11. Don’t Avoid Me

The rain that had been falling since early evening yesterday gradually intensified. By morning, it poured down as if the sky had a hole in it.

As if a storm was brewing, Adeline’s eyes opened involuntarily to the sound of the fierce rainfall.

The hinges of the window rattled under the heavy downpour, as if they were struggling.

‘Is this house going to be okay?’

No matter how neglected it had been, this was still a villa belonging to the Duke Torpeo’s family.

Even yesterday, watching the rain fall, she had thought it would be fine.

‘Surely a villa of the Duke Torpeo’s family wouldn’t collapse.’

But with the ominous downpour, Adeline began to worry.

Just looking at the windows rattling in the wind made her feel like something was about to happen.

And not long after, her worries became reality.

With a thunderclap, lightning flashed, followed by the sound of something splitting.

“Wha-what? Oh!”

Approaching the window at the tremendous noise, Adeline couldn’t hide her shock.

The old tree right below the window had been struck by lightning and was split in two.

“What’s happening, Del?”

At Adeline’s scream, the duke rushed to her side.

She urgently pointed to the window.

Beyond the window, half of the split tree slowly began to tilt toward the mansion wall.

It happened in an instant. The fallen tree broke through the window and passed into the mansion.

Without either of them initiating it, Adeline and the duke’s gazes locked in midair.

“……What do we do?”

“My goodness. The window is completely ruined.”

Adeline sighed as if she couldn’t believe the current situation.

And as she was stamping her feet, not knowing what to do, another thunderous sound shook the mansion. This time it wasn’t where they were standing, but the adjacent room.

“That sound! Isn’t it the study window?”

The two quickly left the bedroom and headed to the study.

Sure enough, the study window was miserably damaged from the impact with the tree.

Glass fragments were scattered across the floor, and rain poured in fiercely through the open window.

“Good heavens.”

Adeline let out a despairing sigh.

But nothing would be resolved by just standing there. As Adeline took the initiative to pick up the glass fragments one by one.

The duke, who had been watching her, approached and stopped her.

“You’ll hurt your hand. I’ll do it, so step back.”

At the duke’s restraint, Adeline took a step back and looked at the window.

In Adeline’s view was a window barely held by a broken hinge.

‘How am I going to repair that?’

Looking at the window that could fall at any moment, Adeline decided to remove the hinge.

As she approached the window, the rain poured in more fiercely, instantly soaking Adeline.

Adeline ignored it and tried to tear off the hinge with her bare hands.

The duke, who had almost finished clearing the glass fragments, noticed Adeline’s dangerous action and shouted:

“Del, let’s call a repairman! The rain is too heavy, and we can’t do this ourselves.”

“No.”

Adeline said as she removed the hinge.

“Stop that and let’s call a repairman.”

Just as the duke rose to stop Adeline and grabbed her wrist.

“I said no!”

Adeline shook off the duke’s hand forcefully and shouted without realizing it.

The same issue had occurred at the clothing store. What if they called a repairman and he recognized this man as Duke Torpeo?

But the duke, unaware of Adeline’s concerns, couldn’t understand her.

How could the two of them repair this huge house?

“Del! Why are you being so stubborn……”

Just as the duke tried to dissuade Adeline from removing the hinge again.

“Ah!”

Adeline lost her balance and fell from the window frame.

Simultaneously, the sharp edge of the twisted part of the hinge tore through Adeline’s palm.

A groan escaped from Adeline. Red blood from Adeline’s palm dripped onto the floor.

“I told you not to do it!”

Seeing the blood flowing down Adeline’s palm, the duke’s anger boiled over.

He knew she was a stubborn woman, but he didn’t know she would be this headstrong.

He had been anxious the entire time watching her precariously leaning against the window, trying to repair it.

And now an accident had happened.

“Why are you being so stubborn?! Let me see where you’re hurt.”

The duke’s brow furrowed deeply as he lifted Adeline’s hand to look at her palm.

“Ha, it’s a severe cut. Sigh, wait. I’ll bring medicine.”

He disappeared with a slam of the door. Only then did Adeline sit down, holding her head.

“Hah……”

Nothing was going right.

She didn’t think she could fix the broken window herself either.

But since they couldn’t call a repairman in the current situation, she had tried to fix it somehow.

‘I didn’t want to get hurt either. I’m the one who’s injured, so why are you angry?’

Just as Adeline’s emotions were welling up, the duke returned.

He silently treated Adeline’s hand.

Adeline’s gaze fell on his back.

Throughout the treatment, the study was getting soaked by the heavy rain.

“We need to block the incoming rainwater……”

At Adeline’s murmured words, the duke’s gaze shifted.

After looking around the study, he pointed to a piece of furniture and said:

“For today, let’s block the window with that furniture. It looks easy to move. And tomorrow, we’ll call a repairman.”

Adeline gasped when she saw the furniture he was pointing at.

It was the furniture that concealed the passage leading to the basement.

“No!”

She couldn’t reveal the passage to the basement. Adeline had no choice but to keep shouting.

“Why not?”

The duke’s brow furrowed.

His voice dropped infinitely as he questioned the stubborn Adeline.

“No repairman, and not that furniture either.”

