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.

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 he dropped the kitchen knife." Pedro was speechless. With a flick of his fingers, he tapped her forehead. "Miss, do

sparkled mischievously. "Of

her brothers had never killed

Neither had she.

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

make sure those three brothers never left prison. But Kathryn didn't

gave him a

My plan worked perfectly. I

out of Jensburg. Aside from visiting

we go? I want to live somewhere warm. Jensburg is freezing. Last night, I thought 'd die from the cold. When I was little, no one bought me warm clothes. I had to wear secondhand rags, and I

a child, her adoptive mother forced her to wash the family's

froze over, she had to haul water from the well

winter water was ice-cold, stabbing her hands with pain