After dealing with Daniel and Leo, Chloe didn't leave immediately. She stayed in the suburban villa, like an animal awakening from hibernation, sensing her own breathing and heartbeat again in absolute safety and tranquility.

A week later, she received an unexpected package from Julian.


It was a heavy, aged mahogany box. No card, no message.

Chloe opened the box to find the half-finished astronomical music box she had spent an entire summer crafting by hand in Julian's study when she was twelve. She remembered abandoning the complex project in frustration after a key gear was damaged, tossing it into a corner of the storage room.

She had no idea he'd kept it all this time.


Now, the lid had a visible crack, and the intricate brass mechanism inside was somewhat misaligned—clearly damaged during transport.

Just as she was lost in thought looking at this relic from her past, her personal phone rang. It was from that sole contact, "J".


"It's broken," Julian's voice carried a tone Chloe had never heard before—something close to pleading.

Chloe remained silent.

"I know you're preparing to leave," his voice lowered, with a barely perceptible trace of nervousness. "But before you go… could you help me fix it?"

He paused for a moment, then added, showing rare vulnerability:

"This is the only thing I ever 'took' from your father."

Chloe agreed.

The repair work required professional tools. She had to come to Julian's private studio in his penthouse—a place she had never visited before.

Unlike the secret gallery filled with suffocating obsession, this place was neat, bright, and filled with precision mechanical tools, aerospace models, and complex design drawings. The air carried the rational, creative scent of metal, leather, and fine wood.

They sat side by side at the enormous workbench, working on tiny components under the bright desk lamp.

The light illuminated only their focused hands that occasionally touched by accident, and the complex music box before them that carried too many memories. Everything else remained in darkness.

It was like a long, silent flirtation.

When they needed the same bottle of glue, his fingers would "accidentally" cover the back of her hand, then quickly withdraw as if burned.

When she needed a fine pair of tweezers, he would take it from the tool wall and hand it to her, his fingertips "coincidentally" brushing against her palm.

Each insignificant touch was like a tiny electric current, making the very air between them tremble.

During one operation, Julian accidentally got his fingers stuck with instantly solidifying industrial glue. His face—which typically remained unchanged even if mountains collapsed before him—for the first time revealed a trace of awkwardness and helplessness.

Chloe couldn't help but burst into laughter at the sight of him awkwardly trying to separate his fingers. It was her first genuine smile in a long time.

She didn't say anything, just naturally picked up the nearby solvent, dabbed it on a cotton swab, and then, holding his distinctly knuckled hand that was a size larger than hers, carefully wiped it for him.

Her soft, warm fingertips inadvertently rubbed back and forth across his palm and knuckles.

Julian's body instantly froze. He didn't watch her movements, but instead stared intensely at her focused profile, rimmed with a fuzzy golden edge cast by the light.

"Done," Chloe said softly, releasing his hand.

Yet he remained motionless, as if his soul had left him.

While repairing the critical gear structure, they encountered a problem. A bearing smaller than a grain of rice had fallen deep into the complex mechanical structure of the music box.

"My fingers are slender, let me do it," Chloe said.

She bent down, tilting her head, carefully inserting her delicate fingers into the dark maze of brass and springs.

This posture completely exposed her soft shoulder line and graceful back curve to Julian's view, without any defense.

Julian stood behind her. Ostensibly, it was to help steady the heavy music box and provide light with a handheld lamp.

But in reality, he was slowly, inch by inch, moving closer to her.

His breath, warm yet restrained, began to fall on the back of her ear.

His hand supporting the music box, under the pretext of "preventing it from sliding," lightly rested on the soft curve of her waist.

Chloe's body, which had been feeling for the parts, suddenly stiffened.

But she didn't pull away.

She simply stopped all movement.

The studio fell into a silence so profound that even breathing could be clearly heard—a dangerous, tension-filled quiet. She could feel his hand on her waist desperately restraining the impulse to tighten its grip.

In this suffocating stillness, Chloe slowly, very slowly, turned her head.

Her cheek almost brushed against his. The distance between them was mere inches. She could see her own nervously fluttering eyelashes reflected in his deep, unfathomable eyes that burned with a smoldering fire.

Julian, even more slowly than her, lowered his head toward her.

Just as their lips were about to touch, in the very second before contact—

"Found it," she said.

Chloe suddenly spoke, her voice carrying a hint of mischief that broke the spell with its lightness.

She held up her right hand, between her index finger and thumb was the tiny, metallic-gleaming bearing.

Then, she extended the index finger of her other hand with a slightly cold, mischievous touch, and gently pressed it against his lips that were just inches away, filled with desire and bewilderment.

Stopping him.

He gazed at her eyes that sparkled like a little fox's due to her successful prank, and at that sly yet irresistibly charming smile on her face.

Chloe removed her finger, and before he could recover from his immense disappointment and shock, she gracefully slipped out of his stiff embrace, returned to her workbench, and reinstalled the decisive component into the heart of the music box.

As if that extreme tension that could have stopped anyone's heart had never happened.

She turned the repaired spring.

Ding—dong—

A series of crisp, ethereal, celestial notes began to flow through the quiet workshop.

With the sound of beautiful music, Chloe turned her head to look at the man who was still frozen in place, manipulated by her at will, his face filled with frustration and helplessness.

She gave him a genuine, victorious smile.

Then, in a light, airy tone that was nonetheless capable of determining his future fate:

"Julian," she said, "the tickets to Tuscany… I haven't canceled them yet."