Adeline became someone who only repeated that it couldn’t be done.

“Why have you been so stubborn all this time?”

The duke, unaware of the circumstances, couldn’t understand Adeline’s stubbornness.

“Anyway. If you say no, then no. Just leave it. I’ll take care of the house.”

“Ha! Do as you please. I don’t know what to do anymore.”

At Adeline’s curt and irritated tone, the duke rose from his seat.

Then he strode out of the study.

Adeline approached the window and abruptly drew the curtain.

She didn’t want to see the pouring rainwater anymore.

Everything irritated her—the damp dress clinging to her, her throbbing palm.

⁕⁕⁕

Adeline returned to the bedroom, uncomfortable with her damp dress.

Was the villa always this large? The bedroom, now empty, felt unusually quiet and dark today.

Just as Adeline reached for the zipper on her back to remove her wet dress.

“……Ah!”

A stinging pain surged from her palm.

Perhaps because the cut was deeper than she thought, it throbbed with every slight movement of her hand.

The zipper slider kept slipping. She was struggling to remove her wet clothes when.

— Click.

The sound of the bedroom door opening came from behind her.

Had the duke returned? Adeline, who had been trying to lower the zipper, turned her head at the presence she felt.

Unaware that Adeline was trying to change clothes, he strode into the bedroom.

As if his anger hadn’t fully subsided, he sat down on the sofa with an irritated thud.

No conversation passed between them.

Adeline, who needed to change clothes, was dumbfounded by him occupying the sofa.

“I need to change clothes, could you step out for a moment?”

Adeline spoke without even looking in the duke’s direction.

“Why should I leave?”

Whether due to their earlier argument or some petty spite, he didn’t seem willing to budge at all.

“Then stay as you are.”

At Adeline’s response, mixed with a soft sigh, the duke stood up.

Perhaps he realized his childishness? He walked toward the bedroom door.

‘What is this all about?’

Already tired from the heavy rain, she felt like she was expending unnecessary emotional energy.

She could understand his feelings, but Adeline didn’t have the strength to explain the details.

Moreover, it was even more frustrating because she couldn’t honestly reveal everything.

Nothing to be done.

Adeline began to struggle again to lower the zipper of her dress.

It seemed like she could reach it if she stretched her hand a little more. But her hand kept slipping.

And if she tried to force it, her injured hand stung and tingled.

“Hah……”

The emotions Adeline had been suppressing welled up all at once.

She had lived her whole life thinking it was difficult, and then she got hit by a car and died.

In this life, unlike before, she thought things would be different with a father, but her blood relative was indifferent to her.

A daughter who didn’t matter whether she was there or not.

The crown prince, who killed every fiancée, proposed, yet Marquis Credion remained indifferent.

Adeline had been desperate in her escape from the Marquis’s family to this villa.

She believed that if she saved Duke Torpeo, she would be saved too.

Nothing was going right.

To the point where she wondered if she should have pretended not to know the duke and not saved him.

Once the floodgates of negative thoughts opened, they deepened endlessly and soon consumed Adeline.

And they kept pulling her into the deep sea.

Just as Adeline’s eyes were becoming moist.

“……So stubborn.”

A monotone voice rang in her ear. As the startled Adeline tried to turn around, she felt a man’s embrace firmly blocking her from behind.

It seemed he had returned, though she thought he had left.

He, who had taken position behind Adeline, grabbed her wrist and lowered it, then whispered softly in her ear.

“Stay still.”

The duke’s hot fingers touched the nape of Adeline’s neck, which had grown cold from her soaked dress.

“How long have you been letting your body get this cold?”

“Ah!”

The sudden touch made Adeline shrink back.

“With your hand in that state, how did you think you could lower this?”

He sighed and slowly began to lower the zipper of Adeline’s dress.

The time it took for that small zipper to descend seemed slow, almost frozen.

As the zipper descended past her back to her waist, Adeline’s white skin gradually began to be revealed.

Then something soft and warm touched Adeline’s half-exposed shoulder.

Feeling the strange sensation, Adeline tried to turn her body with a start.

“What was that just……”

Just as Adeline was about to say something.

With his large hands, he grabbed Adeline’s slender shoulders, then lowered his head and rested his forehead on her shoulder.

The duke’s hot breath touched Adeline’s lower back and then fell away.

Adeline couldn’t move due to the heat rising from somewhere deep within her body.

“Del.”

At the duke’s low, growling voice, as if he was expelling something, Adeline couldn’t say anything.

After a moment of silence, the duke slowly turned Adeline around.

His eyes came into view at once. Those blood-red eyes.

At that moment, Adeline unconsciously took a step back.

Eyes so red they created the illusion of burning.

Adeline unconsciously avoided his gaze. His eyes, where Adeline was everything in his world. When she saw herself reflected in them, Adeline couldn’t bear it.

The guilt and tension of deceiving him mixed chaotically and tormented Adeline.

“Why are you trying to avoid my gaze this time?”

“I’m not avoiding it.”

Adeline tried to turn away, pretending not to know.

But the duke’s large hand, extending before her, caught Adeline’s cheeks.

“Then don’t avoid me.”

With a low voice that resonated in her earlobe, his face approached.