Samuel rubbed his nose, his eyes softening as he looked down at her. "How about ’husband’? You used to call me that."

Heena’s smile gained a slightly sharper edge, leaning into the self-deprecating armor she so often wore. "I think I should call you ’My Lord,’ just like how all the servants call you. After all, your wife isn’t a noblewoman like the others in your circle. She is just a servant."

Samuel’s amusement instantly vanished, replaced by a stern frown. He reached out and lightly tapped her on the nose in retaliation. "Don’t call yourself a servant again and again, because honestly? I am really scared."

Heena blinked, momentarily thrown off balance. "Scared?"

"Yes," Samuel said flatly. "If a ’servant girl’ can be this dangerous, manipulative, and brilliant... just thinking about what a noblewoman could do terrifies me. Please, spare me."

A genuine, bright laugh bubbled up from Heena’s chest, chasing away any lingering shadows about her status. "You are a top scholar yourself, and now you are scared of a woman?"

Samuel sighed dramatically, letting his head fall back against the pillows as he pulled the blankets up over them. "Oh, please. There is a vast difference between a book and a woman. A man can conquer and understand texts as tough and dense as ancient history, but a man could *never* understand a woman’s mind."

He paused, looking back down at her with a wry, affectionate smile. "Actually, I don’t think even a woman can understand a woman. So, thank you, but no thank you. I forfeit. Just call me whatever you want."

Heena looked at him, the playful smirk melting away from her features as a heavy sigh escaped her lips. "So," she asked, her tone shifting back to the sharp edge of business, "what do you think Maya’s next move will be?"

Samuel groaned softly, snuggling his face into the warm crook of her neck and shoulder. "Wife," he mumbled against her skin, "with how much you say my stepmother’s name and obsess over her issues, I sometimes really think you might have fallen in love with her."

Heena rolled her eyes, leaning back slightly in his arms to give him a flat look. "Shut up and tell me."

Samuel sighed, finally relenting to her strategic demands. "By my assumption? I think my stepmother is definitely... going to get caught."

That gave Heena pause. She studied his face, calculating. "And why do you think so?"

He looked up at her, a knowing glint in his eyes. "Sweetheart, I know you look at the men in our household as a collective bunch of fools."

"Not fools," Heena corrected, shaking her head. "Just perverts."

"Oh, really?" he murmured, an eyebrow arching wickedly as his hand abandoned its resting place and began to lazily roam down her side once again.

*Smack.* Heena slapped his wandering hand away without missing a beat. "Please, focus."

Samuel chuckled, rubbing the back of his hand, but his expression sobered as he gathered his thoughts. "Well, my father... even though that bastard is revolting, and you can use whatever curse words you can think of to verbally tear into him, he has one thing that even I am quite scared of."

He paused, the air growing heavy, and then they spoke the next two words in perfect, eerie sync:

"His mind."

Samuel smiled, a mix of profound pride and lingering caution in his dark eyes. "This is exactly the reason why I call you brilliant and dangerous at the same time," he murmured softly.

He shifted, propping himself up on his elbow to look at her seriously. "Just like you said—his mind. Even though my father loves my stepmother quite a bit, that does not mean he trusts her blindly. That bastard didn’t even trust my own *mother* blindly, so how could he ever fully trust a girl like Maya? Yes, he has some affection and whatever romantic nonsense for her, but above all else? I think that man is intensely possessive. And that possessiveness is going to be her undoing."

"He likes his things to be completely untouched by others," Samuel continued, his tone dropping into something cold and analytical. "Just like he loves his money. He loves wealth. And on top of that, he is obsessively territorial over his women."

Heena wrinkled her nose, her voice taking on a skeptical, almost mocking lilt. "What? Are you actually trying to say that your father *loves* his women?"

Samuel shook his head, a dark, humorless smile touching his lips as he let out a sharp scoff. "That man? Love? Please. That bastard is completely incapable of loving anyone."

He sighed, tracing an absentminded pattern on her shoulder as his mind worked through the politics of his household. "Anyway, I think he already has his doubts about her. Right now, his mind is just foggy because of the medicine she’s been giving him. But if that fog clears—even just a fraction of an inch—then my dear stepmother is going to find out exactly what hell looks like."

His hands started to wander again, slipping beneath her guard with practiced ease. Heena uncomfortably grabbed his wrists, halting his progress, though her mind was suddenly miles away.

*This Samuel is really smart,* she had to admit to herself. *Almost too smart.*

But even his sharp mind took a back seat to the deeper anxieties gnawing at her. What exactly was hidden within Seera’s fragmented memories? What if those locked-away secrets of the past ended up causing a massive disaster later on? She desperately needed to know.

She needed to understand why a girl like Seera would even be in this situation to begin with. Was she absolutely certain Seera came from a lowly maid’s family? Heena mentally analyzed her own body—*Seera’s* body. No. The way she moved, the faint calluses... these hands didn’t belong to a simple servant who spent her life scrubbing floors. She had tested her physical limits before; Seera’s physique was remarkably strong, easily possessing the strength of two normal women, yet there was a delicate refinement to her hands that completely contradicted that raw power. It was a puzzle Heena simply couldn’t solve, a contradiction that didn’t make any sense.

Lost in the labyrinth of her own thoughts, her grip on his wrists went completely slack.

Taking immediate advantage of her distraction, Samuel’s hands slipped free and slid upward, boldly claiming her chest.

Heena gasped, her body buckling slightly at the sudden, electrifying jolt of sensation. Her intricate web of theories vanished instantly, her brain short-circuiting as the warmth of his touch dragged her violently back to the present.

Flustered and entirely thrown off balance, she reached around and lightly smacked him on the broad expanse of his back. It lacked any real heat, a purely reflexive scolding to cover up her sudden breathlessness.

"What the heck are you doing?" she demanded, glaring at him with flushed cheeks.

Samuel looked up at her, his expression a mask of complete, deadpan seriousness. He blinked slowly, acting for all the world as if he hadn’t done a single thing wrong.

"I’m trying to sleep," he stated calmly, though his hands made absolutely no move to retreat.