← The fallen count's daughter enters into a contract engagement with the cold-hearted duke.When the string quartet in the ballroom began to play a new piece, Adrian moved.
His steps were graceful. So graceful that it was impossible to tell whether it was calculated or innate. People automatically parted to make way. No one dared obstruct the Duke's passage.
Karen tracked his trajectory. The direction was clear.
It was toward her.
'As expected.'
Karen adjusted her position. Not pretending, but naturally. She pulled her left shoulder slightly back and directed her gaze toward the center stage of the ballroom. As if she could be anywhere, and being here now was merely a matter of luck. That was the image she needed to project.
Adrian arrived.
"Would you like to dance?"
It was simple. No elaborate rhetoric, no lengthy greetings. Just a question. But his tone carried absolute certainty. It was the voice of a man who didn't even calculate the possibility of refusal.
Karen slowly turned her gaze toward his face. She deliberately prolonged the motion. As if she had been watching something very interesting elsewhere and had only just been drawn by his voice.
"How intriguing."
A smile played at Karen's lips. "For the Duke to extend an invitation personally."
"When I offer my hand, people usually accept it."
Adrian's eyes gleamed. It wasn't arrogance. It was merely a statement of fact.
"I'm sure they do."
Karen set her champagne glass on a nearby table. That movement too was slow. As if she had plenty of time and no reason to hurry. Then she extended her hand to Adrian.
"But I am not an ordinary person."
Adrian took her hand. His hand was cold. So cold that Karen briefly wondered if it was intentional. But his expression remained serene.
As they moved toward the center of the ballroom, all eyes followed them. Karen felt it. But she decided not to care. If she appeared to care, she had already lost.
Music flowed out. A waltz. Slow and elegant in three-four time. Adrian positioned her correctly. One hand on her waist, the other holding her hand. The distance was precise. Neither too close nor too far.
"Are you called the Young Lady of Monterosa?"
"Karen."
Karen placed her other hand on his shoulder. His body temperature was normal. But his hand remained cold. Now she was certain it was intentional.
"Karen."
Adrian repeated the name. As if rolling it on his tongue, tasting it. "A lovely name."
"Thank you."
As the music began, they started to move. Adrian danced well. That was unsurprising. He seemed like a man for whom everything would be perfect. But she felt something different in his movements.
It was calculation.
"Does the Duke not usually dance with ordinary people?"
Karen's question was sharp. On the surface, it sounded like nothing, but multiple meanings were hidden within it. Why did you choose me? What do you want from me? What are you planning?
"Usually not."
Adrian's answer was equally simple. But there was depth within that simplicity.
"Then is this a special occasion?"
"It could be."
Adrian's eyes met hers. Karen realized in that moment that her breath had stopped. His eyes held something beyond black, a certain depth. Within that depth, something was moving. Something dark.
"Or it could be a predetermined plan."
Adrian spoke again. His words sounded like a provocation. No—they were a provocation.
Karen's smile deepened.
"Does the Duke plan women?"
"Not women, but specific things."
"And am I included in those specific things?"
Adrian spun her around. In the process, his hand moved slightly deeper into her waist. It wasn't a violation of ballroom etiquette. But it was testing boundaries.
"I don't know yet."
Adrian's voice came very close to her ear. "But it seems it would be very interesting to find out."
Karen's heart began to beat again. This time too, it wasn't fear. It was stimulation.
"So the Duke plans everything?"
Karen counterattacked. "Then this dance is planned too? This conversation as well?"
"Yes."
The answer came quickly. So quickly that Karen couldn't tell if it was honesty or another calculation.
"Then you anticipated my next question as well?"
"Perhaps."
The music reached its crescendo. Adrian led her faster. Other dancers avoided them. As if there was a different space around them.
"But I didn't anticipate your answer."
Adrian stopped her the moment the final note of the music rang out. They stood in the center of the ballroom. Every eye was fixed on them.
"You cannot plan everything."
Karen's voice was low but clear. "If you could, it wouldn't be a plan—it would be fate. And I don't believe in such things."
A small laugh appeared at Adrian's lips. It was a genuine laugh. Karen felt it.
"Intriguing."
Adrian murmured as he released her hand. "Truly intriguing."
He gave her a small bow. The depth of that bow was greater than a greeting to an ordinary dance partner.
"Thank you. Karen."
And he disappeared. Or rather, he dispersed into the crowd elsewhere in the ballroom. But from Karen's perspective, it felt like he had vanished.
She stood there for a while. The eyes around her were still focused on her, but she didn't care.
Her fingertips still remembered the warmth of Adrian's hand. No—precisely, they remembered the coldness of his hand.
'So it was planned.'
A smile appeared at Karen's lips again.
'Then how shall I break the plan?'
She picked up her champagne glass. It was empty. Someone had apparently already drunk from it. For the first time, Karen felt the reach of someone else's influence.
But that was not a problem.
The game had begun. And Karen was a woman who didn't know how to lose.
It took longer than expected to leave the ballroom. Karen moved deliberately slowly. She needed to feel the gazes following her. She needed to read what they meant.
