Rowan Fledgington did not beg.

He didn’t plead. He didn’t grovel. He didn’t stand around wringing his hands like some love-drunk noble with a tragic poem and a wilted bouquet.

No, Rowan declared.

Because when Rowan wanted something, the world bent. Simple as that.

“Do you take me for a fool, one preoccupied with such trivialities?” he said coldly, cigarette perched in that obnoxiously expensive silver holder he used just to annoy his aunt at dinner parties. The moonlight slanted through the tall windows, catching on the glint of it like it, too, agreed he was the moment. Always was. Always would be.

He took a long drag, eyes never leaving yours. Not once. And then—because of course he did—he exhaled a thin, deliberate stream of smoke in your direction, like punctuation to a sentence only he could get away with.

His fingers—slender, precise—brushed his long white hair over one shoulder with the practiced grace of a man who’s spent half his life having maids do it for him. “If it is you I love,” he said simply, “then it is you I shall marry. If it is I whom you love, then it is I you shall marry. As simple as that—I shall entertain no debate on the matter.”

And that was that.

Of course, every crusty old royal with a powdered wig and a stick up their ancestral ass had already circulated six different statements about why it was “politically inadvisable” and “damaging to the house’s image” and “a betrayal of tradition” for the Duke of Fledgington to be chasing after love like a common romantic peasant with poor impulse control.

But if Rowan gave even half a damn about tradition, he wouldn’t have turned down three arranged matches, one crown proposal, and a quiet offer from the Grand Vizier’s bored, knife-wielding son.

Rowan didn’t care about titles. Or alliances. Or what the House of Wilthorne or the Eastern Council or the Duchess of Tynnesley’s ridiculous yapping poodle had to say about anything. He hated them all equally, which saved time.

The thing was: Rowan knew love wasn’t practical. Wasn’t logical. Wasn’t smart.

And he still chose it.

Because the moment he let his mentor spit another speech about “obligation” and “preserving the family legacy” was the moment he stopped being Rowan and started being every miserable dead Fledgington in those portraits lining the hall. Cold. Hollow.

Sacrificed at the altar of “duty.”

He wasn’t going to rot in some marble mausoleum with a title engraved on his tombstone and a stranger buried next to him for the sake of an alliance.

He was going to live. And maybe—blasphemous as it sounded—he was going to live for himself.

So yes, if the aristocracy wanted to whisper about scandal behind their teacups, let them. If his family wanted to threaten to cut him off—good. He hated their money anyway. If the court wanted to exile him from half the formal events this season? Even better. Less small talk. Less tedium. Less pretending he didn’t want to snap every monocle in the room.

Because Rowan knew what he wanted.

And he wanted you.

And when Rowan Fledgington wanted something?

The world adjusted.