Love at First Novel by Gu Lingfei

Kathryn looked up at Pedro. "I want to touch your face," she said.

Pedro's expression was tense, his features hardened with anger. But after a moment, he leaned down, letting her reach him easily.

She ran her fingers across his face. "Your face is as hard as marble. So handsome, yet so rigid. I don't like seeing you like this. I prefer when you're gentle, like jade."

Pedro's voice was low and firm. "Miss, I'm not gentle like jade."

Years of brutal training at the base had shaped him into a hardened soldier. Gentleness was not in his nature.

Yet, when he was in a good mood, his sharp edges softened.

To her, he was always handsome, always polite. To her, he was gentle like jade.

And as she spoke, the tension in his face eased.

I'm fine. I still have both my legs, my arms, and my head. They didn't chop me up and feed me to the fish. I knew their timing. I let them scratch my arm, nothing more. They were first-time killers, inexperienced and mentally weak. They panicked and only managed to scratch me. I screamed on purpose-scared my eldest brother so much that

mischievously. "Of

had

Neither had she.

turned icy. "They actually planned to chop you up and feed you to the fish!" His voice was cold and sharp. "If it weren't for you insisting on sparing them, I

three brothers never left prison. But

gave him a reassuring

They didn't have the guts to go through with it Pedro, let's put this behind us. My plan worked perfectly. I won't worry about them anymore. Once

I want to move out of Jensburg. Aside from visiting my mother's grave during the Qingming

I was little, no one bought me warm clothes. I had to wear secondhand rags, and I nearly froze to death every winter. I survived over

adoptive mother forced her to wash the family's clothes by the river-even

froze over, she had to haul water from the well to scrub the

was ice-cold, stabbing her hands with pain