Celia had always been confident.
Until now, she had always endured him—sometimes even defeated him.
So even if Lucius tried to overpower her with strength she could never hope to resist, she believed she would never back down.
But this… she had never imagined anything like this before, and she had no idea what to do.
It wasn’t as though she were innocent, nor was he someone who had ever truly given her his heart.
And yet, faced with an attack she had never once experienced before, she was utterly defenseless.
She couldn’t handle the heat rushing endlessly into her face. Her mind turned blank, unable to process his words before everything burst apart in a haze. His teasing fingers and the voice that softly scraped against her nerves made the corners of her eyes sting.
“I’m curious, Celia.”
The moment she faltered, not knowing how to respond, he pressed in as though seizing an opportunity.
Inside this place filled entirely with traces of her, the man who could never truly belong to her curled his sly lips and toyed with her using shameless words.
“Fill in the moments I can’t remember.”
The thick tongue that had caught between his teeth slowly swept across his reddened lips.
“So I can touch you again like before.”
A faint desire flickered in his eyes.
Within those green eyes, deep as midsummer forests, burned a crimson longing unfamiliar to her. His fingertips brushed across her skin and left behind a chilling warmth. His breath lingered near her temple, escaping slowly through parted lips.
Hot. Low.
His yearning spilled openly into the air—in every breath, every tremor.
Is he serious…? Does he really want me?
Even if losing his memories had erased his emotions, this still made no sense.
This was not—could never be—the kind of feeling Lucius Windmere could hold for Celia Brickwell.
At this moment, only Celia remembered the resentment between them.
The misunderstandings, contempt, rivalry, and humiliation they had piled atop one another over more than a decade had hardened into layers of sedimented emotion.
Lucius should not be treating her like this.
He absolutely should not.
To each other, they symbolized everything the other should never become. Those memories—hers alone now—still clung vividly somewhere deep in Celia’s throat.
Maybe everything inside his head had spilled out and some wicked goblin from a fairy tale had crawled in instead. A crafty little creature whispering the most effective ways to torment Celia into Lucius’s ear.
Whenever Lucius faced her, he used every method imaginable to crush her—everything except brute force. The man hailed as the greatest gentleman in the Abilante Empire often lost his composure before her like an untamed beast.
Still, because she never yielded easily and always insisted on sitting triumphantly above his head, he had finally resorted to a different tactic.
Her eyes trembled violently. Cold sweat slid down her spine. Tension spread all the way to her fingertips until she gripped the fabric of her dress even tighter.
“D…don’t.”
The broken sound scraped awkwardly through the air.
A Lucius who wasn’t cruel to her felt unfamiliar—so unfamiliar he seemed like an entirely different person—and she couldn’t bring herself to throw her usual biting words at him.
If her mind had been clearer, she would have cursed him thoroughly, called him a lust-crazed pig slobbering over his sworn enemy, shoved away the dazed fool, and reveled in the chance to finally force him beneath her feet.
But she missed that opportunity.
No—not missed it.
She was practically begging him to stop in exchange for letting him have it.
The smile on Lucius’s face slowly faded.
Instead, he studied the trembling Celia carefully. His greedy gaze swept stubbornly over the pitiful shoulders curled away from him, shoulders shrinking as though trying to escape.
“We’ve been married for… about two and a half years, haven’t we? And we’ve known each other for well over a decade.”
He muttered something softly afterward, but Celia didn’t catch it.
Another silence passed—long enough to feel eternal.
The hand resting against her back finally moved away. Into the space left behind crept the summer night air she sometimes loved and sometimes hated, brushing lightly against her skin.
At the faint sound of him moving, she reacted instantly. Celia jolted like a squirrel caught stealing acorns by a human.
After hesitating for a long while, searching for words, he finally spoke.
“Come to think of it, it’s late, Celia.”
At the gentle, tender tone, her eyes finally shifted toward him.
If this were the normal Lucius, it was a voice he would never have let her hear.
