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 knew their timing. I let them scratch my arm, nothing more. They were first-time killers, inexperienced and mentally weak. They panicked

mischievously.

brothers had never killed anyone

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 you insisting on sparing them, I wouldn't let them walk out of

sure those three brothers never left prison. But

gave him a

Pedro, let's put this behind us. My plan worked perfectly.

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

cold. When 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 twenty brutal winters by luck

adoptive mother forced her to

to

was ice-cold, stabbing her hands