Cassian held her gaze without wavering, and Cixi, though half-bewildered, could do nothing but return it. Silence spread between them, but his last words did not recede with it. They became even clearer.

Then he spoke once more, and this time there was no trace of jest in him at all. "Even before you were born, you were mine...." The heat that had already begun to climb in her sharpened at once.

’Mine?’

"Without the coin, you were mine, Without any contract, you were mine—You were always Mine." His voice had lowered again, sounding declarative and absolute. "And with or without your kissing contract, you remain mine still, Lousy Kisser."

The words should have resembled a confession.

But they were not. He was not offering his heart. He was asserting his claim over her. He did mention before when he had saved her from committing suicide when she jumped from the building rooftop, which he forgot, and yet when he said the same words, it felt more obsessive and possessive.

She wished to ask what he meant.

’Before I was born?’

What impossible history was he speaking of? What had happened before her existence could ever have crossed his path? The question arose urgently in her mind.

Yet when she tried to speak, her throat betrayed her. Her lips parted, but no sound came. Heat swept up from her neck into her cheeks and reached her ears with humiliating speed. She could feel it blooming all over her face once more...

Cassian gave the faintest scoff, though it was directed more at himself than at her. He had not meant to say so much aloud, and yet he had decided she needed to hear it all the same. "In these six months, you have been invading my dreams. A girl I thought I had never met came straight into the room, which was forbidden for anyone, standing in front of me and calling me her fiancee. Imagine my Surprise..."

’He saw me in his dream? How? Why? Is that possible?.... Was it his subconscious? Probably.... anything is possible.’

Cixi remuniated. And the biggest question — ’Why is he telling me all this?’

She couldn’t decipher his intention. However, another thought had already begun to stir in Cixi’s mind.

’This wasn’t entirely bad at all. Could this be the reason he never slept with another woman? Was it because he dreamed of me? What exactly did he dream about? Should I ask him, or would it be better to wait for another time? After all, I might faint from all the information Cassian had bombarded me with.’ 𝑓𝑟ℯ𝘦𝓌𝘦𝘣𝑛𝑜𝓋𝑒𝓁.𝑐ℴ𝓂

It was confusing for Cixi in its own twisted fashion. Perhaps this was a step towards what she needed? If he announced his obsession for her, then surely that meant something. Indeed, that meant she had not come to him in vain.

He had spoken with open contempt of clinginess and despised women who reached him too eagerly, and hoped from him more.

And now he sat before her, speaking of his obsession.

Was she truly his? How? Because of Debt?

She could neither rush forward nor retreat cleanly.

And all the while his words remained in her ears and were impossible to ignore....

You were always mine. The words rang again and again in her head.

Setting aside everything he had just uttered, Cixi latched onto the one detail she needed to clarify. If she didn’t get a direct answer now, her mind would spin it into a dozen different theories. Better to ask him directly.

"You said you made a mistake by looking at me. Then why didn’t you look away when you realised it? Especially when you saw I wasn’t happy about the whole situation of my no attire looks?" Her gaze wavered over his face, moving from one eye to the other as though the truth might hide in one more readily than the other.

"I couldn’t." He answered without missing a beat, causing her heart to skip a beat. "I couldn’t look away from you!"

The simplicity of it struck her harder than any embellished reply would have done.

The heat rose through her with alarming speed, as though midsummer itself had broken loose upon her skin. She looked away from him at once and fixed her attention upon the little coffee table before them, as if its polished surface might offer some distraction from the complications he kept pouring into her life.

Everything about him felt complicated!

Then again, when had any connection in her life ever been simple, save her friendship with Marion and Lily!

Before she could gather herself, Cassian spoke again. "Move in with me."

Her head snapped toward him. "What?!"

"I said, move in with me!"

The words seemed to linger in the air for several seconds before they fully found their place in her brain cells. When at last they did, the first question that came out of her mouth was not the one she might have wished to ask. "For a week?" The moment she said it, an unpleasant bitterness rose in her mouth.

Cassian simply stared into her curious eyes. Here he was, speaking of obsession, and there she sat asking whether he meant the sort of arrangement he gave to every other woman. For one rare instant, even he seemed at a loss as to how her mind travelled from point to point.

Then he answered with greater patience than she had expected.

"Move into my family’s so-called Palace," he explained. "Remain there as long as you please."

That did not help her confusion.

"You already declared you are my fiancee to them. That makes you family. If you live there, what happened yesterday will not repeat."

"No thanks! I am not moving anywhere. And on what basis should I stay? I don’t even have an engagement ring." She held out her hand and showed him the bare ring finger with offended force. "They might believe my words, but letting me move in?" She gave a short, incredulous shake of her head. "Impossible."

She remembered his father and his stepmother. She remembered how little care they showed when she announced that Cassian’s life might be in danger and he might have gone missing. If not for his cousin Emily, the family wouldn’t have even bothered looking. And not to forget, they were treated like an invisible person in the beginning.

"I don’t like your family," she stated bluntly.

"We share the same dislikes." A sardonic pride edged his tone.

Had the conversation ended there, it might almost have felt civil. Instead, Cixi, who had no intention of wasting what little ground she had gained, returned at once to the matter nearest her heart.

"How about the contract?" Cixi pushed the opening.

Cassian levelled a pointed look at her. "I already said it’s off the table."

"No, I need you to sign it."