“Maybe it’ll hate you as much as it likes you.”

“It’s better to be hated than to be nothing at all.”

Grace’s retort seemed to work, as the man didn’t probe any deeper. Just when he returned his gaze to his book, an unpleasant movement started again in her belly.

“It just moved now. Feel it.”

She pulled his hand to where she felt the baby’s movement.

“Hmm… fascinating.”

“Can you feel it?”

“No.”

“Then, what’s fascinating…?”

“I thought you were depressed all day because of the baby.”

Grace paused for a moment. She had tried to act normal all day. The perceptive man had seen through her mood and even the reason for it.

“How did you know?”

She chose to admit it right away. Denying words he already knew would be foolish.

“Because I’ve spent this year analyzing the woman called you.”

She tried to take his somewhat chilling words as a joke, laughing it off. Her effort seemed to work as he leaned in to kiss her. Grace not only reciprocated the kiss but also playfully used her tongue, trying to deceive him.

Then, she nuzzled her cheek against his neck, whining like a spoiled lover.

“I just… feel overwhelmed now that I can feel the baby. It’s daunting, not knowing how to raise it.”

She mixed honest feelings with a fabricated reason, quickly shifting the focus back to him before he could delve deeper.

“Aren’t you overwhelmed?”

He shook his head without hesitation.

“No need to worry.”

Receiving a long, gentle kiss on her cheek, Grace remembered a conversation from a couple of months ago.

“I’m someone who takes responsibility for my actions, unlike you, who carelessly commits and runs away.”

The day he first brought up the same topic, he had been harsh. Though now, his tenderness felt almost dreamlike, as if he were the boy from Abbington Beach.

You’re doing well.

Lifting her head, Grace offered him a spoonful of parfait. He accepted it without hesitation, then peppered kisses on her exposed shoulder above the water.

His left hand, which had been outside the tub, gently stroked from her shoulder down to her elbow, resting on the edge of the tub. After drying his wet hand on a towel laid neatly on the tray, he resumed turning the pages of the book.

“Uung…”

Grace twisted her body, looking up at Winston. He remained focused on his book, no matter how troubled she looked.

This man, while noble above the water, yet so vulgar beneath it.

The thick, cloud-like foam churned heavily. It was because he had entwined his legs with hers, forcing her legs apart. His right hand, which had been decorously stroking her belly, grew more indecent as it moved lower.

Recently, he had begun to cautiously release his repressed desires little by little. And Leon Winston changed not just outside the bed but inside it as well. Under his gentle touch, Grace felt an intoxicating sensation, as if her whole body was melting away.

Then, the man asked a question.

“I’m curious about something.”

“Huht, uhng?”

“Why were you using my bathtub that day?”

The moment he mentioned that day, memories of what happened in this very bathroom came rushing back.

“I thought it was some kind of seduction, but it wasn’t. You often do things that don’t make sense. It’s difficult. You’re the most difficult… woman.”

He hesitated for a moment before finishing his sentence. What was he originally going to call her?

“You know I’m not easy.”

Immediately after her cheeky reply, the man’s hand between her legs became more mischievous. Grace caught her breath and continued.

“But sometimes, the simplest answer is the right one for the most difficult problems.”

“So, what’s the right answer?”

As Grace beat around the bush, the man, seemingly running out of patience, pressed her for an answer.

“The maid’s bathroom doesn’t have good hot water. I just didn’t want to drench myself in freezing cold water.”

“That’s such a trivial reason, it’s unbelievable.”

“I thought you wouldn’t come that day.”

“So naive. It’s that naivety that got you caught.”

“It wasn’t my fault I got caught.”

“Oh, right. Who was it that put Fred or whatever his name was under me along with you?”

More teasing.

“Ha, are you hoping I’ll think of Jimmy and just leave?”

Finally, the man stopped talking about Jimmy, who he often used to plant negative thoughts in her mind.

