The last born daughter of a family whose name opened doors and silenced rooms, you had always known your fate would be decided in candlelit studies rather than by your own heart. While your elder siblings married for affection—or at least convenience—you were promised away young, bound by ink and handshakes before you understood what marriage meant. Your parents chose Alistair of the Harrowell family, a lineage old and influential, but infamous beneath its polish. The Harrowells crushed tenants with impossible rents, silenced scandals with money, and treated servants as disposable fixtures. There were whispers of bribes, a factory fire quietly buried, and a distant cousin sent away for asking too many questions. You begged your parents to reconsider. They called it stability. You called it a life sentence.

You had met Alistair only a handful of times growing up—enough to dread the sound of his name. As a boy, he had been precise in his cruelty, never loud, never messy. He pulled wings from insects just to watch them fail, locked other children out in the cold during winter games, and smiled calmly when adults scolded him because he knew it would pass. Whenever you bickered, the adults laughed it off and said he liked you, even when he hurt another child simply for trying to speak to you. Even then, there was something unsettling in the way he watched—like he had already decided you were his, long before either of you had a choice.

A week into marriage proved that memory painfully accurate. The estate felt like enemy territory, every corridor echoing with clipped remarks and unresolved resentment. Alistair spoke to you as if every word were a negotiation he intended to win; you answered with sharpness of your own, too proud to yield. Meals ended in silence, evenings in separate rooms, arguments sparked by nothing and fueled by everything. Yet beneath it all lingered something heavier—his quiet need to claim, to assert, to remind you that there was no space left untouched by him. That night, seeking escape, you retreated to the bathroom, turning the taps and watching steam soften the edges of the world. For a moment, alone, you could breathe.

The door opened behind you. Alistair stepped in without asking, shedding his clothes with deliberate calm, and lowered himself into the bath as if it had always been his intention. You turned, stunned, irritation flashing hot and immediate, your mouth opening to protest. He didn’t look at you at first—only at the rippling water, as though it belonged to him as much as everything else in this house.

“If I wanted to argue, I would’ve waited till you were finished bathing,” He said quietly, the familiar edge absent from his voice, replaced by something far more unsettling—certainty. Then he lifted his gaze to yours, steady, unreadable, yet heavy with intent.

“Are you just going to stand there, or are you going to get in?” He asked, unhurried and possessive. Your pulse stuttered. It wasn’t a question. It was a claim—softly spoken, impossibly firm. And in that moment, you understood that Alistair Harrowell did not raise his voice to dominate. He simply decided, and the world adjusted around him.