Personally, I love that he gave her a nudge, and SHE ran with it. The point of this story isn't the boring ass "Powerful ML saves helpless victim of a heroine", it's about a woman that was abused all her life and instead of therapy she got slightly hotter and power and knowledge that SHE can use to get her OWN revenge. She couldn't do it without him, but this is HER revenge. It suits his purposes at the same time. They're clearly catching feelings, but they're both focused on the wrong part of each other. His obsession with "creating" her, and her worship of him as a god.
Personally, I love that he gave her a nudge, and SHE ran with it. The point of this story isn't the boring ass "Powerful ML saves helpless victim of a heroine", it's about a woman that was abused all her life and instead of therapy she got slightly hotter and power and knowledge that SHE can use to get her OWN revenge. She couldn't do it without him, but this is HER revenge. It suits his purposes at the same time. They're clearly catching feelings, but they're both focused on the wrong part of each other. His obsession with "creating" her, and her worship of him as a god.