His hand, which was outside the water, lifted her chin, tilting her head back. In her increasingly hazy vision, the man looked down at her persistently as if to make her clearly see who was bringing her pleasure.

It seemed her words had stayed with him. While pretending to laugh in delight, he actually grimaced.

“Aht!”

When her body shook, her pink n*pple sprang up through the frothy bubbles. It was the man’s finger that flattened the thick flesh.

Twisting, pressing, rolling and teasing… he had been tormenting her increasingly sensitive spots in various ways.

“Ha-uhk!”

Under the water, his other hand was similarly stimulating her clitoris. The water in the tub began to splash out, and her blush-colored knees emerged above the surface, closing and then spreading wide before being pulled back into the water.

Her left hand, which was holding the parfait glass, trembled. With her right hand, she grasped his thick forearm that was submerged in the water.

“Ung, the doctor said, to avoid strenuous exercise, ahhk, didn’t you hear?”

“I know this is nothing for you.”

His gripped arm tensed and flexed continuously in her hand. As she gasped for breath on the brink of climax, the man whispered in her ear. Under his soft caresses, Grace was lost in ecstasy when the man spoke.

“On that day, you were more tempting than the cherry on top of this parfait. Even now, there’s nothing more enticing to me than you.”

A moan escaped her lips as he roughly sucked on her earlobe.

“Do you know how much I wanted to suck you here that day?”

He clearly showed that it wasn’t the earlobe or anything that he wanted to suck by rolling her n*pple under the water with his fingers.

“I used to imagine it every time I saw Sally Bristol. How soft and plump this place might be underneath the neat maid’s uniform?”

Grace remembered the times she felt a tingling in her chest when he chewed the end of his cigar, realizing her intuition about his dirty thoughts wasn’t wrong.

“And then to find Sally Bristol naked in my bathtub… It was like receiving an early Christmas gift.”

“Uung…”

“Do you know how hard it was for me to resist taking you and playing with you right then and there?”

He suddenly released her chest and slid his hand down to her swollen belly.

“Holding back then led to this… My Christmas gift multiplied.”

A wicked smile crept onto the man’s face. Grace had to muster all her strength not to punch his vile face.

Enjoy this empty victory for now. One day, you’ll be alone, remembering this day and weeping.

“Aht!”

“On that day, I wondered how hot you would be inside.”

His fingers, which had been playfully wandering outside, finally entered her.

“You’re hotter than this water.”

His chest against her back swelled, and the sound of him swallowing was especially clear.

“I’m going crazy wanting to put it in.”

The man murmured in a deep, hoarse voice. His member had been pressing heavily against her back since they started the bath. It surprised her with his ability to read while being so visibly aroused.

Grace moved in rhythm with his thrusting fingers, causing his pillar that was trapped between their bodies to be stroked roughly. Each time, the breath on her cheek and the flesh brushing against her back felt scorching, as if her body was being cooked.

“…Put it in.”

At her whisper that was mixed with gasping breaths, he groaned.

“You used to fight off my touch, but now you’re begging me to put it in.”

There’s nothing like voluntarily doing it just so you’ll succumb to your own illusions.

“Darling, how did it come to this? Huh?”

“You made me this way.”

You turned me into this wretched being.

“Uung… Please…”

His excited voice whispered again in her ear.

Look at you, wanting me. You can’t do without me. I’m all you have. Don’t forget that.

Words like these… These were the words Grace should be saying to him.

I don’t want you. Never. Not ever.

However, her body betrayed her, saying something entirely different.

The man pushed her to the brink of climax, holding her firmly in place, preventing any escape. Desperate to fall into heaven to forget everything, Grace begged him to let her go.

Let her go.

Where did she want to be sent? Her true destination wasn’t that false paradise but beyond this unbearable prison.

“Ha-uhk!”

Finally, after her persistent pleading, he gave her what she wanted. When her body stiffened, shaking in spasms, the parfait glass slipped from her hand.

“Hah, no…”

__