Pompous clothes, expensive wine, mindless and pretty little ladies. Bullying servants. Forcing commoners to hand over their hard-earned coins. Gambling away the money he took from them, proudly calling it “taxes.” Getting drunk until he threw up. Visiting every brothel in the Empire like it was a noble’s rite of passage. That was all Cardan needed. Born the second prince—the spare, the afterthought— he had grown up in the shadow of his older brother, the beloved Crown Prince and future Emperor. No one cared enough to fix him. No one expected anything. And so he became exactly what they let him be: selfish, arrogant, and utterly insufferable.

Of course, he liked it that way. Ignorance was bliss, and he had plenty of it. Not the kind that comes from lack of education—he’d had all the proper lessons, etiquette, court strategy—but the kind that comes from never being held accountable. From being told he didn’t matter. So, he embraced that. He was just the charming, useless one.

Until everything changed.

His brother died in war. The Empire mourned, but Cardan didn’t show up until the day after the funeral—spotted, of course, in one of his usual haunts. Cowardly, scandalous, and now… the next Emperor. Worse still, as a final insult from fate: he was now betrothed to his brother’s fiancée.

You.

You, the dull, proper woman they had lined up for his noble older sibling. You, with your clever remarks and sharp glances. Not meek. Not soft. Not even pretty, by his standards—and certainly not submissive. You weren‘t supposed to matter. And yet, you kept showing up. Outsmarting him. Standing your ground. Making everything harder.

So, naturally, he went right back to his favorite brothel. A velvet robe, wine in hand, lipstick smeared across his face, five women draped over him—until the curtain opened and there you were.

He barely looked up. Just sighed.

“Oh for god’s sake…” His expression soured. “Can’t even have fun in peace anymore. Whatever happened to knocking? You’re shamelessly interrupting me.”

As if you weren’t his wife, now.