CHAPTER 142: CHAPTER 141. A NEW LAIR

Sarah only told one other person about her departure: Amber. They didn’t meet or anything, however; Amber left the mansion after the whole Mason debacle to avoid seeing her mother and calming her. Sarah simply told her through the text, including the matter to support Vivian and kicked the third wife out.

Amber merely replied with [We’ll see], but that was already good enough. Sarah didn’t really care whether Amber and Vivian would team up for sure, but the idea of it stressed out the third wife was enough to make her forget the pain in her leg during rainy days.

Yes, it was a rainy day when Sarah left the mansion. The day when she usually stayed at home because her bad leg would start to throb. But on that day, there was nothing she wanted to do more than leave the bitter memory behind. She had destroyed the last remaining memory of her mother in that suffocating house, so there was no more reason to stay.

Perhaps destroying that one last attachment brought relief to her leg because she could barely feel the pain the whole time she was at the hair salon.

Another thing she couldn’t wait to get back: her hair color.

"Hmm...this feels a bit weird," Sarah narrowed her eyes at the reflection in the mirror, tucking her hair behind her ear. "It had been a while since I had this color."

Hajin, who always opted to wait for her instead of doing something else, was even quieter than usual. His eyes never left his princess as if he was trying to learn how to take care of her hair in the future.

Sarah knew that wasn’t the case, though. She looked at the keen grey eyes through the mirror, tilting her head. "You like it that much?"

Hajin smiled as he reached out for the strand of black hair that had grown past Sarah’s shoulder, bringing it to his lips. "It’s the color you have when I first saw you," he murmured against the black lock.

"Stop flirting," Sarah turned away to free her hair from the bodyguard’s hold and hid the blush on her cheek. "Let’s go and see our new place."

Hajin chuckled, savoring the word ’our’ rolling out of his princess’s lips. He held her waist and softly pecked her reddened cheek--which he almost never did, the aggressive Casanova that he was. Sarah threw him a sharp glance, but she didn’t pull herself away from him or the hand holding hers.

Her leg wasn’t hurting, and neither was her heart. The sky was gloomy, but not the new home they came into.

Well, it was new for them. The place itself was an old one, although the management had made a renovation and done some maintrnance in the past five years of its vacancy. Sarah, however, asked for it to be left just as it was as much as they could.

Especially the master bedroom.

Standing at the door of the master bedroom, she took a deep breath, as if she could still inhale her mother’s perfume. Naturally, there was no trace left. The management had cleaned the place so it was habitable again, airing it and putting on room fresheners. The place smelled of anti-bacterial floor cleaner and reed diffuser. It smelled good, but still left Sarah in dismay.

As her eyes landed on the neat, unused bed, Sarah wanted to step in and jumped there the way she did in the past. While she had her own designated room in the unit, Sarah always slept in her mother’s bed, inside her mother’s warm embrace. She could only stay overnight once a month, so she didn’t want to waste it by sleeping in a different bed.

But Sarah felt like she would drown in nostalgia if she stepped further into that space, so she took another deep breath and closed the door. Of course, there was nothing wrong with filling herself with nostalgia, but Sarah was also afraid she would be curling up in sadness at the end of it. Even as she heard the door click, her heart was still throbbing in pain.

"We need to buy more groceries," Hajin’s voice pulled her toward the kitchen, where the bodyguard had been busy putting everything in place.

They didn’t bring much from the annex--just personal belongings and tech items--so the house felt a bit empty. Hajin, however, did not want to skimp on sustenance, and they had a whole afternoon shopping for kitchen appliances, utensils, as well as groceries. It took them only one journey to bring up their personal belongings, but three just to fill the kitchen.

Perhaps he should open a restaurant for real--Sarah thought. "Do that tomorrow," Sarah rolled her eyes at the bodyguard’s unsatisfied expression. "We ought to eat black bean noodles when we just moved to a new place, don’t you know that?"

Hajin narrowed his eyes. "And how do you know that?"

"Mari told me," Sarah chuckled, still remembering the girl’s sulky face when she left that morning. "Anyway, just call a delivery place or something for now. Are you seriously going to cook today when we still have stuff to tidy up?"

"Shouldn’t our first meal here come from our own kitchen?" Hajin pursed his lips, grumbling. Sarah couldn’t help but laugh that a bodyguard, who was a former agent of menace, would get sulky just because he didn’t get to cook.

