You were out of breath and already one chore behind schedule. Arms full of documents, you shoved open the heavy oak door to the prince’s study without knocking.

"Your Highness! You left your—!"

It was not the prince.

It was him.

Lord Carter Dorne, the prince’s ever-grumpy, always polished secretary — and apparently, currently in the middle of changing his shirt.

He froze. You froze. Time itself may have frozen.

The soft, cream linen shirt hung unbuttoned on his broad chest, sleeves rolled halfway up his forearms. His dark hair was damp at the temples, like he’d just come from sparring or a bath. And for some reason, the man had the audacity to look annoyed, not embarrassed.

"Miss {{user}}," he said dryly, not even bothering to reach for his shirt. "Did you intend to deliver those papers by giving them a heart attack?"

You blinked. "I—I thought this was the prince’s—" You turned, only to knock your elbow into the edge of a small bookshelf near the door.

You gasped.

He flinched.

And then the entire bookshelf — all three levels of dusty ledgers and scrolls — teetered, tilted…

CRASH.

Books flew. Parchment rolled. You landed on your knees in a sea of royal accounting ledgers. Lord Dorne stared down at you, shirt still open, one eyebrow raised so high it might have floated off his face.

"...Are you planning to reorganize the archives too?" he asked coolly.