How had she survived it? Walking those halls each day knowing one misstep would trigger a minefield.
I pushed back from my desk and stood. Three years ago, I wouldn't have given the Darzi family a second thought. His attempt to bring me into his circle with business proposals hadbeen laughable. His offers of alliance—transparent attempts to leverage my family's resources for his own failing empire.
Then I'd seen her for the first time in a long while. She’d been standing at her father's side during the Aethelwald auction, her spine straight, eyes downcast, the perfect daughter in the perfect dress. It wasn't pity. Pity had no place in my world.
I'd made inquiries after that, making sure some got back to Darius.
I found out more about Selene Darzi than she probably knew about herself. Her education, her talents, her isolation. The men her father had considered for her hand. How many of them hadaccidentallybumped into her at charity galas orcoincidentallyoccupied the neighboring table at restaurants where she was forced to dine with her father's mistresses.
They'd all seen the prize. None of them had the nerve to claim it because her father threw more weight around than he truly possesed.
I'd agreed to dinner with Selene because I recognized the perfect opportunity when it presented itself. Her father, desperate to shore up his crumbling empire—had offered me exactly what I needed to position myself for what came next in Dominion politics. A beautiful, untainted bride with a pedigree that would legitimize my presence at the highest tables moving forward. On her end she’d handle the women’s social circle, our home, and one day our children.
The engagement announcement had gone out early and already sent shockwaves through Dominion society. Men who'd been curious about Selene for years would now face her across ballrooms and Dominion functions, forced to acknowledge that she belonged to me.
My decision to break off my previous engagement had been the right one. Danielle had been and utterly wrong for what I needed. Selene was different. She'd looked at me across thatdinner table atAzuredeciding whether I'd be her salvation or just another form of imprisonment.
She still wasn't sure.
I could see it in the careful distance she maintained during breakfast that morning and when we ate dinner together the night before, the way she weighed each word before speaking it. But she'd said yes. She'd let me kiss her—in the garden. She'd allowed herself to be moved from one cage to another. She slept under my roof, doors down from my room.
Sleep had abandoned me at 3 AM. I'd stared at the ceiling, hyperaware of her proximity. Near enough that I could trace the path to her door in my mind, yet distant enough to maintain an illusion of independence.
My sudden fixation burned through me like a fever that would only break when I possessed every inch of her—not just the curve of her neck where my teeth would leave marks of ownership, but the very marrow of her being until she forgot her own name and knew only mine.
I'd spent years surrounding myself with constant distraction to avoid confronting my own hollowness.
The intercom's harsh buzz pulled me back to reality.
"Sir," came Trevor's voice, " Ms. Rousseau has arrived." My security chief's tone carried the slightest note of warning.
I exhaled slowly. I knew this was coming. “Send her up.”
It took nearly ten minutes before there was a delicate knock, and Danielle appeared in my doorway, her composure as carefully arranged as her outfit. A flush colored her cheeks, whether from anger or faux heartbreak, I couldn't tell.
"I had to hear about your engagement from someone else," she remarked, her voice soft.
"Many people had to learn about my engagement from someone else."
"But I’m not people," she countered, brow creasing.
"Of course, you are."
She inhaled slowly, then moved deeper into the room. "Then it's happening? This marriage to her?"
"Hername is Selene."
Her eyes narrowed almost imperceptibly, a flash of something cold and calculating behind her perfect composure returned. "So this girl means that much to you already?"
"Selenewas inevitable from the first moment I met her,” I emphasized her name once again.
The corner of her mouth twitched downward before she could catch it. She studied me, silent and assessing. Then her voice dropped to a register she'd perfected years ago, the one that made men lean closer when they didn’t know any better.
"What about us? Our friendship?"
I sat back behind my desk. "Danielle—."
"Over twenty years, Alaric." A crack appeared in her composure, something raw bleeding through. "We've been in each other's lives since we were children. That has to count for something."
