In the end, neither of them moved.

They remained tangled in the centre of Park’s enormous bed, locked in the quiet wreckage of everything they had finally admitted. Emmeline rested against him with her cheek near his heart, one arm folded between their bodies and the other lying loose across his side. Her black hair had spilled over his chest and shoulder in warm, heavy strands that tickled his neck with every slow breath she took.

Park stared at the ceiling, quietly astonished by his own restraint.

The desire to take the final step had not vanished it still sat inside his ribs like a patient animal, hot and quiet, whispering that the distance between them had become laughably small:

One shift of his hips; just one choice, that was all it would take take her innocence and they become each other’s.

He wanted it.

God above, he wanted it with terrifying intensity.

Every nerve in his body had turned traitor. The heat of her pussy pressed against him, the soft drag of her breath across his skin. The tiny, unconscious movements she made as she settled deeper into his arms.

Even her scent had become a problem—soft, familiar, and completely unfair beneath the warmth of the room.

And yet, against every prediction he would have made about himself an hour earlier, he held still.

Park was genuinely impressed with this stranger currently occupying his body.

A lifetime of almost nothing and one afternoon of far too much but somehow the shameless creature that lived behind his ribs had gone silent. This was the same creature that treated the observation of beautiful waists as a public service and monitored low necklines in the sacred name of civic safety.

Usually it produced essays, entire obscene poems and standing ovations in the back of his mind.

Today there was only Park, holding a girl who had asked him to hold her.

So that was what he did.

Nothing more.

’Look at me,’ he thought, eyes fixed on the ceiling like a man waiting for divine recognition. ’Actual growth. Character development. Somebody alert the System. I want a formal certificate. Maybe a small parade for this.’

Because he could read her.

Or at least he believed he could, which was almost the same thing when you were this desperate for answers.

Emmeline knew what she wanted. She had made that brutally clear.

She had walked across a boundary the two of them had spent years reinforcing—brick by stubborn, careful brick—and she had done it on purpose.

There had been no accident in her actions.

She had looked him dead in the eyes and stepped over that line with her whole chest.

But beneath all that courage lived something softer:

She had settled against him instead of pushing for more and how the tension had slowly drained from her shoulders the moment he stopped trying to understand everything and simply held her.

She was not ready to go further.

Or she was ready, but did not want it to happen yet.

Maybe she was waiting for a better moment, a cleaner day or maybe a version of the two of them that had survived the shock of this afternoon and finally understood what came next.

Maybe she simply wanted to enjoy crossing one line before they started sprinting toward the next.

Or maybe Park was completely wrong about every single part of it.

What did he actually know about women? Most of his education came from novels, videos online, terrible instincts, and one extremely eventful afternoon.

None of those things qualified him for anything except making a fool of himself with confidence.

So he did nothing and just held her.

That was the entire plan, and for once in his life the plan required no improvement and no last-minute sabotage.

They remained like that while the afternoon light changed around them. Gold deepened into amber, pouring through the tall windows and stretching across the bed in warm, lazy bands.

The mansion beyond the bedroom door had gone quiet; until the only sounds left were Emmeline’s breathing and the steady, traitorous beat of Park’s own heart beneath her ear.

Her breaths grew slower.

The hand resting against his side loosened.

Her weight settled more fully into him.

Then, somehow, impossibly, Emmeline fell asleep.

’Just like that.’

As if she had not marched into his room, cracked years of secrecy wide open, and scattered the pieces across his bedsheets.

Park could not have closed his eyes if the mansion were burning around them and the devil himself was offering free tickets.

Emmeline slept without a single care in the world.

Her lashes rested against her cheeks. The last trace of tension had vanished from her mouth.

Even the small line that sometimes appeared between her brows when she was annoyed had smoothed away. In sleep she looked younger and far less dangerous, though Park knew better than to trust the disguise.

Sleeping Emmeline was still Emmeline but there was a smile on her face.

Small. Settled. And quietly triumphant like she had finally reached a place she had spent years circling. Someone who had carried the same chains for so long that their weight had become ordinary, then suddenly realised she was allowed to put them down.

Park understood that feeling far too well.

He was wearing the exact same ridiculous smile.

He could feel it stretched across his mouth, stubborn and impossible to hide. It was the matching half of hers. No amount of staring at the ceiling or trying to act mature could remove it.

He had accomplished something today that he had never believed possible in either of his lives.

And it was not the followers. God above, it was not that or even the attention from Jessie, though his ego remained deeply grateful for her earlier contribution and would probably write her a thank-you note later.

This.

Emmeline asleep against him, peaceful after finally telling him the truth.

That was the miracle.

For one quiet hour neither of them had to pretend. They did not have to turn everything into a joke, hide behind old habits, or act as though the wall between them had not been cracking for years.

They were happy.

Both of them.

Park lay in the amber light with a beautiful sleeping girl curled against his chest. Her hair spread across his shoulder, and one hand had closed around a fold of his shirt as if even asleep she had no intention of letting him escape.

The bed had become paradise.

Officially.

The pillows were softer than clouds. The quilt held a perfect pocket of warmth around them. Emmeline fitted against him as if the universe had measured the space in advance and decided this was the only correct arrangement.

Getting out of this bed for any reason felt like walking through heaven’s front gate and voluntarily reporting for duty in burning hell next to the devil himself with a clipboard.

Which was exactly what Park was about to do.

Because it was three in the afternoon.

And at four, a man named Jim was expecting him.

Park stared at the clock on the bedside table with the hollow hope that pure spite might stop its hands.

Three minutes passed while he watched the numbers move like a personal insult.

Endurance and stamina training which the agency had scheduled, then locked it into his calendar with the casual cruelty of people who had never experienced joy and therefore resented anyone who had.

Jim was a full-grown man whose professional purpose that afternoon was to drag Park out of this bed and make him sweat until his legs stopped obeying him.

Park looked down at Emmeline.

She breathed softly against his chest, completely unaware that paradise was about to be cancelled by a man named Jim.

He looked back at the clock.

’Fuck my life.’

He stared at the ceiling with the hollow despair like he was reading his own execution order while still wearing the smile of someone who had just won the lottery.

’What kind of bastard schedules pain on a day like this? I am in paradise. This is literal, measurable, scientifically proven paradise, and the agency wants me to leave it so Jim can make me do cardio. Cardio. On a day like this.’

Emmeline made a faint sound in her sleep.

Her fingers tightened against his naked skin as she snuggled closer. Then she shifted again, tucked her face beneath his chin, and pressed herself more firmly against him with a sleepy little sigh that should have been illegal.

Park stopped breathing.

The clock continued moving, completely unbothered by his suffering.

He looked down at her.

Then at the ceiling.

Then at the clock again.

Three-oh-seven.

If he left within the next fifteen minutes, he could probably make it on time. If he stayed another twenty, he would be late. If he stayed exactly where he was until Emmeline woke on her own, Jim might eventually die of old age and solve the problem permanently.

That final option had real, beautiful merit.

Emmeline burrowed closer, as if she could sense his thoughts and had decided to make the decision for him.

Park closed his eyes and felt his remaining discipline crumble with almost insulting ease.

"Fuck."

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