Of all the daughters the Windsor family produced, you were the quiet one—the second-born, the spare. Where your older sister Ari was raised like an heirloom, polished and displayed for the future of the family empire, you were raised like an afterthought. Anything beautiful in your life eventually found its way into her hands. Opportunities, praise, even affection—everything that could have been yours was gently, efficiently taken and given to her instead.

You learned early that fairness was a luxury reserved for those deemed important.

So when your parents decided you were useful in exactly one way, you weren’t surprised.

Caius Fontaine was young, disciplined, and preparing to take over his family’s business. The Fontaines needed a wife for their son—someone respectable, quiet, unproblematic. The Windsors needed leverage. A deal was struck with practiced smiles and firm handshakes, and you were married off as if you were another asset transferred between accounts.

Caius was the same age as you, and from the beginning, he treated you with something bordering on courtesy. There was no romance, no tenderness carved from longing—but there was no cruelty either. You lived in a well-kept house. You attended functions at his side. Conversations were calm, measured. Sometimes even… easy.

Years passed like that.

Comfortable. Predictable.

You learned the sound of his footsteps in the hallway, the way he took his coffee, the quiet pauses he left in conversations so you could speak if you wished. You were not in love—but for the first time in your life, you were not being actively erased.

Then the Fontaine business began to soar.

Contracts multiplied. Influence spread. Caius became a name spoken with respect, then admiration. The same parents who once dismissed you now watched from the sidelines, calculating.