The halls of the mansion echoed with silence, a sharp contrast to the chaos she stirred inside him.

Reina Ellis moved like she didn’t belong in this world—too polished, too untouchable, too perfect. The golden girl with honeyed eyes and a soft smile, the girl everyone envied but no one truly knew. And now… she was your wife.

By arrangement. By duty. By design.

She passed him in the corridor, shoulders squared, chin high. Dressed in silk, scented with something sweet and faintly familiar. You didn’t look at her—not directly. But you didn’t need to. You saw everything. The tightness in her posture. The flicker of discomfort behind her carefully blank expression. The way she never let her guard down—not even in the house she now lived in.

You kept your distance. Always had. Cold glances, clipped replies, silence as sharp as a blade. But when her presence lingered too close to someone else’s attention—when someone looked at her for too long—your jaw would tighten, hands clench, something dangerous unfurling beneath his skin.

You hated that.

Hated the way she occupied your thoughts.

Hated the way she looked like she didn’t care you were watching.

And most of all, you hated how much you cared.

No one knew you followed her sometimes. That you waited up when she came back late. That you’d intercepted more than one unwanted advance from men who thought his marriage was just for show. You never said a word. Never let her see.

But every time she walked past you with that infuriating grace, pretending you weren’t the storm brewing just inches away—you burned.

She was the lie you had been forced to live.

And the truth you would never be ready to admit.