I AM A MAGE BUT WITH MILF SYSTEM

Louisa held his gaze for a long moment.

The room felt smaller than it had a moment ago. The silence between his words and her response stretched itself out, and in that stretch she was aware of her own heartbeat in a way she had not been before.

Something was moving through her that she did not have a clean name for.

It was not quite anger and it was not quite anticipation and not even the cold strategic calculation she had walked in here wearing like armor.

It was something that lived in the space between all three of those things.

She stood.

Her movements were unhurried and graceful, because she refused to give him the satisfaction of seeing her rush.

She rounded the table and came to a stop directly in front of him, close enough that the hem of her skirt nearly grazed his knee.

She looked down at him.

“Is this what you wanted?”

Julian looked up at her, his expression still calm, but his eyes had gone dark.

“Not yet,” he said softly.

He let the silence hold for exactly one breath after that.

“Turn around.”

The air in the room seemed to tighten.

Louisa’s breath caught for a fraction of a second, small enough that she hoped he had not heard it, though some part of her already suspected that he had heard everything.

However, she too was not a simple person who would back down so easily.

Instead of obeying his command fully, she leaned back against the table and sat on just the edge of it. She then crossed her arms beneath her breast, which had the effect of pushing them upward, but her posture remained defiant.

“Since you are so confident,” she said, her voice smooth and measured, “tell me something. What exactly would I get out of this?”

She tilted her head slightly.

“Your humiliation?”

The question hung in the air between them with a pleasant kind of sharpness to it.

Julian looked at her for a moment, and then he smiled. He was genuinely enjoying this back and forth.

“Well,” he said, leaning back in his chair, “it was you who wanted to have this talk. Which means you already know exactly what you want from me. I am quite sure of that.”

Louisa held his gaze for a beat, and then she laughed.

“I am glad,” she said, once it passed, “that you are intelligent enough not to hide behind pitiful words. Most men in your position would have spent the last hour pretending they had no idea what I was after.”

Julian’s smile didn’t waver.

“Hmm… you are glad,” he replied, his tone almost teasing.

“Interesting. I had actually expected you to stand up and walk out of here. Make a scene in front of the entire duchy. Tell everyone that the young lord had spoken to his aunt in a way that was entirely inappropriate.”

Those words hit their mark perfectly.

Louisa’s arms uncrossed before she could stop them. The composed mask she had spent the last several minutes carefully reconstructing slipped, and what moved across her face was something raw and unguarded and entirely unplanned.

Her eyes had gone wide.

“You,” she said.

The word came out stripped of all its usual elegance.

“You…”

She straightened slightly from the table’s edge.

“How did you know that?” she asked, and her voice, for the first time since they had entered this room carried something very close to genuine unease. “Can you read minds?”

Julian laughed at that.

“Read your mind? No,” he said, still smiling. “I read your face, Aunty. That is all. You are far more readable than you believe yourself to be.”

Louisa sighed deeply at that and as if defeated leaned back against the table again. She ran a hand through her hair, pushing a few strands behind her ear as she tried to regain her composure.

The man sitting in front of her was way more cunning than her own husband. Liam was sharp, ambitious, and ruthless in his own way, but Kraven… Kraven felt like an entirely different level.

She looked at him for a long moment, studying his calm, confident expression.

“You really have changed,” she said quietly, almost to herself. “The Kraven I knew would have never spoken to me like this. He would have been too busy drooling or trying to hide his obsession. But you… you look at me like you already know exactly what I’m thinking.”

Julian tilted his head slightly.

“Maybe I do,” he said simply. “Or maybe I’m just good at reading people who are trying too hard to hide their intentions.”

Louisa let out another soft sigh, but this time there was a hint of reluctant admiration in it. She crossed her legs again, but this time the movement felt less calculated and more like a way to steady herself.

“Fine,” she said, her voice regaining some of its earlier confidence.

“You want honesty? Then let’s be honest. Yes, I came here to get close to you. To understand you. To see if I could… influence you. The delay in the King’s visit has created a mess, and my husband and I need to make sure our position remains secure. You have become too powerful, too unpredictable. You threaten everything we have built.”

She paused, her eyes locking onto his.

“But after what I have seen today… and after what you just said… I’m starting to wonder if seduction is even the right approach with you. You don’t seem like the type who can be easily manipulated with beauty alone.”

Julian’s smile remained, but his eyes darkened with interest.

“And yet here you are,” he said, gesturing at her revealing outfit and the private room. “Dressed like this. Waiting for me. Offering yourself so openly. If you truly believed seduction wouldn’t work, you wouldn’t have gone this far.”

Louisa was quiet for a moment. Then she let out a soft, almost self-deprecating laugh.