"You’re overthinking things, aren’t you?" Austin uttered softly as he placed his hands on her smooth shoulders.

Strangely enough, Rowena didn’t say anything about it, and neither did she swat his hands away.

Instead, she simply replied to his question. "I have to. It’s one of the duties that comes with being a Countess."

"Well, I believe your people wouldn’t want to see their Countess getting sick from working too hard."

"That won’t be happening."

"You can never know, and that’s why I believe you need to give yourself a break."

"A break?"

"Yes, three days, just you and me. We’ll spend the whole time doing whatever you want, and I could give you a massage as well if you’d like."

"A massage? What’s that?"

"Oh, you don’t know about it?"

"No, I don’t."

"Good. Then I guess you’ll have something to look forward to."

"You’re saying it like this massage is going to be really something good."

"Just to be clear, it isn’t food."

"It isn’t?" Rowena looked up with a puzzled expression that made her look extremely cute.

If she were Nora right now, Austin would have definitely rained kisses on her lips, but since she wasn’t, he could only smile as he shook his head in response.

"No, it isn’t. So you should definitely wait and look forward to it."

"But what about Nora?"

"Of course, Nora is my wife, so she comes first. That means I’ll be pampering her for three whole days, and then maybe on a fourth day, we could all go on a picnic together. After that, we’ll spend three whole days together doing whatever we want."

"A picnic?"

"Yes, I’m thinking of treating you and my wife to some special meals. We could go on a picnic or something like that and just spend the whole day laughing, playing, and eating. What do you think?"

Since Austin’s cooking talent had ranked up from Rank F to Rank E, he had developed a really refined sense of culinary skill that could easily rival the best chef in not only Rowena’s mansion but across the kingdom as a whole.

And Austin couldn’t wait to impress the ladies with his special cooking.

"So what do you think?" He asked, and Rowena replied.

"It sounds fun, but are you sure about that?"

"Of course I am. I’ll spend three days with my beautiful wife as a way of thanking her for staying by my side these past five days. I just want to use those three days to pamper her and show her how much I appreciate what she did for me."

"It’s the same reason I want to do the same for you as well. You’ve been a really good friend, and I don’t believe anyone else could have done what you did, much less just a business partner."

Austin added. "And if you’re worried about Nora, I’ll tell her about it, and I’m sure she would want her friend to stop working so hard and just take some time to relax and have fun."

"But I can manage that on my own, so you don’t have to....." Rowena replied, but Austin swiftly cut in.

"You and I both know that if you were to give yourself three days of rest, you wouldn’t actually be resting and might even return to work as early as the first day." 𝘧𝓇ℯℯ𝑤ℯ𝘣𝓃ℴ𝓋𝑒𝑙.𝑐𝘰𝑚

"That’s not..." Rowena wanted to protest but immediately swallowed her words, because she recalled giving herself a day off in the past.

But after just two hours of resting and doing nothing, she had returned straight to the pile of scrolls waiting on her desk.

"Y-you’re right."

"So does that mean you agree to spend three days with me?"

"Y-yeah."

"Good. I can’t wait to show my friend my massaging and cooking skills." Austin replied as he happily continued massaging Rowena’s shoulders softly.

Although he had zero experience giving massages, he was hoping his efforts would be enough to show Rowena just how much he cared about her not overworking herself.

So if his technique wasn’t enough to impress her, Austin could only hope his cooking would more than make up for it.

Meanwhile, Rowena didn’t really mind about his technique at all.

All she felt was warmth in her chest, because she could feel how genuinely worried Austin was about her and how he wanted to ease her stress in his own little way.

She also saw no problem in giving herself a few days to feel refreshed.

Who knew, it might just be what she needed to clear her head and think more carefully about the affairs of her territory.

Anyways, pushing all of that aside for now, Rowena couldn’t deny how good it felt to have Austin doing what he was doing, even though it might just be considered a makeshift technique to what a professional could actually do.

Speaking of which, Rowena suddenly recalled something very important and called out to him.

"Austin?"

"Yes?"

"It’s about our initial contract."

"Oh."

"Do you know that the terms of our agreement expired three days ago?"

"Yes."

"Well, I’ve been thinking about it a lot recently. With everything that has happened, starting from the products sold over the last six months to how you even managed to brew a variant of the potion, the pills played a huge role in our increased income as well, and your dedication and work rate showed just how hardworking you were within that small workspace. So, taking all of this into consideration, I want you to know that I would be more than happy to renew our contract for a longer term, if you wish."

Rowena continued. "If you want, I will be happy to provide you with a larger and more spacious workstation, along with a larger number of people willing to work for you."

"Don’t worry, you’ll get to keep the secret of your potion making limited to yourself, just as our initial contract stated, but this time I feel it’s only fair for you to have a larger share of 70% of the earnings, rather than what we initially agreed six months ago. What do you say? Is that good enough for us to continue working together?" Rowena asked with a smile on her lips.

But to her surprise, she suddenly felt Austin’s hands pull away from her shoulders.

She turned around to see a very serious look on his face.

Since he had arrived to see her today, this was the first time Austin hadn’t been smiling, and Rowena couldn’t help but ask in a worried tone.

"Is something wrong?"

"I’m sorry, Rowena, but I’m not interested in signing another contract with you."