Yesterday, after returning from a business trip, Theron checked his mail.
Lysander, Banker Algernon, a tax return confirmation…
Among the many letters, the name Selene was nowhere to be found.
Theron, shirtless and wearing only suit pants with a cigar in his mouth, slightly raised an eyebrow.
‘A week and three days.’
That was how much time had passed since Theron had sent Selene a letter offering to teach her how to care for the flowers in the bouquet.
Of course, he didn’t even know the names of the flowers in that bouquet, but it didn’t matter since Selene would know that the words in his letter were just an excuse to see her again.
Inwardly, Theron had expected a reply from Selene immediately.
Even without the foolish expectation that she would fall for him or feel attracted to him right away, the fact that she had accepted the bouquet that day made him think so.
It was a sign that she was willing to meet a few more times in response to his public confession.
‘It was a good thing I mentioned the piano.’
He believed that mentioning the improvement of her piano playing skills while spouting nonsense about love had helped persuade Selene.
He really didn’t want to use the shallow trick of approaching her through the piano, but he had blurted it out in a moment of crisis due to her iron-clad attitude.
He didn’t regret it.
As long as Selene Ashcombe didn’t completely sever their relationship.
“Hmph.”
Theron tossed the letters onto the table and sat on the windowsill, looking down at the densely packed buildings outside the clean glass window.
It was a view that could only be seen from a luxury mansion located in the city center.
As the acrid smoke from the cigar he hadn’t had in a while scattered in the air and obscured his vision, Theron briefly recalled the day of the launching ceremony.
In fact, he had been in a slightly strange state as soon as he spotted Selene Ashcombe on the cruise ship.
Not only did he immediately find her in the most secluded and darkest corner of the crowded deck, but he also felt a stuffy tightness in his chest as a dull pressure once again settled there.
Yes, damn it.
To be honest, Selene Ashcombe, whom he hadn’t seen in a long time, was pretty enough to make him, who was armed with stubbornness, tense up again.
No, just ‘pretty’ wasn’t enough.
If she were just pretty, he should have been captivated by her face alone, but whenever he looked at Selene, he found himself focusing not on her features, but on her herself.
The surrounding atmosphere, her expression, her gaze… anyway, it was the first time he had observed someone so holistically and in such detail.
Perhaps that’s why, whether Selene wore rose perfume or not, Theron still couldn’t shake the impression that she was a person who resembled a rose.
Not a strange, romantic contemplation, but like finding a resemblance in the shape of formless smoke, he couldn’t erase the impression he had been ridiculed for and once again fell into that representation.

“By the way, have you had lunch? You seem to have been standing here since earlier.”

Back then, Theron, having finally suppressed his tension, had approached her and spoken as if nothing was wrong.
However, as the conversation continued, Theron found himself not even knowing what he was saying.
He seemed to have cleared up the misunderstanding without a mistake, but the problem was what came after.
Unplanned words were popping out of his mouth.

“I really want to experience and share many things with you. To see more emotions on your face.”

Theron, making an appeal he himself wasn’t sure was right, had a brief fantasy.
Not a vulgar fantasy like what she would taste like if he swallowed those red lips or what kind of moan she would let out, but things like what it would feel like if those stiff lips formed an elegant curve, or what she would look like if those cold eyes bent gently.
After that, he watched for the right timing to present the bouquet he had prepared.
If possible, it had to be when the most eyes were on them, in a place and atmosphere where he wouldn’t lose face.
It wasn’t difficult to find that timing.
As soon as the reception party started, a waltz was played.
At first, he had planned to wait a little longer not far from Selene and ask her to dance when the party’s atmosphere was at its peak, but his mind changed when he noticed the idiots who couldn’t take their eyes off her were loitering around.
Theron immediately approached Selene and extended his hand.
Selene did not refuse the dance.
That’s when he got nervous.
The large breasts he had only stolen glances at were so close that it felt like he would die every time they brushed against him as they moved.
However, this time again, the heat that was about to rush to his lower body vanished in an instant when he realized Selene was not conscious of him at all.
‘She doesn’t even have me in her sight.’
Theron, feeling stubborn and determined to make her not forget this moment, held Selene, who was connected to him, tightly, and held her slender hand in his as he pleased.
He felt Selene’s bored eyes gradually becoming clearer.
It was truly pathetic to be satisfied with just this, but Theron felt that this moment, with Selene looking only at him and the other men turning their heads in disappointment, was absolutely perfect.
Thanks to that, he smoothly completed the task of presenting the bouquet with composure.
Even her unexpectedly accepting the flowers.
His heart had pounded a little, very little, at Selene’s action, but he had quickly come to his senses.
‘So I thought we’d see each other again soon.’
Theron, thinking of Selene, invariably lost the taste for his cigar and placed it on the ashtray to let it go out on its own.
Of course, he wouldn’t just wait for her call.
If she didn’t seek him out again, he planned to visit the Kilberry Art Museum on the second Wednesday of every month, as she had said, and greet her as if they had met by chance.
Women were weak to repeated coincidences, and if coincidences continued, they would unknowingly come to see it as fate.
He didn’t know how much that common theory of fate would apply to Selene Ashcombe, but Theron had no intention of giving up on seducing her, even if an earthquake suddenly struck, all the buildings collapsed, civilization was destroyed, and they returned to the primitive era.
“Sir, are you there?”
Just as Theron stood up from the windowsill and was putting on a shirt over his bare torso and trying to tie his tie, his secretary Gary’s voice came from outside the door.
When he walked over and opened the door, Gary’s hands were full of letters that had arrived today.
“Phew, look at this haze. You haven’t smoked in a while, did you smoke again?”
“Just give me that.”
Theron snatched the letters from Gary’s hands.
‘Andrew, Benjamin, Brandon, Selene…’
‘Selene?’
As he was casually flipping through the envelopes and checking the names, a fantasy-like name suddenly passed by, and Theron quickly brought the letter he had just flipped past back to the front.
[Selene Ashcombe.]
It was really a letter from Selene Ashcombe.
Although it wasn’t the cute designed envelope that other women sent, nor did it have a fragrant perfume scent, what did that matter if it was really from Selene?
Theron tore open the outer envelope right there and checked the contents of the letter.

[The flowers have already withered and been thrown away, but since you gave me the bouquet, I’ll treat you to lunch once.
The time is this weekend, Saturday, at 12 p.m. The place is the ducal estate.]

The letter was really short, with just the main point and no perfunctory greetings.
But Theron didn’t care.
No, it felt like a hollow laugh, like a puff of air, was about to escape from his constantly slightly open mouth.
Theron, worried that Gary would find him strange, pretended to touch his lips to naturally cover them.
Even so, his gaze did not leave the indifferent and cool handwriting that resembled Selene Ashcombe.
Especially the part, ‘I’ll treat you to lunch once.’
The last time he was at that house, he was pushed into a fountain, and now, in just a few days, he was being treated to lunch.
Isn’t this a big turnaround in a short period of time?
He would have preferred dinner, but Theron was satisfied that she hadn’t called him at the ambiguous time of 4 p.m.
If they had lunch, they would have to have tea together, and if they had tea, the time they spent together would naturally lengthen.
Theron composed his expression and ordered the blankly standing Gary, “Gary, don’t just stand there, go get the suit I left for dry cleaning and my shoes right now.”
“Suddenly…? We don’t have any important meetings, why…”
“Just get them if I tell you to.”
Gary looked at his boss strangely before nodding.
“Yes, I’ll do that.”
Gary, who now had a task, placed his hand on the doorknob to carry out the order.
“Oh, right. By the way, there was a call for you this morning, sir.”