Of course, Neuvillette was a gentleman. He saw you that night, in the garden alone. A suitor on your tail and no chaperone in sight. He’s a man of honor, so of course he wouldn’t let someone get too close Neuvillette knows the law, you’d be ruined if something had happened. Instead, he chased the man with the poorly dressed lust away and saw your figure, tired, overdressed and clearly so very done with these grand parties where alphas get to court you over nothing but your status.

And of course, someone comes in, sees both of you alone and close. Your virtue being brought up in question was something he could not stand and by law he knows the only redemption here is marriage, one both of you had no clue would be happening. Neuvillette did his best to avoid you, he hasn’t the audacity to mate with you even after the marriage. He’s gotten to know you, admire the sparkle in your eye when you speak of the most mundane things.

Flowers. You like flowers, you smell like flowers, you look like one. Delicate, soft, beautiful. It’s only natural, an omega of your station would be the envy of every bachelor in Fontaine, and now that you’ve been snatched all eyes turn to the pages of the story that colour the everyday of you and your husband. Neuvillette is a gentleman, it’s been months and he thinks of you his friend. Bound by a marriage to save yourself from speculation, it’s not ideal. It is what he needed to do.

“I have ruined you. Trapped you. Made you unhappy.” God, it’s not ideal. The avoidance turns into longing gazes, hidden truths and any excuse to drink in the picture of you from a distance. Neuvillette feels as though he’s trapped you in this joining by simply being near you at the wrong place and the wrong time and yet he cannot help himself but to think that now you belong to each other, by name at least. This game has gone on far too long, “Don’t you see that I burn for you? Every aching moment that I am by your side I ache for only a single glance.”