Page 117 of King of Ruin

"Yes."

The smile on her face grew slightly as the memory replayed in her mind.

"When I saw him again, he told me that things would be easier if we actually got to know each other instead of treating it like an obligation." She paused, her eyes softening. "Then he asked me to move in with him."

She looked down, a quiet fondness appearing in her expression.

"And that's how I started living with him."

For a moment, she seemed lost in the memory.

"I honestly thought it would be difficult," she admitted. "It was a family arrangement, and he had made it obvious from the beginning that he wasn't happy about it. I thought he would keep his distance. I thought I would always have to be careful around him, worried that I would do something wrong or make him regret agreeing."

She gave a small shake of her head, almost amused by how wrong she had been.

"But then I realized..."

Her voice softened.

"He wasn't actually as cold as he looked."

A soft smile spread across Elise’s face as the memory surfaced, and a quiet laugh slipped from her lips.

“When I first came here…” she began, her gaze drifting somewhere far away, as though she could still see those days playing out in front of her, “Xavier used to smoke a lot.”

Astrid watched her silently, noticing how different Elise looked whenever she spoke about him. There was no resentment in her voice.

“One day, I was talking to one of the maids. She was throwing away a bunch of empty cigarette boxes, and I casually mentioned that I really didn’t like the smell of smoke.”

Elise smiled faintly.

“I told her that the smell would linger everywhere, and I didn’t like how it made the house feel.”

She shook her head slightly.

“I wasn’t complaining to Xavier. I didn’t even know that he had heard me.”

A small, amused smile touched her lips.

“But after that day, he stopped smoking inside the house.”

Astrid’s expression changed slightly.

“He did?”

Elise nodded.

“Yes. And later, he stopped smoking in the office too.”

Her smile deepened as she remembered.

“It wasn’t something he ever mentioned. He didn’t come to me and say, ‘I stopped because you don’t like it.’ He just quietly changed it.”

She looked down at her hands, her fingers lightly intertwining.

“That’s how Xavier is. He makes you think he doesn’t care because he never says anything. But if you pay attention… you realize he’s always paying attention.”

A soft laugh escaped her.