Himelda marched down the corridor of the estate, her eyes flashing with fury. Her heels clicked sharply against the floor, a rapid, aggressive rhythm that echoed off the ceilings. She was still trembling with rage from her confrontation with Dorrent in the study, her mind racing with dark thoughts of how to dismantle his sudden, insane obsession with the slum-born herbalist.

As she neared the wing that led toward the family bedrooms, she spotted a statuesque figure clad in an elegant nightgown, carrying a robe over her arm.

It was Joanne Moscow.

Joanne was walking with her head down, her beautiful features twisted into exhaustion as she headed straight toward the far end of the hallway—the wing reserved entirely for temporary visitors and distant relatives.

Himelda stopped, her brow furrowing in immediate displeasure. "Joanne?" she called out, her voice sharp but laced with a sudden, protective concern.

Joanne startled, her shoulders tensing as she slowly turned around to face the lady of the Grefo family. The bright overhead chandeliers caught the faint, watery glint of unshed tears in her eyes, though she quickly tried to mask her vulnerability behind her usual poise.

Himelda stepped forward, her gaze tracking the nightgown draped over Joanne’s arm and then shifting toward the corridor leading to the guest rooms. "What on earth are you doing out here at this hour? Why are you heading toward the guest room, Joanne? You are Dorrent’s fiancée. You should be staying in his room, sleeping in his bed."

Joanne let out a bitter, exhausted sigh, her fingers tightening around the fabric of her robe. She shook her head slowly, defeat washing over her beautiful face. "I just moved out of his quarters to give him space, Mother Himelda," Joanne confessed, her voice dropping into a tight, wounded whisper. "Besides... Dorrent clearly doesn’t look like he appreciates my presence or my staying over much in his room. Every time I am in there, the air feels completely freezing. He treats me like an absolute stranger."

She took a ragged breath, her chest heaving underneath her gown as the humiliation of the past three years spilled out. "Let’s be honest with reality. If it had not been for my parents asking me to move in here to cement this alliance, I wouldn’t have come to this mansion at all. I have my own pride. But under his roof, whenever I try to touch him or get close to his body, he recoils as if I am plague-ridden. I feel like complete trash to him."

"Oh, sweetheart, absolutely not," Himelda stepped in instantly, her expression softening as she reached out and firmly grabbed Joanne’s hands.

Inside her mind, Himelda’s panic spiked. She couldn’t afford to let Joanne leave Dorrent’s bed. If Joanne moved out permanently and reported this rejection to her parents, she wouldn’t stand the fall out. She needed to anchor this elite girl to her son by any means necessary, completely overriding Dorrent’s insane obsession with the gutter rat.

"You must not worry about his moods, Joanne," Himelda assured her, her voice tightening with commanding maternal authority. "Dorrent is just under immense executive pressure running the technology monopoly. He does not hate you at all. You shouldn’t distance yourself from him right now. That is exactly what a man like him wants when he is stressed—to hide in his cave. Come with me."

Without giving the young woman a chance to argue, Himelda tightly gripped Joanne’s wrist and began pulling her back down the hallway, marching directly toward Dorrent’s master wing. "Follow me right now. We are heading straight back toward Dorrent’s room. You belong in his suite, and you must stay there tonight. Do not let his cold attitude push you out of your rightful place as the future mistress of this estate."

Joanne stumbled slightly as she was dragged along, her face twisting into a look of anxiety. "But Mother Himelda, please... it really seems like Dorrent doesn’t want me there at all," she pleaded softly, trying to pull back against the older woman’s iron grip. "He literally made up a ridiculous excuse about a blinding headache just to get away from my physical touch. Forcing myself into his quarters will only make him snap at me again."

"How will he ever get used to your presence when you keep running away to the guest wing every time he gets moody?!" Himelda snapped back, not slowing her pace for a single second. Her eyes burned with an unbending resolve as she guided Joanne up the grand staircase. "The two of you are supposed to be getting married very soon!You need to stay together, breathe the same air, and sleep in the same bed so he realizes you are a permanent part of his reality. A man must be trained to accept his wife."

Himelda dragged Joanne around the corner of the corridor, fully intending to throw the bedroom doors open and force her son to embrace his fiancée.

But the moment they stepped into the master hallway, they both froze.

The corridor was not empty. Just a few meters ahead, standing directly outside the door of Jannah’s quarters, was Dorrent. His frame was towering over the threshold, his hand raised as he knocked authoritatively on the wood.

