“I don’t—” My voice cracks. “I don’t know how to do this.”
“Do what?”
“Be someone who gets chosen.”
The words slip out before I can stop them, and something flashes in his eyes.
Pain.
Not for himself.
For me.
“You think,” he says slowly, “that you don’t get chosen?”
I nod, not trusting my voice, because if I try to explain it he’ll hear the whole pathetic truth. That I’ve spent my whole life being careful and quiet and invisible because that felt safer than wanting something and being told I wasn’t enough.
“Evianne.” He shifts, one hand leaving the bookshelf to cup my face. “I’ve been watching you since the moment you stepped out of that car. You shook my hand like I was a colleague instead of a title. You looked at me like I was furniture, and I have never in my life been so fascinated by being ignored.”
His thumb strokes my cheek, and the touch is so gentle it makes my chest ache.
“You organized a flawless exhibition in less than a week. You handled the calligraphy ambush with more grace than I had any right to expect. And then you ran across a frozen lake and dove into water that could have killed you for a child you’d never met.” His voice has gone rough. “Without hesitating. Without calculating. Without a single thought for yourself.”
He’s close enough now that I can see the flecks of darker blue in his eyes, the faint shadow along his jaw, the way his pupils have blown wide.
“You’re the opposite of invisible,” he murmurs. “You’re blinding. And the fact that you don’t know it only makes it worse.”
Don’t cry, Evianne. Don’t you dare cry while a duke is holding your face and saying the most beautiful things anyone has ever said to you.
“But I need to know one thing,” he says.
“What?”
“Are you willing to let me in?”
The question hangs between us.
He’s giving me a choice. An out. I could say no. I could tell him this is too much, too fast, too terrifying. I could push past him and walk out of this library and he’d let me go.
But.
I don’t want to.
I’m tired of running. Tired of hiding. Tired of making myself small and invisible and safe.
And so I hear myself say shakily, “Y-Yes.”
His eyes narrow. “Yes, you’re willing?”
I nod.
“Then say it.” His voice has gone rough. “I need to hear you say it.”
“I’m...w-willing.” The words come out stronger than I expect. “I’m willing to let you in.”
The smile that breaks across his face is the first real, unguarded smile I’ve ever seen from him. Not the calculated smirk. Not the teasing half-curve. But instead, a real smile, open and warm and devastating, and then—
Oh.
