“I didn’t,” Remy said, his tone low and honest. His fingers brushed a lock of hair from my face. “I didn’t want to be with someone who couldn’t look at me without seeing it as a duty.”
He exhaled through his nose, eyes distant, like he was seeing a version of his life that never happened.
“I would never want my wife to feel like I was an obligation,” he said. “Any court marriage… it would’ve been for heirs. For legacy. Nothing more.”
He looked at me then, really looked.
“I want more than that.”
The silence between us deepened, heavy but not uncomfortable. Just full.
I didn’t know what I wanted. Not really. But I knew what his voice did to me.
And for a moment, I let it pull me back from the edge.
The door opened.
I didn’t lift my head from Remy’s shoulder; I didn’t need to. I felt Zander’s presence the moment it filled the room, distinct, stormy and laced with something rawer than anger.
His voice was cold steel. “Am I interrupting something?”
Remy didn’t move.
Didn’t flinch.
Didn’t even try to correct the assumption.
He just kept his arm around me, thumb still tracing slow, absent circles against the fabric at my back. And gods, part of me hated that he didn’t speak. That heletit look like something it wasn’t, or maybe something it could be.
“I didn’t realize we were past formal courtship,” Zander bit out.
Remy’s gaze finally flicked up. Calm. Dangerous. “You’ve never asked her for that, have you?”
Zander stepped fully into the room, shutting the door behind him with a heavyclick. “You left her.”
“And you have a fiancée,” Remy shot back. “Or did the betrothal contract magically go up in flames?”
Zander’s jaw tightened. “You know I don’t want to marry Inderia.”
“That’s not the same aswon’t.” Remy’s voice thickened. “You may not want her, but you stillmight, if the throne demands it.”
That shut the air between them like a slammed door.
I pulled away slightly, the tension cutting into my skin like glass. But neither of them looked at me.
Zander crossed the room in two long strides, fists clenched. “Don’t pretend you don’t know how this works. You had your contract annulled. Don’t act like you wouldn’t have married her if a deal hadn’t been made.”
Remy’s mouth pulled into a thin, humorless smile. “I would’ve married her because she needed protection. Not because I wanted to.”
Zander’s voice lowered, rough with something closer to pain. “You think I’m not trying? You think I haven’tlookedfor a way out? If you can get your contract dissolved. So. Can. I.”
That stopped Remy.
His expression flickered. Something unreadable settled there.Knowing.
“You’re hiding something,” he said quietly.
Zander said nothing.
