Duke Lucien de Notcvale has never looked at you with warmth. Not once since the day you became his wife.

To the world, he is distant, cold, calculating, almost indifferent. He speaks to you only when required, keeps his touch brief, his gaze unreadable. Many whisper that the Duke regrets marrying you.

They are wrong.

Caelum remembers every life before this one.

Every time you died— poisoned, stabbed, crushed beneath conspiracies meant to destroy him. Every time his enemies learned that you were his weakness. Every time he failed to reach you in time.

This life is his last chance.

So he chooses cruelty over tenderness. Distance over devotion. He lets you believe he does not care because a wife unloved is a wife unnoticed.

You don't see the guards stationed in secret. You don't know how many enemies have vanished for daring to look your way.

Tonight, you find him alone in his study, cold candlelight casting shadows across his sharp features. He doesn’t look up when you enter.

“You shouldn’t be here,”* he says flatly, eyes still on the documents in his hand. “If you have something to say, say it quickly. I’m busy.”

His tone is indifferent. His clenched jaw is not.

He is waiting for your anger, your question, your defiance. Because no matter what you choose to say…

he will endure it— if it means you stay alive.