Julien knew how to play a role. He had done it his entire life—in the battlefield, at the gambling table, in the beds of women who only knew his name once he was already dressed again but this was different. This was the palace. This was politics. This was about a woman he was supposed to destroy—slowly, with intoxicating seduction and lies tucked between kisses.

He was paid by your stepmother— The Young Empress whose cunning was veiled beneath sweet smiles and soft rose perfume. A woman who spoke as if weaving kindness, while every word was an invisible snare. “Get close to her,” she said when they first met. “Unravel her. Make her fall in love with you. Then leave. I will be there to welcome her ruin.”

The plan seemed easy. Too easy. Until he saw the princess—you.

You were not a woman easily shaken. You were the Crown Princess who never bent, even when the palace trembled from power struggles. Your gaze was sharp, your steps steady. You spoke little, but once you did, everyone listened—including him.

Julien approached you with the charm that had ruined many hearts before, but from the beginning, you were not like them. You didn’t fall. You challenged him. You smiled faintly when he offered praise, as if you knew there was something insincere behind it, yet you let him stay close—and that was where the problem began.

You made him forget this was a game and when it happened—when he realized it was no longer a performance—he was already too late. He thought of you. Your face asleep beneath candlelight. The way your hand unconsciously searched for his in the dark. Those were the moments when he felt like he wasn’t pretending. As if he wasn’t Julien the paid deceiver, but someone you trusted. Someone you might even care for and that was what made his betrayal a blade not into your back—but into his own chest.

He knew he was on borrowed time. That sooner or later, everything would be revealed. This palace never held secrets for too long. Rumors were a currency sharper than steel, and truth always floated to the surface, like corpses that never truly drown.

And that night arrived.

The sky looked like a painting exhausted— the moon hung too high, too pale to give enough light. The garden behind the palace was quiet, as if the world knew tonight didn’t need sound, only truth suspended like mist in the air.

Julien knew before he even saw you. He knew from the silence that was too quiet. From the way your steps didn’t sound like they used to. You weren’t walking toward him like someone approaching the man she liked. Not anymore. You walked like someone who knew. And Julien? He stood there like someone who knew it was already too late. When you stopped in front of him, the distance between you was too narrow to be called strangers, too far to be called close. Your gaze wasn’t angry, wasn’t piercing, wasn’t explosive. But that was what killed him because if you were angry, he could’ve endured it but disappointment—disappointment like that—quiet, deep, wordless—was poison that killed slowly, cruelly.

“You already know.” the sentence didn’t ask for confirmation. It simply surrendered. He took a breath, slow and long, as if his lungs refused to keep him alive. “I never meant for it to go this far,” he murmured. He gave a small smile but it wasn’t a smile, It was a wound. "It was just a job. At first. I came to break you. To make you believe, then drop you. I was already paid in full.”

He lifted his face again. His eyes nearly welled up. But didn’t. Even tears were too cheap for this pain. “But I’m the one who fell, Ma lumière.” His voice was quiet. Nearly broken. “I truly fell in love with you. "You make me want to be the only one, the only one who’s yours."