The smile on Su Li's face, the kind one gave an idiot, was like a red-hot iron skewer, piercing straight through every one of Elena's pretenses.
A buzz rang through her head.
The mad entanglement of forty years in her past life, along with all those intimate details known only to the two of them, surged into her mind like a rising tide.
This man—this country blacksmith she had thought she could manipulate at will—knew everything!
"You..." Elena's voice was dry and tight, and all her lofty arrogance had utterly guttered out. "You too...?"
Su Li lounged lazily on the bed, letting this hot-bodied woman press down on him.
He even shifted his position slightly to make his neck more comfortable.
"What else?" Su Li pinched her soft waist. "Why do you think I knew you were ticklish there?"
That airy retort completely shattered Elena's final psychological defense.
Her whole body went limp, and she collapsed directly onto Su Li's solid chest.
That dazzling expanse of snowy whiteness was pressed out of shape, heaving violently with her ragged breaths.
It was over.
All over.
Her carefully planned entrance, every scene of absolute domination she had envisioned, every line she had prepared to humiliate that village girl—all of it had become a joke.
She was like a fool who had thought herself clever.
Elena lay sprawled atop Su Li, utterly motionless.
The air was awkward.
She could feel the steady beat of the man beneath her, as well as the scorching warmth radiating from his body.
Back down?
Climb off him now, then slink away in disgrace with her people?
Elena gritted her teeth.
No!
When had she, Elena—the future Duke of Iris—ever been so humiliated?
Especially in front of that village girl!
She had already lost in her previous life.