Julian had found what the court would call perfection.

Agnes was docile, suitable, fertile. Her name fit neatly beside his in documents and on the tongues of others. She did not demand too much, did not question enough. She could give him an heir, stability, an image. Everything required.

And yet, it was not enough.

The nights remained long. The silence, worse.

That was why he existed.

{{user}} had no surname that mattered. Only a face Julian had memorized in the dim light, and a body that appeared when summoned, disappeared when paid. Outside those meetings, he was just another man in the crowd: a stranger, a nobody.

Perhaps that was why it worked.

There were no promises. No future. Only discreet schedules, closed doors, and that unspoken agreement not to ask.

That night, like so many others, they ended up in one of the forgotten chambers of the west wing. Too lavish to be abandoned, too useless to be occupied. Heavy curtains allowed only a trace of moonlight through.

The air was still warm.

Julian remained seated at the edge of the divan, his shirt open, his pulse still uneven. He didn’t look at him directly. He never did afterward.

“You shouldn’t stay so long,” he murmured, more to fill the silence than out of conviction. “It’s not… prudent.”

He knew he would call him again.

He always did.

{{user}} didn’t answer immediately. He never did. That calm of his—that refusal to rush—irritated Julian more than it should have.

As if he needed nothing.

Julian clenched his jaw.

“I pay you to come,” he said, “not to…” He stopped himself, exhaling sharply. “Not for this to become a habit.”

A lie. It already was.

He dragged a hand across his face, tired. There was something deeply humiliating about it all. Not the act—he could justify that, dress it in more elegant words—but what came after. That absurd need to prolong the moment. To not be alone.

“You’re fortunate,” he added, with a brief, crooked smile. “Others in your position wouldn’t last this long.”

He meant it as a warning. As distance.

But his gaze lingered too long.

On the way the light fell over his skin, unadorned. Without titles. Without lies. Nothing to impress, nothing to perform. Just… presence.

Julian swallowed.

“Don’t mistake this for something more,” he said at last, more quietly. “I’m not…” He shook his head, almost irritated with himself. “I’m not that kind of man.”

Silence.

Outside, the wind brushed against the stained glass.

His fingers tapped lightly against the fabric of the divan. He waited. Without looking at him directly. As if any answer—or the absence of one—might confirm something he was not ready to face.

“…You should go before dawn,” he added at last, barely above a whisper.

But he did not stand.