Himelda’s blood instantly boiled. Her face turned a dangerous shade of crimson as she realized her son hadn’t spent a single second thinking about his duties or his elite fiancée. The moment he left the study, his feet had carried him straight back to the door of the slum rat.

"Dorrent!" Himelda roared, her voice booming through the quiet hallway like a sudden thunderclap.

Dorrent paused, his knuckles hovering just an inch away from Jannah’s door. He slowly turned his head, his eyes swamped with a piercing indifference as he watched his mother approach, dragged along with a thoroughly embarrassed Joanne. He didn’t lower his hand, his body remaining firmly planted right in front of the herbalist’s sanctuary like an immovable guardian.

Himelda marched straight into his personal space, as she let go of Joanne’s wrist and confronted him face-to-face.

"What on earth do you think you are doing out here, Dorrent?!" Himelda demanded, her voice rising into a furious hiss. "Why are you knocking on this specific door when you should be resting inside your own room?!"

Dorrent looked down at his mother, his jaw locking into a hard, rigid line. "I am only going to check on Jannah’s welfare, Mother," Dorrent delivered flatly, his voice a rumble. "I need to see how her body is recovering."

"You shouldn’t be worrying about some miserable, slum gutter rat at all!" Himelda shrieked, her composure completely fracturing as she gestured wildly toward Joanne, who stood a few feet back, looking thoroughly mortified. "Look at who is standing right here in front of you, Dorrent! You need to pay undivided attention to your soon-to-be wife, Joanne! She is the one who deserves your care, your warmth, and your presence! Not some common servant from the bogs who doesn’t even belong in this sector!"

Dorrent’s eyes flicked over to Joanne for a a second, his expression remaining a flawless, unreadable mask. He didn’t say a word to his fiancée, his silence acting as a brutal, crushing weight that made Joanne lower her gaze in humiliation.

Seeing her son’s total, icy disregard for the elite girl, Himelda stepped even closer, her eyes widening with a threatening, vindictive light.

"Let me warn you right now, Dorrent," Himelda whispered harshly, her teeth clenched in exasperation. "If you continue with this disgusting, obsessive habit of hovering around this maid’s door, I will take matters into my own hands. The moment tomorrow morning arrives, I will have Jannah transferred out of this mansion permanently. I will have her dumped at Damian’s charity clinic in the slums, where she can rot with the rest of her kind!"

She let out a mocking scoff, glaring at the closed bedroom door behind him. "In fact, I honestly wonder why on earth Jannah is even receiving medical treatment in my house in the first place! This is not a public hospital for penniless vagrants. She should have been thrown out the second she collapsed!"

"She is receiving treatment here because she is a registered worker in this mansion, Mother," Dorrent barked back, his voice dropping into a dangerous register. His S-tier Alpha dominance flared up, his fists clenching inside his pockets as his possessive instincts completely took over his brain. He wasn’t about to let his mother touch a single hair on Jannah’s head, let alone banish her back to the gutters where his rivals could capture her. "Therefore, under my rules, she is like a part of this family’s responsibility."

He took a slow step forward, completely crowding his mother’s space as he delivered the final facts. "Besides, she has no one else to watch over her body down in the slums right now. Her grandfather is currently confined to a health facility because of his severe amnesia."

"I don’t care about her pathetic grandfather, and I don’t care about her loneliness!" Himelda screamed back, completely unmoved by his defensive arguments. "A slum girl is a slum girl, Dorrent! She is a domestic nuisance under this roof, and she should be out of here soon, the very moment her body gets slightly better! I will not tolerate her presence polluting this wing for another week!"

Himelda grabbed Joanne by the arm again, pulling the quiet girl forward until she was standing directly between herself and Dorrent. She glared at her son with coldiness that brooked no defiance.

"Take your fiancée inside your room right now, Dorrent," Himelda commanded . "Forget about that filthy girl next door once and for all!"

Dorrent stood rigid, as he looked down at the two women. A smile touched his lips—a smile completely devoid of warmth.

"I didn’t send Joanne out of my room, Mother," Dorrent delivered coldly, his carrying a mocking edge that made Joanne flinch beside him. "She had been the one who chose to pack her things and leave. If she wants to sleep on the floor of the guest wing, that is her own personal choice."

Himelda’s face twisted into an explosive rage at his lack of empathy. She took a deep breath, her eyes locking onto his handsome, arrogant features with a chilling, ominous directness.

"You should watch out very carefully how you treat her, Dorrent," Himelda delivered in a whisper. "Because if the Moscow family finds out their daughter is being humiliated for a gutter maid, they will tear your technology empire apart brick by brick... and I will gladly hand them the matches."