A week later, Connor and Joslyn met at the courthouse.

The entire process went by quickly.

By the time they had gotten married, Joslyn was still in a daze.

Connor's voice came from beside her. "Let's go to your apartment and move your things."

Only then did it truly hit Joslyn. She was married to Connor now. From this day on, they would live together as husband and wife, sharing the closest kind of relationship possible, yet she barely knew anything about him.

Where he lived. What habits he had. What he liked or disliked. She knew none of it.

The driver remained silent throughout the ride. Joslyn and Connor sat in the back seat with about an arm's length of space between them.

"This is Damien Stevens, one of my assistants." Connor motioned toward the man sitting in the passenger seat. "If you ever need anything, you can contact him directly."

Damien turned slightly and gave her a polite nod. "Nice to meet you, Mrs. Newman."

Joslyn answered awkwardly, still uneasy hearing the title.

Her apartment was inside a renovated old building. The three-story building had ivy spreading across the outer walls.

"I live on the third floor," Joslyn said as she stepped out of the car.

Connor got out after her and told Damien to wait downstairs.

The hallway was narrow, and the motion sensor lights blinked on one after another as they walked. Joslyn took out her keys and unlocked the door, painfully aware that Connor stood only half a step behind her.

The cool cedarwood scent around him lingered close.

The moment the door opened, the small studio apartment came into view. The space felt warm and carefully arranged. An off-white sofa sat beside natural wood bookshelves, while watercolor paintings and architectural sketches decorated the walls.

Past the south-facing floor-to-ceiling windows was a tiny balcony where freshly washed clothes hung drying in the breeze, along with several pieces of lace lingerie.

Joslyn's face burned red at once.

She rushed over to pull the drying rack inside, but Connor caught her wrist gently before she could move it.

"I'll do it."

Connor reached up and started taking the clothes down. His long fingers moved carefully as he removed each delicate piece from the rack.

Lingerie, sleepwear, one after another, all neatly folded into the woven basket beside him.

"Actually... I can handle it myself," Joslyn said quietly.

Connor didn't even look up. "Isn't helping his wife with things like this part of a husband's job?"

He said it so naturally that Joslyn suddenly became aware of how fast her heart was beating.

After finishing up on the balcony, Connor slowly looked around the small apartment. His eyes moved across the bookshelves, lingered briefly on the unfinished sketches spread across her worktable, and then stopped at the armrest of the sofa.

A scarf had been tossed there carelessly. It was a classic men's style.

Connor walked over and picked it up. "His?"

Joslyn was sorting through the books on the table when she looked over. "Yeah. Brandon's."

Connor folded the scarf neatly in half, walked to the trash can, and dropped it inside.

The scarf landed cleanly in the bin.

He turned back toward her. "Mrs. Newman, you shouldn't keep things that belong to your ex."

He wasn't wrong, and Joslyn knew that, but something inside her still tightened unexpectedly.

It wasn't because she still loved Brandon. It was because those six years, good or bad, had been part of her life.

Connor seemed to catch the change in her expression and walked closer. "Still can't move on?"

"It's not like that." Joslyn shook her head. "I just suddenly feel stupid."

"What's stupid about it?"

"I really thought love was enough to cross the gap between social classes." Joslyn let out a quiet laugh at herself. "I stayed beside the man who wore that scarf and believed it'd all work out somehow. Turns out I was just fooling myself."

She turned away from him and kept packing.

Clothes, books, painting supplies, cosmetics...

She didn't own much, and before long, everything had been packed into two suitcases and one cardboard box.

Connor rolled up his sleeves, grabbed the heavier suitcase from her, and lifted the cardboard box with his other hand. "You don't need to carry anything. I'll come back for the rest."

Joslyn wanted to tell him she could manage on her own, but Connor had already walked out with the luggage.

Before today, this man had been someone far beyond her reach. He was the powerful head of the Newman family, a figure people only talked about from a distance. Yet now, he was somehow both her husband and the one helping her move.

