Aug 18, 2025 Celeste The servant barely finished speaking before I was moving. "His Majesty requests your immediate presence in his private council chamber." My heart jumped. Immediate presence meant trouble. The room was dim when I entered, empty except for him. He sat behind his mahogany desk, silver threading through his dark hair in the lamplight. I found myself staring at the line of his neck before I could stop myself. He didn't rise. Didn't offer the courtesy due to a princess. Instead, he gestured to the chair beside him-not across from him, but beside. "Sit." Too close. Every instinct told me to keep the desk between us. But I'd learned the cost of defying him. I sat, arranging my skirts with practiced grace. The space between us felt charged, dangerous. "You dislike me," he said without warning. I blinked, caught off guard. "I don't know you." "But what I do see, I don't particularly admire." The words slipped out before I could stop them. His lips almost smiled. The expression softened his face for just a moment. "You think I'm cruel." "You are cruel," I said, steadier than I felt. "You humiliate me in court. Call me barren without saying the word." His jaw tightened. Something flickered in his eyes-pain, maybe. "I say what must be said." "No." I leaned forward despite myself. "You say what hurts the most." Silence stretched between us. I could hear the clock ticking, servants moving in distant halls. But in this room, there was only us and the dangerous pull I felt toward this man who'd made my life hell. "Why me?" I whispered. "Why do you hate me so much?" His eyes shifted away. For once, he didn't answer immediately. His fingers drummed against the desk, rings catching the light. When he finally spoke, his voice was barely audible. "Because you remind me of everything I should've had. Everything I don't deserve." My breath caught-not from the words, but from the grief in them. The raw honesty that made my chest ache. "You don't even know who I am," I said. "That's the problem." He looked at me again, his gaze intense, searching. "I know too well." The air between us crackled with something I couldn't name. Something that made my skin feel too tight, my breath shallow. I watched his eyes drop to my mouth for just a second before he jerked his gaze away. He stood abruptly, straightening his coat like armor. "There's a masquerade tomorrow night," he said, voice carefully controlled. "The Venetian ambassador's celebrating his daughter's engagement." I nodded, confused by the sudden change. "I'll attend with Renard." "No." Something in his voice made my pulse quicken. "You'll find yourself alone on the balcony at midnight. Near the rose garden." I stared at him, mind racing to understand what he was asking. What he was offering. "This conversation never happened," he added, eyes never leaving mine. "Of course not," I said quietly. "Nothing between us ever does." When the door shut behind me, I walked blindly to my chambers, legs unsteady. Only when I was alone, door locked, did I allow my composure to shatter.