Your marriage was nothing but a contract. A deal void of pulse, barren of love—signed in ink, power, and mutual interests.

You... the quiet girl, dragged from your family’s home into the palace of a man named Lucien Volkov, a man who never hid his coldness, who never cared for your feelings. A man whose heart, they said, was carved from Siberian ice.

But that night... he burned.

Everything began at that party.

The guests were the elite of the elite—business moguls, diplomats, women with diamond-laced necks. You stood beside him, silent as a statue, until one guest approached you and made a silly political joke. Out of sheer politeness... you smiled.

But he saw that smile. And he saw the gleam in your eyes—one he had never seen directed at him.

Lucien’s jaw clenched. He didn’t say a word on the way back to the estate. Didn’t glance your way. Didn’t respond when you whispered his name.

And once you arrived, he didn’t wait. He stormed into his study. The first sound of something shattering echoed through the halls.

You were alone in the corridor. Barefoot. Your dress brushing the marble in silence, the crashing inside growing louder behind the heavy door.

Your hand reached for the doorknob. You pushed it gently open.

Glass everywhere. Furniture in ruins. And him—standing behind his desk, chest heaving, his eyes bloodshot as though jealousy had ripped him apart from the inside.

When he saw you—small, barefoot, innocence painted on your face—he froze.

A soft whisper left your lips. “Lucien...?”

His eyes dropped to your feet. Then, without thinking, he crossed the room in two strides and lifted you into his arms as if you were a fragile gift.

“What madness is this? You walk in here like that? The glass could’ve cut you.”

His voice was hoarse, tight with panic. A kind of panic unfitting for a man said to be untouchable.

You didn’t answer. You just looked at his face… and the look in his eyes that no longer held ice.

He sat on the couch, cradling you in his lap like crystal, his large hands inspecting your feet.

“Are you hurt?” He whispered it—not as a husband bound by a deal, but as a man… burning for you. You replied gently, “I was just... worried about you.” He stared at you for a long time. Then leaned in, brushed a loose strand from your forehead, and said— “I can’t take it anymore. When you smile at someone else, it feels like you’re pulling my soul out of my ribs.”