By the time they got downstairs, Damien had already opened the trunk. Connor placed the luggage inside before turning back to Joslyn. "Aside from the last suitcase upstairs, is there anything else left?"

Joslyn suddenly remembered the bathroom. "There are still some clothes in the bathroom. Bathrooms get damp easily, and if they stay too long, they'll probably grow mold. I plan to sell this apartment later, and cleaning mold would be troublesome."

The humid southern climate was well known for that kind of problem. Clothes left in damp places too long could grow mold, and sometimes even mushrooms.

"I'll get them." Connor turned and headed back upstairs.

Joslyn instinctively moved to follow him, but Damien stopped her politely. "Mrs. Newman, please get in the car first. Mr. Newman can handle it."

Connor pushed open the bathroom door. The space was small, but everything inside was spotless and neatly arranged.

An electric toothbrush and skincare products sat beside the sink, all clearly belonging to a woman. A lavender towel hung beside the mirror with several pieces of clothing draped nearby.

His eyes moved calmly across the room before stopping at the shelf in the corner.

A man's dress shirt.

Connor's gaze darkened slightly.

Even though he knew Joslyn and Brandon had never lived together, seeing another man's clothes inside her private space still felt strangely irritating, like something sharp pressing slowly into his chest.

Without a word, Connor grabbed the shirt in one hand, crumpled it up, and tossed it into the trash can where the scarf was.

He turned on the faucet and washed his hands. Cold water ran over his fingers, but it did nothing to cool the irritation buried beneath his calm expression.

Joslyn and Brandon's history was real. Connor had known that for six years.

But hearing about it and seeing traces of it with his own eyes were two completely different things. He'd already waited long enough.

When he returned to the car, Joslyn immediately noticed the change in his mood.

"What's wrong?" she asked.

Connor kept his eyes forward. "Nothing."

But it was obvious something was bothering him.

Joslyn thought about it for a second before realization suddenly hit her. "Did you see something upstairs?"

Connor said nothing, which was answer enough.

Joslyn's chest tightened at once. What had he seen in the bathroom? Then she remembered. The shirt.

Brandon had come by last week before an important meeting after spilling coffee on himself.

Her apartment was close to his company, so he'd stopped by to shower and change clothes.

Joslyn explained quietly, "It was just an accident. He spilled coffee on his shirt and came over to change. He forgot to take it with him afterward..."

Connor's voice turned colder. "You don't have to explain anything. I'm not interested in whatever happened between you and him."

But the tight line of his lips and the slight crease between his brows made it obvious he meant the exact opposite. He was upset.

A strange feeling slowly stirred in Joslyn's chest.

But why?

"Mr. Newman," Joslyn called softly.

"Hm?"

"Are you upset?"

Connor finally looked at her. "No."

"You are," she said firmly.

Connor looked away again. "If a husband finds another man's things in his wife's apartment and realizes that man once stayed there overnight, it'd be stranger if he felt nothing."

Joslyn paused for a moment before speaking quietly. "What Brandon and I had was real, but we've never spent the night together. Not even once."

For six years, Brandon had stayed loyal to Clare in his own way. He and Joslyn had hugged and kissed, but they'd never crossed that line.

"I know." Connor looked back at her.

But knowing didn't mean he could ignore how he felt.

Joslyn didn't know what to say after that. What exactly did he even know?

The car entered Laurel Mansion and eventually stopped in front of a villa by the lake.

With landscaped gardens and a private swimming pool, the massive residence looked exactly like the kind of luxury estate Joslyn had only imagined before.

"Do you usually live here?" Joslyn asked.

Connor led her inside. "I'm away on business most of the year, so I rarely stay in Dafson. But now that we're married, I'll come back more often."

Joslyn's heart skipped unexpectedly.

More often? Then that meant...

As though he'd read her mind, Connor said calmly, "Your room is on the second floor, right beside mine. Don't worry. Until you're ready, I won't force anything between us."