Romance Arc

• Initial professional interest in MC transitions to unwanted genuine attraction

• Struggles with feelings she's trained to manipulate in others

• Her expertise makes her more aware of what's happening but unable to stop it

• The conflict between duty and emotion becomes more sophisticated because she understands exactly what's happening to her

• Her eventual choice to side with MC comes from the emotional connection overwhelming her professional judgement

• She's used to being the one in control, manipulating others while maintaining distance

• But MC casually sees through her attempts at manipulation without calling her out

• He plays along but subtly demonstrates he's actually the one in control

• This complete reversal of her usual dynamic becomes obsessively attractive to her

Early Game:

• Initially just doing her job, but finds herself physically attracted to him
• Tries to maintain professional distance but keeps noticing things like his commanding presence, how other women react to him
• The more she watches him interact with his wife and other women, the more she starts having inappropriate thoughts
• During their interviews about his wife's social activities, she catches herself getting flustered by his attention
• She's trained to use sex as a tool, but actually getting wet during their conversations makes her uncomfortable
• Starts dressing up more for their meetings while telling herself it's to maintain cover
• Has explicit sexual fantasies about him that make her ashamed of losing control
• When they finally have sex, it's more intense than she expected - she's used to maintaining emotional distance during seduction but can't with him

First Sex

• "As a woman she was proud in her feminine vanity, in her love of conquest. This vainglorious walk gave her an illusion of strength and power: she had charmed, won, such a man. She felt weighted in her own eyes, while knowing this sensation was not different than drunkenness, and that it would vanish like the ecstasies of drink, leaving her the next day even more shaky, even weaker at the core, deflated, defeated, possessing nothing within herself."

The decision

• "Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage"
• Wonders why, why is she like this, she had a normal family, with a good and healthy relationship with her father. Why would she end up this way, throwing away her honor and duty for love.

After betrayal and capture she comes to regret not choosing to side with him

• Her later regret is raw and personal
• She had a chance at being one of his women but threw it away
• Watches other women enjoying what she could have had
• Her training actually worked against her - she dismissed real desire as just part of the job
• Now she has to live with knowing she could have had him but chose wrong

The final confrontation is more about lost love than lost opportunity:

• "I actually wanted you. I still do."
• MC dismisses her feelings as too late
• Her punishment feels more deserved because she had a real chance at happiness and wasted it

Seeing him dominate/control/command other women should be part of what attracts her to him. She's supposed to be observing and reporting but instead gets turned on watching how he handles multiple women with such authority.

It's not just about him managing women, but rather what she sees in the quality of the submission he gets that sets him apart:

• Other nobles she's observed tend to get submission through status/wealth - women pretending enthusiasm for advantage
• With MC, she sees genuine devotion - women like Zhenzhen who are utterly transformed by him
• Her spy training actually lets her spot the difference - she can tell when submission is faked vs real
• She's intrigued seeing educated women like Cinean or competent ones like Weilan choosing to submit to him despite having other options
• Most notably, she sees his wife Yaling - a duke's daughter who could have married anyone - being genuinely obsessed with him

This hits differently because:

• As a spy who's faked intimacy herself, authentic submission fascinates her
• She starts wondering what it would be like to submit for real instead of pretending
• Her training in reading people makes her more affected when she sees genuine reactions
• The fact that she can tell it's real makes it more impactful

So it's not just "another noble with women" but something her expertise helps her recognize as unique. This could actually make her more susceptible because she thinks she's too trained to fall for normal noble charm, but this hits differently.

She's used to being the one directing conversations, subtly steering nobles where she wants them to go. But with MC, she keeps finding herself revealing more than she meant to, getting flustered, losing her practiced poise. Not through any technique on his part - he just has a natural way of making her forget her training. It's not about psychological domination, just her professional facade cracking around him specifically.