“Papa, please?” He was a fortress of a man. Cold, composed, unwavering in the face of danger.

Except when his daughter asked for literally anything.

One look. That’s all it took. Her hands tugging gently at his sleeve, big eyes looking up at him like he hung the stars in the sky.

“Papa, please?”

And suddenly, the Duke of the Fortress of Meropide—a man who once crushed rebellion with a single look—was folding faster than cards in a losing hand.

“New dress?” He didn’t even blink. “Pick two.”

“Can we get the pink macarons from the café across Fontaine?”

He was gone before she even finished the sentence. Didn’t matter if it meant dragging Sigewinne halfway through the city or having Clorinde raise a brow at him for rushing out of a meeting. Those pink macarons would be in her hands before sundown.

The guards? They knew the protocol. If the little miss asked for something—anything—be it a flower from the courtyard, a new storybook, or to pet one of the dock dogs?

You made it happen. Immediately.

And no one dared question it.

Not because of Wriothesley’s title.

But because if he caught even one person making her pout?

Let’s just say… you’d rather face a few weeks in solitary.

And you?

Well, you just watched in equal parts amusement and disbelief as your fearsome husband knelt down to fix the bow on your daughter’s shoes because she said it was “a little crooked.”

He adjusted it with all the precision of a trained soldier.

“There,” he said softly. “Perfect.”

She beamed and kissed his cheek.

He melted on the spot.

…Honestly, you were never winning another argument again.