Her lips part. Whether to slap me or scream, I don’t know. I almost hope for both.
But instead, she surprises me. “Fine.” Her voice is flint. “I’ll marry you. One year. That’s it.”
I freeze.
She folds her arms. “But I have conditions.”
Of course she does. The Kane princess never goes down without a fight.
“Let’s hear them.”
“One,” she says, holding up a finger. “My grandfather stays here. You pay for whatever upkeep he needs—staff, care, the works.”
“I already said I would.”
“Two,” she says, ignoring my quick agreement. “No touching or acting out the role when we’re in private. You may want to sell the fantasy, Vasso, but I’m not here to stroke your ego.”
I let my gaze fall, slowly, to her mouth. “Then I suggest you stop staring at my mouth like you’re thinking about stroking other parts of my body.”
Color blooms in her cheeks. “Do I have your word?”
I lean in. Close enough for her to feel the heat, not close enough to burn.
“I’ll agree to the first one,” I say. “But the second?” I let the pause drag. “We’ll see.”
She steps back like I strike her. “This is a mistake.”
“Maybe,” I say, letting the shadows of the chandelier slice across the marble floor between us. “But it’s one you make the second you sign that contract.”
“I hate you,” she whispers.
Good.
It’s safer that way.
“Perfect,” I murmur. “Because the feeling, Princess, is absolutely mutual.”
3
NAOMI
Idon’t cry when I sign my name next to his on the marriage agreement.
Or when the notary congratulates us like this is some fairy-tale union instead of a hostile takeover.
But the moment the front door closes behind the bespectacled stranger and the echo of his polite “best wishes” fades, I feel the whole house exhale.
Paintings of long-dead Kanes stare down at me with mute judgment, and the chandelier above trembles in the draft like it, too, senses the shift in ownership.
Vasso stands beside the marble console, sleeves rolled with surgical precision, his fountain pen still uncapped in hand as though he might pierce the paper a second time just to make the ink bleed deeper. He doesn’t look at me; he studies the signature, his lower lip caught between his teeth in a way that would seem almost vulnerable on any other man.
“Are you happy now?” I ask, voice scraping against the back of my throat.
He sets the pen down with a deliberate click. “Ecstatic.”
The word hisses through the foyer like acid. I cross my arms, robe sleeves whispering against skin still chilled from signing my freedom away. “You dragged me into this?—”
“Correction,” he cuts in softly, pivoting to face me. “You arranged the engagement announcement first. Your move, Naomi. I merely… accepted the invitation.”