Contempt. Curiosity. Jealousy.
But none of them dominated. The dance in the center of the ballroom had changed everything. The mere fact that the Duke had invited her was enough.
As she passed through the corridor, Karen caught her reflection in the mirror. The folds of her dress were perfect. Not a single strand of hair was out of place. But something different was glinting in her eyes.
Awakening. Or danger.
"Where have you been?"
Her mother's voice came from in front of the bedroom. Isabella had already changed out of her ball gown into a nightrobe. A wine glass was in her hand. It was always like this after the ball. Her mother organized the night with wine.
"I came from the Duke's residence, Mother."
"The Duke's residence?"
Isabella's eyebrows rose. She looked Karen up and down once. That gaze carried a special ability unique to her mother—the ability to discern exactly whether her daughter was hiding something or not.
"As far as I know, you said you left the ball early."
Karen spoke slowly as she entered the bedroom.
"I met the Duke at the ball."
She didn't close the bedroom door. She knew her mother would follow. Her mother was a curious woman. Especially when it concerned her daughter.
"Adrian, the Duke?"
"Yes, Mother."
Karen began to untie the strings of her dress. Her movements were deliberately slow. She was giving her mother time to collect herself.
Isabella sat on the edge of the bed. She set the wine glass down on the table. It was a signal that a serious conversation was beginning.
"Are you saying that man invited you?"
"He asked me to dance."
"To dance."
Isabella's voice was low. It was a calculating tone. Karen knew what her mother was doing. She was calculating what this situation meant according to the rules of high society.
"In front of the entire ballroom?"
"Yes."
Karen removed her dress completely. She revealed herself in her undergarments naturally before her mother. It was a habit from childhood. Before her mother, everything was tactics.
"What kind of dance was it?"
"A waltz."
"A waltz."
Isabella picked up the wine glass again. She took a sip. And then she was silent for a long time. Karen opened the wardrobe, took out her nightgown, and put it on while waiting for her mother's silence.
"When your father was alive, I once danced with Adrian's father."
Isabella suddenly spoke. The words came from nowhere and went nowhere clear.
"It was also in the center of the ballroom. In front of everyone."
Karen sat in the chair across from the bed. She looked at her mother's face.
"After that, we couldn't speak for a long time. Because your father... became very busy."
"Mother."
"What?"
Isabella looked at Karen. There was still the warmth of wine in her eyes.
"Was it a coincidence that the Duke chose me?"
"You asked that question first."
Isabella smiled. It was a mother's smile. Dangerous, beautiful, and very calculating.
"Then that means you already know."
Karen said nothing.
Isabella drank her wine again. This time, she emptied half the glass, not just a sip.
"Karen, you don't know our family."
"Mother?"
"The Monterosa family was not a simple noble house. Once, we had influence equal to the Castellano family."
Isabella's voice grew even lower. It was the tone of sharing a secret.
"Your father made a certain promise with the current Duke of Castellano—Adrian's father. A very important promise."
"What was it?"
"That is... something you must discover for yourself."
Isabella stood as she spoke. She picked up the wine glass and headed toward the bedroom door.
"But one thing is clear."
Isabella stopped at the doorway. Without turning around, she spoke.
"The Duke's choice of you was no accident. And your choice of the Duke must not be an accident either."
And then her mother disappeared.
Karen lay in bed. She stared at the ceiling. The temperature of Adrian's hand still lingered on her fingertips.
That it was cold was important information. Because it could mean he had no emotions, or it could mean he was hiding them.
Karen got up from the bed and sat at her desk. From deep in the drawer, she pulled out a leather journal. It was left by her father. A few weeks before he died suddenly three years ago, he had given her this journal and said:
"Someday you will need to read this. But until that day comes, no one must know."
Karen opened the journal. There was her father's handwriting. And between the lines of that handwriting were drawings.
Cracks. And within them, the figure of someone hunting something.
Karen's jaw hardened.
Her father had known. Something.
And Adrian seemed to know it too.
Karen turned the pages of the journal with her finger. In that moment, a familiar sentence entered her eyes.
"If you are reading this, you will have to make a choice. Will you revive our family, or will you protect something greater?"
Karen's hands trembled.
Her father had already known. That Adrian would come. And that she would have to make a choice.
As Karen turned off the light in her bedroom, she thought.
It was true that the game had begun. But it was not her game. It was a game that had already been started several moves ago by someone else.
Then what should she do?
Karen closed her eyes. Adrian's voice sounded again.
"Truly fascinating."
Those words were not admiration. They were acknowledgment. And hidden within that acknowledgment was danger.
Karen opened her eyes.
If the game had already begun, she needed to learn the rules of the game. And after learning the rules, she would have to break them.
She held the journal her father had left behind. It was still warm.
"Let's start tomorrow."
She murmured.
Tomorrow, she would find out everything. What Adrian wanted. What the promise her mother spoke of was. And why her father had left this journal.
That would be the first stage of the game.
After that would be the counterattack.
Karen fell asleep. That night, her dreams were filled with dancing people and something within the cracks. And in the center of it all stood the Duke with cold hands.