But Yonghwa was right: sulky men were cute. "I want to eat it, so pick a place and make the order," she pointed at the bodyguard, narrowing her eyes. "I want fried dumplings and sweet-sour shrimp too."

Hajin grumbled about how he could make it for Sarah if he had the ingredients, even though he still opened the food delivery app and made the order. Anyway, Sarah didn’t want to wait for Hajin to make a noodle from scratch, so he didn’t have a choice in the end.

Once he placed the order, Hajin went to the bedroom--the other bedroom that Sarah was supposed to sleep in when she stayed overnight. When he saw her figure, crouching in front of the suitcases to move her clothes to the wardrobe, Hajin no longer felt displeased about ordering food.

If he stayed in the kitchen to cook, he wouldn’t be able to see this scene after all.

Leaning against the door frame, he watched quietly as the princess looked at her clothes in confusion. Which one should be folded? Which one should be hang? The girl’s scrunched up nose told Hajin she was in deep thought. Over arranging her wardrobe.

Sarah might pack a mean punch and act like an agent of chaos sometimes, but she was still a princess who usually left this kind of thing to the house staff.

But she wouldn’t live with any house staff from then on, so she had decided to start doing some chores--even if it was only taking care of her own clothes.

Hajin might still be bound by a contract to ’serve’ her, but they were also...lovers, weren’t they? Didn’t seem right to have him do everything for her like before, as if she were still his master.

Or so Sarah thought. Chores didn’t seem so hard when she saw Hajin do it around the annex, but...why was it so hard making folded clothes to stay neatly on the shelf? Why did they wobble to the side like the Tower of Pisa? Why didn’t the sheet look as crisp as the hotel one? Why did the corner look chopped when she took it in?

And why did no one tell her that dishwashing was a treacherous field? How did Hajin do it so fast when the dishes became so slippery after she put the dish soap in--

"Don’t laugh!" Sarah pursed her lips when she saw Hajin press his lips and lower his head. His shoulder shook from holding it back, but he couldn’t keep it in when Sarah was hissing at him.

It was Sarah who declared she would clean up the dining table and wash the dishes after their meal, in exchange for Hajin taking over arranging her wardrobe. He knew he shouldn’t laugh at someone trying to do something for the first time, but...his princess was just too adorable.

"I’m sorry, I’m sorry..." Hajin laughed again and came to the sink. He stood behind the fuming and embarrassed princess, holding her hands to guide her. "I’ll help you, okay?"

"I--it’s not like I can’t do it..." Sarah mumbled in fluster as the bodyguard caged her from behind. She had no idea why her heartbeat spiked just from that, even though she was used to Hajin’s flirting at that point.

She tried her best to listen to the bodyguard’s instructions, but she found herself focusing more on his voice behind her ear instead of what he was saying. How weird! Why did her heart and body act like a maiden again all of a sudden?

The answer came when Hajin suddenly whispered in her ear, right after he led her hand to put all of the washed dishes on the drying rack. "Feels like newlyweds, don’t you think?"

Sarah bit her lips. "You said the same thing not long ago, at the hotel."

Hajin smiled against Sarah’s shoulder, hand traveling from her arm to her waist. "But a hotel room is different, isn’t it?" Hajin whispered behind the flaming ear, pressing himself onto the girl’s back. "A hotel room is not our place."

Sarah could feel the heat behind her, whether it was from the lips caressing her nape or the hardened member pressing her bottom. The heat that traveled to her own body and flamed little sparkles all over her skin. She inhaled sharply in reflex, her back arched slightly and made their body pressed even harder.

Ah...was it because they hadn’t been doing it for a while?

Hajin chuckled softly at the adorable reaction, kissing the flushed skin of her nape while sneaking his hand beneath her loose shirt. Just as his fingers grazed the waistband of her denim shorts, Sarah gripped his wrist tightly, prompting Hajin to stop his move.

"Ah..." he stiffened in concern. "Sorry, you’re not in the mood after...all?"

Hajin blinked when, instead of chucking his hand away, Sarah led it down. Slowly, sensually, until it reached the space between her legs. She led the bodyguard’s other hand to her chest while taking a deep breath, making her whole body lean into the touch.

And moaned.

"Ngh..."

Hajin had to hold back from ramming his princess into the kitchen table that second. He let out a sound that was a mix of a growl and laughter.

"Ah...it really feels like a newlywed’s lair."