It was Claudel who approached him first. Her touch on his cheek seemed almost like seeking permission. The woman in his arms, looking up at him, appeared as if she held Kaiyan dear, as if he meant something significant to her.

But he knew that was unlikely. Claudel of Vermonte and Kaiyan of Temnes were bound together in a marriage forced by a royal decree. Probably, the only thing Claudel cherished in the lands of Rowen was a cold gravestone in the underground cemetery.

She hadn’t come to Rowen to marry him. She had come there intending to die. Kaiyan felt foolish for having accepted such a person as his wife. He was enraged at the thought of her dying without his permission and thus, he saved her. He did so to firmly show her that in his domain, the Lordship of Rowen and the Dukedom of Temnes, nothing happens without his will.

“Just a little slower…….”

A delicate moan traveled through her lips, brushed his cheek, and then whispered past his ear.
The baskets filled with food that Claudel had prepared for him toppled over, scattering aside, and the carefully arranged wreaths of flowers got disheveled, crushed by their movements.

“Why did I even teach her to swim?” Kaiyan thought as he gazed at the woman lying on the water. Her red hair fluttered like a mystical halo above the blue light reflected from the water’s surface.

Sunlight gently cascaded over her moist, pale skin. Under her wet, swaying clothes, Kaiyan glimpsed the body he once desired so much that he would have traded ten carriages for it, now glowing enticingly.

Watching her submerged in the vast water, Kaiyan felt as if he were drying up. For a while, he realized that everything he felt while watching her sleep each night was merely a prelude, drawing him into this trial.

The woman’s golden irises, now open, were stunningly beautiful. Kaiyan, having promised Claudel that he wouldn’t play tricks and that she could trust him, forgot his words and let go, driven by the urge to touch those irises. But he didn’t expect her to fall into the water.

“Damn liar, you promised not to play tricks,” she accused, playfully yet futilely hitting his chest with her small fists. Every little punch felt like a soft touch on his heart.

A kiss was both permission and acknowledgment. Was her initiative to kiss him an indication that, at least, she accepted him as her husband?

But it wasn’t the time to ponder such things.

“My lord,” she whispered, her voice soft. The wet clothes did not hinder him from touching Claudel.

As their impulsive actions intensified with each kiss, their movements became incomparably more passionate.
After their meal and conversation, Kaiyan craved Claudel’s lips. Yet, each time their lips met, he felt as if he was losing his soul to her.

“Father, I have followed your teachings, avoiding corruption as a lord of Temnes,” Kaiyan thought. He had never shamed his legacy or shirked his heavy responsibilities.

“Why didn’t you warn me that one could be so captivated by the existence called a wife?” he wondered. He had not been taught about growing attached and assigning meaning to a woman he had genuinely bonded with.

He should have been taught not just to avoid frivolous affairs that could complicate the family lineage, but how to suppress the uncontrollable desires for the woman he had taken as his wife.

Kaiyan caressed Claudel greedily, but not for restraint; it was a prelude to what was next.

Claudel, with her eyes narrowly open, had her eyelids and the area around her kissed lips reddened. As she realized Kaiyan was at the end of her gaze, he became more urgent.

When he started to pull off her wet, clinging clothes, Claudel panicked.

“No, you can’t, Lord.”

“No one will come here.”

He had ensured they would be undisturbed in the garden, just for the two of them.

Feeling cold, Claudel shivered and shook her head. “That’s… impossible. Absolutely not.”

As Kaiyan saw reason returning to her dazed eyes, he kissed her again.

“Hmm.”

Her soft voice was pleasing to hear, like the faintest string of a harp being plucked.

“Lord, stop.”

However, as it seemed he would not relent easily, Claudel, now laid in the flower bed, kept warding him off.

“Claudel.”

When he called her name, her eyes widened like the bright midday sun.

“Call my name too.”

Her fists, pushing against his shoulders, relaxed and crawled up behind his neck as if to embrace him.

“…Kaiyan.”

The man, having granted permission to use his name, took advantage of the opening created by her calling him, and delved deeper.

An Indifferent Woman is the One Men Desire the Most

One-line summary: The female lead is actually cold-hearted and extremely rational. She has stage-by-stage relationships and won’t two-time, but there will always be someone who secretly likes her.

This novel has the following triggers, so if you’re sensitive to these, please don’t read:

1. The female lead has had many relationships, but she treated each one seriously and broke up properly.

It’s just that the men unilaterally pestered her incessantly. For the female lead, when she doesn’t like someone anymore, she simply doesn’t like them.

(This applies to her relationships with Male Lead 1, 2, 3, and 4 as well, but she’s loyal in each 1-on-1 relationship!)

2. In this novel, Male Lead 2 and the female lead kiss in a car, and Male Lead 1 sees it and beats up Male Lead 2.

The female lead calls the police and sends both Male Lead 1 and 2 to the police station! Male Lead 1 begs the female lead not to break up with him.

3. Male Lead 1 has a gentle appearance but an obsessive personality.

Male Lead 2 has a delicate and soft appearance, slightly green tea-like (two-faced).

Male Lead 3 is a youthful college student and a smart person who has secretly liked the female lead for a long time.

Male Lead 4 is the female lead’s father’s special assistant, a business elite with deep, hidden thoughts.

4. At the beginning of this novel, the female lead has already broken up with Male Lead 1 (Chapter 4) and gotten back together with Male Lead 2 (ex-boyfriend).

5. Enter with caution if you have triggers!!!