ONE NIGHT STAND WITH HOT DUKE-Chapter 228: Falling in love with a witch
The silence that followed that confession felt different from before.
It was no longer just a quiet calm, but a heavy, pressing stillness as if the air in the room had suddenly grown thicker, harder to breathe.
Lena remained where she stood, not moving at all. Her eyes stayed on Ethan, but her expression had changed no longer just surprised, but something more complicated, caught between disbelief and... being unprepared.
"Don’t joke," she said at last, her voice stiffer than she intended. She even let out a small laugh, but it sounded forced, hollow. "You’re not funny."
Ethan didn’t smile.
He simply looked at her calmly, as if he had expected that reaction from the very beginning.
"I’m not joking," he replied quietly, yet firmly. "How could I joke about something like this with you?"
That sentence shattered what little remained of Lena’s attempt to treat it as a joke.
Her smile faded.
Her gaze sharpened again but this time, not to test him.
To be sure.
"You do realize what I am, right?" she asked, her tone shifting—lower, more serious. "I’m not human."
There was no drama in her voice.
Just a fact.
A fact she had always used to keep her distance from others.
But Ethan didn’t hesitate.
"Whatever you are," he said without pause, "I don’t care."
The answer came too quickly.
Too certain.
As if he didn’t need time to think about it.
Lena frowned, taking a step forward without realizing it. "You don’t understand," she said quietly, but there was pressure in her voice. "This isn’t some simple difference. My life isn’t like a human’s. What I face, what I will go through it’s not something you can just follow."
Ethan listened.
But he didn’t step back.
"If I didn’t understand, I wouldn’t be standing here," he replied calmly. "I’ve seen enough to know your life isn’t simple. But that doesn’t change what I feel."
Lena fell silent.
His words didn’t try to persuade her in an exaggerated way.
They didn’t force anything either.
And because of that they felt more real.
"I don’t need you to understand everything," Ethan continued softly. "I’m not expecting things to be easy either. But I do know one thing I won’t walk away just because it’s complicated."
Lena kept looking at him, longer this time.
For the first time, she had no immediate answer.
No teasing remark.
No quick rebuttal.
Only a silence that slowly shifted into something she couldn’t quite define.
Outside, the wind blew again, carrying faint sounds from the camp that still remained.
But inside that conversation felt far more unsettling than anything happening out there.
Because for the first time someone had said something to her without fear.
The silence that followed hadn’t fully faded when Ethan finally took a deep breath, as if deciding to step further than just a confession.
His gaze remained fixed on Lena.
Unwavering.
Certain.
"Will you... be my girlfriend?"
The question came out just like that.
No beautiful phrasing.
No careful preparation.
And precisely because of that it felt honest.
Direct.
Impossible to misunderstand.
Lena didn’t answer right away.
She simply looked at him, her eyes narrowing slightly as if making sure what she heard was real. Her face no longer carried its usual teasing expression, but it didn’t offer an answer yet either.
A few seconds passed.
But to Ethan, it felt much longer.
He let out a quiet breath, then added, his tone a little firmer this time,
"I won’t give you much time to think," he said. "Answer now. Do you... want to, or not?"
Lena raised an eyebrow slightly.
"Why the rush?" she murmured, though her voice wasn’t as sharp as before.
Ethan gave a faint smile, but there was seriousness behind it.
"So I know how to act moving forward," he answered honestly. "I don’t want to stand in uncertainty."
That made Lena fall silent again.
But this time not out of confusion.
She understood.
For someone like Ethan, who had always seemed easygoing and undemanding, this kind of clarity meant something important.
Lena lowered her gaze for a moment. It was rare for her to hesitate like this. She, who always had an answer, who could always slip away so easily this time chose silence.
Then slowly she lifted her head again. And without many words she nodded.
A small movement.
But clear.
Clear enough to change something.
Ethan froze for a second.
As if he couldn’t quite believe what he had just seen.
"...Really?" he murmured.
But Lena didn’t take it back.
She simply looked away slightly, as if trying to hide something behind her usual composure.
"Yeah," she answered shortly.
That was all.
But for Ethan it was more than enough.
A smile appeared on his face, unrestrained, genuine. For the first time in days, his expression truly looked light.
He stepped closer.
Not rushed.
But certain.
Lena glanced at him again, as if realizing what was about to happen—yet she didn’t step back.
And when the distance between them disappeared Ethan kissed her.
Softly.
Not deep.
But enough to make time feel like it stopped for a moment. Lena didn’t react immediately. But she didn’t pull away either.
And that alone said everything.
On the other side of the room unnoticed by them Valerie stood at the doorway.
She hadn’t meant to eavesdrop.
But their voices carried clearly enough.
And what she saw now made her smile faintly.
For the first time in a long while that smile felt light.
"Wow..." she murmured softly, just loud enough to startle them. "Looks like I interrupted something."
Ethan quickly stepped back, a little startled, while Lena turned with an expression hard to read somewhere between annoyance and embarrassment, something rarely seen from her.
Valerie leaned against the doorway, still smiling.
"So this is what was going on all along?"
Valerie was still leaning against the doorway, the faint smile on her lips refusing to fade. It had been a long time since she last saw something so... simple not an argument, not tension, but a small moment that felt warm.
Her gaze shifted from Ethan to Lena, then back again, as if enjoying the way both of them had suddenly run out of words.
"So..." Valerie said casually, her tone clearly teasing, "all this time, I was just in the way, huh?"
