"A letter has arrived for you, my lady," Merilyn said.

I checked the sender of the letter to see that it was from Veronica. 'She sent one so soon. Did she have something to say to me?' I removed the wax seal and opened the letter. The contents of the letter were filled with descriptions about the unfair treatment she had received from Mikhail, such as him seeing multiple women at once. She ended the letter by expressing her worries for me, saying that Mikhail was abnormally obsessed with me.

'Mikhail… this man should be punished by the heavens.' I let him go until now because of what I had done to him in the past, but I was aware that he was seeing multiple people at once. 'It was more like he was managing his personal relationships so that he could use them whenever he needed them, but even that made me distressed.'

Reading her letter reminded me of my foolish past. For some unknown reason, I felt a bitter taste in my mouth and started to crave something sweet. 'Should I ask Matthew to bake me a cake? But the one at the tearoom was better than what he makes…'

My worries were cut short.

"Merilyn, could you get me ready to go out?"

"Yes, my lady. I'll help you change into new clothes first."

After she finished helping me change, she started to make her way towards the door. "Please wait here for a moment. I'll report your outing to the butler," she said.

"Okay."

'He should be here tomorrow since he's not here today, right?' I thought with a smile when she left. Since I was going out anyway, I was thinking about buying Max a cake as well, when my thoughts were interrupted by a tapping sound at my window.

I stiffened slightly. 'It's not a pigeon, is it?' I nervously thought as I crept towards the window. I peeked out and sighed in relief when I saw Max's familiar face. 'I told him to use the door like a normal person, but he came by this way again.' As soon as I undid the latch, he entered the room.

"Welcome," I greeted.

"Are you going somewhere?"

At that moment, I heard Merilyn's voice come from outside the door. "My lady, everything's ready."

My gaze flitted over to Max at those words. "Good timing. I was going to go get some cake. Let's go together," I offered, thinking that he would accept since he was someone who ate multiple slices of cake by himself. But instead of answering me, he gazed at me with a stiff face.

"I have something to say," he soon spoke with a low voice.

I nodded, thinking that he was going to say some nonsense like he always did, but my eyes widened at the words that came out of his mouth.

"Something came up and I need to take care of it."

I raised an eyebrow at the phrase 'take care of,' and asked if it was related to his job, which was something I had been thinking about since we first met. "'Take care of…' as in mercenary work?"

"It's similar."

I wanted him to deny my suspicions, but he meekly confirmed them. I flinched with fright at the thought of him possibly getting hurt. "Is it dangerous?" I asked.

He turned his gaze towards me and shook his head. "I don't engage in fights I might lose in."

In short, it meant that he didn't take on any difficult tasks. Seeing as how my life motto was to live safely, I sympathized with his words. "Good thinking. There's no need to push yourself into doing dangerous things."

At my words, he gently stared at me. "I'm afraid I won't be able to come by for a while because of this," he softly muttered.

In retrospect, I was glad that I had clearly stated 'In case of either party's absence, the employer and employee are obliged to report their locations to each other' in the contract, seeing that he had come to report his absence to me. If it were anything like the past, he would have left without a word. 'By a while… he probably means a few days, right?'