋˏ ♡ ˎˊ˗

Several hours later, they arrived at the palace and were making their way through the long arcade corridor leading to the detached palace.

Riley glanced up at Andrea with an uneasy look.

“I wonder…… is it really all right for me to be here?”

He looked down at her and gave a short laugh.

“Why not. If you’re going to draw him, you need to see him in person. Observe carefully.”

Riley’s eyes went wide.

“Pardon? Are we drawing the second prince this time?”

A smile spread across Andrea’s lips, wicked enough to be called mischievous.

˗ˋˏ ♡ ˎˊ˗

“Hmm…… why is His Highness targeting the second prince?”

Nina frowned over the article she was writing.

“He must have sensed Henry trying to rally a support base in place of the confined queen.”

The truth was that even with Queen Fabienne, their figurehead, removed, the more foolish members of the parliamentary faction still hovered around the second prince.

“But…… is he really worth the effort? The Blanc family has already lost their title……”

Nina trailed off and simply sighed instead of continuing.

They all knew the answer. Andrea’s grudge against Fabienne, who had slowly murdered the Queen Dowager, had not cleanly disappeared.

So he had no intention of leaving Prince Henry alone either.

Prince Henry had neither the wits nor the character to plan anything significant. He was not even worth eliminating as a threat.

And yet the order had come not long ago to put Prince Henry on the front page.

The intent to bleed Fabienne dry in her confinement was plain to see.

Either way, Nina wrote her exposé as she always did, and Riley’s skilled illustrations were added alongside.

The response was explosive.

The illustrations depicting the dissolute prince’s extravagance, debauchery, and scandal struck a chord with the public, and a wave of condemnation poured out.