Late at night, Layla entered Kallian's office, holding a stack of organized documents.
"I thought you might still be in your office… so I brought the agenda for the upcoming vassal meeting."
Kallian silently watched her, his eyes fixed on her in a way that made her heart race.
The way his deep, shadowed gaze fell only on her made her toes curl with nervous heat.
Trying to hide her flushed face, Layla lowered her head, closed the door, and slowly walked toward him.
The office was dim except for the single lamp on the desk, making the space feel more secret and still.
Layla glanced at Kallian's slightly disheveled clothes — at the sharp lines of his collarbone and the firm chest visible beneath his shirt. She swallowed hard.
As she moved to place the documents down—
"Ah…!"
Whether by accident or on purpose, Layla stumbled and fell toward Kallian.
He instinctively caught her.
Falling against his broad chest, Layla's face flushed deeper. Her hand brushed against his chest carefully.
Recently, Kallian had been unable to sleep properly at night, and Layla wondered if perhaps… he was struggling as a man.
Just as she thought, Kallian didn't immediately push her away.
His stillness — as though he were judging something — gave Layla a spark of courage. She let her hand slide lower, toward his abdomen.
But then Kallian grabbed her wrist firmly.
Layla froze, her breath catching, when she looked up at him with an expectant face.
His eyes were cold — colder than ice.
Realizing how far she had gone, her face turned pale.
"I—I'm sorry," she stammered.
She stood up quickly, gathering the scattered papers with trembling hands, biting her lip hard.
'He was staring at me so intently… he didn't push me away at first either… Was I mistaken?'
While she wrestled with confusion and embarrassment, Kallian stared at her profile with a look of contempt.
'Different,' he thought.
The feel of her wrist in his hand, the warmth of her skin, even her scent — everything was different from the woman in his dream.
Kallian was certain.
The woman who had whispered love to him in that dream — the one he had held — was not Layla.
Layla glanced sideways at Kallian sitting at his desk.
Nothing had changed much since that night.
Even after learning that she had been his lover during his lost years, Kallian still kept the same polite distance from her.
His behavior hadn't changed — but his gaze had.
When she nervously looked at him, Kallian's cold eyes lifted toward her.
"Have you finished organizing the delegation documents?"
Startled by his dry tone, Layla answered quickly.
"Y-Yes! Almost done."
She lowered her head over the papers, biting her lip in frustration.
'Why doesn't he believe me?'
And she was sure it wasn't a misunderstanding.
After that night when she had tried to seduce him, Kallian's gaze had grown even colder.
Like he was looking at an insect.
Layla's hand gripped her pen tightly.
'Did his memory return?'
If not, then maybe… he had found something about Yuliana.
After Yuliana Heister had gone missing, Kallian had searched for her like a man possessed — as if struck by madness.
As if he truly loved that woman.
Anxiously chewing her fingertip, Layla forced the thought away and looked back at her work.
'No, he hasn't remembered everything yet. There's still a chance.'
All the photos and records about that woman had already been destroyed — burned completely under Darkin's orders.
Back then, when Kallian had searched desperately for Yuliana, he had filled notebooks and gathered pictures — and Layla had personally burned them all.
Before declaring war on Heister, Kallian had erased every trace of her, as if trying to erase her existence from his heart.
Since Layla herself had burned those things, there was no trace of that woman left in the mansion — not even dust.
Calming herself, Layla gathered the papers neatly and approached Kallian's desk.
"These are the documents for the lordship succession."
"Leave them there," he said without looking up.
Layla stood quietly, staring at his sharp profile under the setting sun's glow.
The light made him look like a sculpture carved by the gods.
She stared at him endlessly, thinking,
'I don't need to become the lady of Valdormer. I just want his burning gaze to turn toward me. I want the fire that once burned for her to reach me too. I want to be the only woman in his eyes.'
She had been by his side for more than ten years.
To her, Kallian was the center of her world — her ideal since childhood.
'Surely now… I can desire a little more. I've loved him for over ten years. Why should that woman — sold from an enemy family — be better than me?'
"Do you have anything else to say?"
His cold voice pulled her out of her thoughts.
Layla flinched and quickly answered, "No, my lord."
She turned away, hiding her lingering desire in her chest.
Kallian swirled the amber-colored liquor in his glass, lost in thought.
He already knew from the butler that, before losing his memory, he had searched for Yuliana for a full year.
At first, he assumed it had been to hold her accountable — the daughter of his enemy.
But would that alone make a man search so obsessively for a year?
According to the butler, Kallian had postponed the vassal meetings and roamed endlessly in search of her — then, all of a sudden, stopped.
Afterward, he had erased all her traces and declared war on Heister.
Standing, Kallian slowly paced the office, his thoughts deepening.
'Yuliana de Heister.'
One of the many children born to the Heister lord in his attempt to produce an heir with special powers.
Something told him her disappearance was connected to the woman he had once assigned a man to protect.
And that boy — Denian — had shown signs of possessing an energy unlike any ordinary child.
'…Could my blood run through him?'
Thinking of Denian's aura, he realized it was different from the shadow energy he knew.
Urgently, Kallian began searching through the library shelves.
He pulled out several books about supernatural powers — and then noticed a small notebook hidden behind the row of volumes.
It looked less like a book and more like a personal journal.
When he opened it, he frowned.
The pages were filled with messy handwriting, full of incoherent words and notes — like the ramblings of a drunken man.
At first, he didn't think it was his own writing.
But as he pieced together the scattered words, he realized they were all about Yuliana — the woman who had vanished.
Flipping through the pages, he found countless frenzied notes.
'Did I really search for her like this? For the daughter of my enemy?'
Then, as he turned another page—
A small, yellowed paper fell to the floor.
He bent down and picked it up carefully.
It was a photograph.
A woman in an elegant dress sat before the Valdormer mansion, her expression lifeless.
He knew that face.
His eyes shook as he stared at it.
He looked down at the page where the photo had been, where one name stood out clearly among the messy scrawl.
'Yuliana.'
"Haa…"
Realization struck him like lightning.
Leaning against the bookshelf, Kallian buried his face in one hand, his breath unsteady.
'So that's how it was… That's what happened…'
Through his fingers, his face was visible — not shocked, but trembling with something like excitement.
'Yes… I finally found her.'