Hera’s carefullyposed expression began to crack—her lips twitching as theughter she’d been holding in wed its way to the surface. Across from her, Athena was already gasping, her face flushed from the effort of not wheezing out loud. She looked like she might copse from oxygen deprivation.


    It was a disaster waiting to happen. A single breath away from chaos.


    "Pft!"


    Athena almost choked trying to suppress herughter, but it still escaped in a snort. Hera immediately kicked her under the table—hard—which made Athena sputter and nearly choke on her own spit. But that only made it worse.


    Seeing Athena look like she was drowning in air, Hera lost it. Her hand, still raised mid-gesture to stop the man from speaking, began trembling as she burst intoughter. She tried to hold it back, she really did—but the sight of Athena wheezing beside her was the final straw.


    Across from them, the man stood frozen,pletely baffled and visibly deted. Was... was he beingughed at? Did he look like a clown to them?


    He had spoken to a woman with such carefully practiced charm for the first time—those iconic, "domineering CEO" lines that novels insisted made women weak in the knees. Well, their knees <i>were</i> buckling, but not from swooning. They were struggling to stay upright fromughing too hard.


    The realization hit him like a truck. The tips of his ears turned scarlet, and though every part of him screamed to walk away, his feet felt rooted to the spot.


    Utterly crushed.


    He had never taken an interest in women before—not seriously. They always flocked to him on their own. All he had to do was stand in the middle of a room and they would swarm him like moths to a me. It was predictable, repetitive, and ultimately boring. He never saw the point in pursuing anyone.


    But now? Now that he’d finally found someone interesting... a toy... but was he the one being toyed with instead?


    The man clenched his jaw, silently cursing his friends for ever suggesting those ridiculous lines were effective. This was his first time actually taking the initiative to approach a woman, and he’d ended up looking like aplete fool.


    Across from him, Hera was still wiping tears from her eyes, recovering fromughing her heart out. When she finally looked up at him, her smile lingering, something strange happened—his heart skipped a beat.


    She looked nothing like theposed, elegant figure he first noticed. Right now, she was bright, alive, full of unfiltered amusement. It caught him off guard. She was so different from the women of the upper circles—those polished, calcted types who only cycled through a handful of socially eptable expressions. Hera, in contrast, was real.


    And that made her even more dangerous.


    Maybe he had managed to catch her attention after all? He wasn’t sure—but at least now, Hera looked like she was finally ready to speak to him. Then he heard her voice—soft, melodic, and far warmer than her cool, indifferent tone from earlier.


    "I’m sorry, sir," she said with a gentle chuckle, "we weren’t trying tough at you. My friend and I just happened to remember something funny, and you walked in at exactly the wrong moment. We tried really hard not tough so you wouldn’t misunderstand... but it got the better of us. Please don’t take it personally."


    Hera offered him an apologetic smile, doing her best to salvage whatever pride he still had left. She truly hadn’t meant to mock him. After all, there were probably plenty of women who would swoon over the kind of confident, dominant lines he’d used.


    But the problem was... Athena had read far too many NovelFires—and shared every ridiculous cliché with Hera. Those lines had be a running joke between them. And until now, neither of them ever imagined they’d actually hear someone use them in real life.


    After hearing Hera’s exnation, the man still felt like something was off, but he could only nod, almost dazed, as his eyes lingered on her face. Then Hera continued, her tone calm andposed.


    "Thank you for the invitation, but my friends and I just came here to eat. It’s been a long day," she said with a polite smile. "Besides, we heard there’s a birthday celebration happening in the main hall. It would be inappropriate for us to attend without bringing a gift."


    As she spoke, her breathing gradually returned to normal, theughter finally subsiding. Meanwhile, Athena was still half-sprawled in her seat, clearly struggling not to burst out again. Hera refused to look at her—one nce at her best friend’s face, twisted with silentughter, and she knew she’d lose herposure all over again.


    Hearing Hera’s response, the man’s eyes lit up slightly, but he quicklyposed himself, slipping back into his usual poised demeanor.


    "It’s alright," he said smoothly. "You don’t need to bring a gift. Though it’s called a birthday celebration, it’s really just a social gathering for the upper ss to mingle and discuss business."


    "For foreigners like you, wouldn’tworking with influential people from another country be... advantageous in some way?"


    His tone had shifted—measured and persuasive, almost like he was pitching a business deal. Hera’s expression grew serious as she fell into thought. What he said wasn’t wrong.