He lightly took hold of her fingertips. Since she never allowed skinship with anyone other than a fiancé or husband, the unfamiliar warmth passing from hand to hand made her wrinkle her nose.
Lucius guided her gently.
“Shouldn’t we sleep before it gets any later?”
“T-together?”
He bit his lip lightly before releasing it.
“No. I’ll leave after you fall asleep.”
Words of refusal rose to her lips, only to flee again.
She didn’t want to prolong the conversation, and somehow she doubted he would leave even if she kicked him out herself.
In the end, she let herself be dragged to the bed.
Lucius sat on the edge of the mattress while she turned away from him and lay down.
She wrapped herself tightly in the blanket like a cocoon and pressed her knees against her chest.
The very air in the room felt uncomfortable. Everything pricked at her like thorns. Celia squeezed her eyes shut and silently recited one of the few prayers she had memorized.
She needed peace of mind.
But even sacred prayer could not untangle the knot inside her heart.
How much time had passed like that?
Perhaps deciding from her now-steady breathing that she had fallen asleep, Lucius finally stood.
The mattress dipped and rose as his weight left it.
Even without his memories, some things apparently never changed. His footsteps remained slow, measured, disciplined. He carefully opened the heavy door and closed it again without a sound.
Only then did true peace return.
Celia pulled the blanket over her head.
Annoying, arrogant, insufferable Lucius Windmere.
Fine. Since you’ve lost your memories, I’ll let you win this once.
But because you’ve lost those memories, you don’t know this.
If someone picks a fight with me in a way I’ve never seen before, I may lose once—but never twice.
They had always fought small wars, both in public and hidden from others’ eyes, yet neither had ever truly gained the upper hand.
“Today’s humiliation… I absolutely, absolutely won’t let it go.”
Celia clenched the blanket tightly and muttered through gritted teeth.
Damn Lucius.
That cursed Lucius.
“He’s never been useful to my life for even a second!”
Early in the morning, after staying awake all night, Celia nearly snapped the pen clenched in her fist.
“No, this must be a trial sent by God to discipline my weakened resolve.”
Last night she had simply been too flustered and swept along.
He had acted like a completely different person, and that was why she had lost her senses too.
Otherwise, there was no way she would have behaved so foolishly around him.
If he had been a total stranger, maybe it would have been different. But the face above his neck was unmistakably Lucius. The low voice sinking into her ears syllable by syllable was Lucius. Even his irritatingly elegant manner of speaking was Lucius. His large hands and towering frame nearly twice her size were undeniably his.
Finally, she hurled the pen she had been using to write a letter to her father onto the table and burst out:
“So what if we divorce? He’s still got all his fingers, doesn’t he? We even have the contract we signed together—what’s he going to do about it? I don’t care if his brain’s broken or whatever!”
It already irritated her that he was misunderstanding things on his own, but it irritated her even more that she herself was getting swept up in it.
“I was just too shocked yesterday, that’s all.”
In high society, intimate physical contact wasn’t permitted unless the couple was formally engaged. And Celia had gone straight from having potential suitors to marrying Lucius without ever even having a fiancé.
Anyone would be startled by such an unexpected attack.
She was still trying to convince herself of that when a maid quietly entered the room.
“My lady, you have a visitor.”
“A visitor?”
When she stayed quietly in her room, almost no one came looking for her.
It couldn’t be the duchess. And if it were Lucius, the maid wouldn’t have announced him like this.
“Yes, young master has arrived.”
There was only one person the maid Celia had brought from Brickwell would refer to as “young master.”
Evendor must be here.
Why so early in the morning? A headache was already coming on.
“…Send him in.”
The door opened smoothly, and a figure drenched in sunlight slowly slipped inside.
Perhaps because it was still early morning, he was dressed unusually casually. Without a shred of dignity, he yawned as he strolled lazily toward her.
“Big sister, sleep well?”
Seeing Evendor smiling brightly and waving at her, Celia was reminded that Lucius was not the only existence in this household capable of scraping against every last nerve she possessed.
