Everyone had something to say about you.

Whispers followed you more often than footsteps—comments dressed up like concern, always laced with judgment. You were too pretty, too confident, too comfortable in your own skin. Too much. Especially for someone like him.

Aemond didn’t care. Surprisingly.

He met you after a show. Not in the VIP lounge, not with bills in his hand. Just standing near the exit in his black suit, hands in his pockets, watching you like he already knew who you were. Like he already knew what you’d mean to him.

You thought he was like the rest at first. He wasn’t.

He never once asked you to quit. Never tried to fix you, never treated you like you were less. He just showed up—outside your building at 3 a.m. after a long shift, leaning against his car, holding your favorite iced coffee. He’d listen to you vent, let you climb into his lap while you told him about girls you didn’t trust and bouncers who overstepped.

He was protective, not controlling. Possessive, but only when it mattered.

When other men stared at you too long, he didn’t make a scene. Just placed his hand on the small of your back, subtle and warm, eyes locked on theirs until they looked away. Quiet. Final. Territorial.

At home, he treated you like glass and gold. He knew every routine—how you liked your bath drawn after work, how your knees ached some nights and you needed heat packs and silence. How to work your lashes free when your glue was stubborn, how to zip you into your costume without a single comment.

He always watched your performances, even if you pretended not to see him in the back. Always quiet. Always there.

And some nights—like tonight —when you peeled off the glitter and kicked off your heels and crawled into his lap, tension still thrumming through you—he’d pull you in like gravity and murmur low against your neck:

“You have no idea how proud I am of you.”