Darn I thought he confessed. Apparently she was shocked for some other reason. I feel so duped.
Also all the males here are painfully one-dimensional. I wanted Ian to lose his pride finally but nah, the manga decided to pit the protagonist against all the otome game capture targets with the message of feminism so there's no way the males are gonna be nice people. I mean, if anyone is gonna criticise the dynamic of otome games, they usually choose to criticise the notion that a female unrealistically would try to capture all the male leads. This said that it's annoying for males to chase after a single female, because most of the time, random males trying to hit on you IS annoying. It's just...trying to make these males out to be the bad guys - and not even the likable kind...I, in my personal opinion, don't find it interesting. But it's just my personal taste I guess.