“Umm…” I murmured when I felt the heat of his body against my back. I bit my tongue before I said any unnecessary things. That was close, I almost told me that we were so close to each other. “Don’t panic. You’re doing very well,” he whispered close to my ear from behind encouragingly. I could feel his warm breath tickling my ear as I felt the heat of his body press up against my entire back. His strong arm looped itself around my waist and pulled me even closer to him. With his urging, the horse began walking forward. The feel of the beast moving beneath me felt new and exciting. “Wow…” I murmured in awe. “Enjoying yourself already?” he asked before he laughed softly close to my ear. My body stiffened a little when I remembered how close our bodies were. His arm remained around my waist and whenever he spoke to me, he leaned his face very close to mine and my shoulder. I could smell the faint scent of roses from his body whenever I took in a deep breath. He smells so dreamy… “Should we go a little faster?” he asked. “Ahh!” I let out a cry of surprise when the horse sped up into a jog at his urging. “Don’t worry, I won’t let you fall…” he whispered softly against my ear. I turned to see his face right in front of mine. The reflection of my face in his sunglasses showed that I had a funny expression of surprise on my face. He smiled reassuringly at me before he urged the horse into a gallop. I could feel each step that the horse took along with the rush of the cool wind in my hair. With him by my side, I didn’t feel scared at all. Instead, I was beginning to enjoy myself. My lip curved into a wide and bright smile before I started laughing. For a moment, I forgot all of my troubles as my mind and spirit focused on enjoying the ride with him and the horse. After a while, we returned to the stables again. That was such an enjoyable experience, and I didn’t want it to come to an end. However, just like they all say, all good things come to an end. The man got off the horse first and then helped me down. To my surprise, instead of taking my hand, he held the sides of my waist before lifting me down from the horse. My eyes widened for a brief moment before my feet reached the ground again. I stood right in front of him where he had placed me. “You did well, little girl. Did you enjoy yourself?” he asked with a bright smile. “Yes, I did. I enjoyed it so much. Thank you…” I thanked him wholeheartedly. “Tomorrow, I’ll teach you how to ride,” he said it like a promise. “Really? Thank you so much…” I thanked him excitedly. I think it was at that moment that I felt a little closer to him. Unlike before, our conversation started to flow, and I didn’t have such a hard time responding to him. His closeness still made my heart beat wildly in my chest and his smile still made my heart skip a beat. Maybe staying too close to him is going to be dangerous for me. With his promise, I was already looking forward to tomorrow. I didn’t remember the last time when I sincerely looked forward to tomorrow. It wasn’t common in the life that I lived for me to have something to look forward to. Maybe things will change for the better from now on. … Several days passed by eventfully like this with me meeting up with him at the stables. I didn’t slack off completely from my work and made sure that I worked on cleaning the stables. The one who seemed to be doing anything but work was the man himself. “When are you going to be done?” he asked while sounding bored. I scooped some hay into the pile before I heaved a sigh. The maid dress that I had on was clearly not designed for this much labor work in mind. I was already sweating from my exertion. The truth was that I wanted to finish cleaning for the day as fast as possible so that I could continue with my riding lesson with him. “Soon…” I replied before I turned to flash him a smile. “Maybe you really should let me help you…” he said before he sighed loudly. I knew that I was being nonsensically stubborn about refusing his many offers to help me; however, I just felt bad for letting him help me out with everything. Honestly, having him here to keep me company helped me quite a lot already. On top of that, he was taking his time to teach me how to ride. I didn’t know how learning how to ride was going to benefit me because I probably won’t have a chance to ride after I get staffed on other jobs. After all, I didn’t own a horse and I knew that they were extremely expensive. “It’s fine. I’ll be done soon. You can work on your work for the time being,” I replied. “No, thanks…” he muttered. I glanced over at him as he rolled onto his side on a haystack while using his arms to shield his eyes from the light. After spending a couple of days here with him, I have not seen him work on anything at all. Because I refused to let him help out too much with my duties, he spent time lazy around on the haystack while he played on his phone. Sometimes he would even doze off. Just watching him lazing around improved my mood immensely. Suddenly, his phone started ringing. The man reached for his phone without any rush before he glanced at the screen. After that, he threw his phone into the haystack without a care. “You’re not going to get that?” I asked curiously. “I’m not in the mood for calls…” he replied without bothering to explain any further. He flipped from lying on his back to his stomach. Since he was wearing his dark sunglasses, I had no idea if he had his eyes opened or not. I decided to leave him alone to concentrate on finishing my work. His phone continued ringing until the caller gave up. --To be continued…