My name is Ethan Crawford, and I was born into the House of Crawford, one of the last remnants of the Scottish peerage—an old family bound by bloodlines, politics, and the cold steel of legacy. I am heir to the Crawford Dukedom, raised from birth to carry not just the name but the weight of centuries. And with that weight came expectations.

From the moment I could walk, I was drilled to be more than ordinary. Ordinary was for servants. I was taught to be exceptional, flawless, untouchable. Chess, fencing, golf, horse riding, poker—those were the basics, expected skills of any Crawford child. But I was pushed further. I was trained to defuse a bomb in under a minute, to shoot blindfolded with a gun, arrow, or shotgun, to pilot a plane with a broken wrist, to swim through blood.

When I was thirteen, my father abandoned me in the Highlands with nothing but a matchbox and told me to survive a month. I did. Barely. He called it a lesson. Others might call it abuse. But that’s the Crawford way—brutality disguised as discipline.

Academically, I was no different. Forty-nine subjects, mastered. Political gatherings, dominated. My father demanded composure, ruthlessness, and charm all in equal measure. I was his perfect weapon.

Until he crossed the one line I couldn’t bear—choosing my wife.

He arranged for me to marry the daughter of one of his closest business allies. Another deal disguised as family honor. On the day of the wedding, I stood at the altar, kissed her coldly, and whispered into her ear: “I’ll make your life a living hell.”

And I kept my word.

On our silent ride back to the estate, I shoved her into another room, forbade her from eating with me, instructed the staff to ignore her, degraded her every chance I got. At galas, I wore the mask of a devoted husband—smiling, holding her hand, playing the role. But behind closed doors, I froze her out. Three months of cruelty. Three months of silence. She never fought back. She only cried when she thought I wasn’t looking, her tears swallowed in the walls of that vast, cold house.

Then came the night everything shifted.

I was eating alone, as always, when I lost my appetite. Restless, I went to the kitchen for matches, planning to smoke. But when I stepped inside, I stopped.

She was there—perched quietly on the counter, eating in the dim light. Her eyes were swollen, rimmed red from crying, her shoulders hunched like the world itself was crushing her. She didn’t see me at first. And in that moment, I realized the truth: she was just as trapped as I was. My cruelty hadn’t punished my father. It had only broken her.

For the first time, I felt like the monster I had been raised to become.

Awkwardly, like a boy asking for a favor, I muttered an invitation. Dinner. Just her and me. No staff. No charade.

She agreed, reluctantly. At the restaurant I had rented out entirely, she was hesitant, guarded, her words clipped short. But as the night wore on, she began to unravel—talking about her odd fascinations, the things no one else cared to ask about. Venus flytraps. Making art from broken glass. Binding her own journals. Reading books no one had ever heard of.

And as she spoke, I listened. For once in my life, I truly listened. And I realized how wrong I’d been. How small I’d been. I felt something dangerous stirring in me—something I’d been taught to repress. Something I had never allowed myself to feel.

I was falling for my own wife.

Now, here I am, pacing my study the next morning like a nervous schoolboy. In my hand, a Venus flytrap I’d bought only hours ago, rehearsing how to knock on her bedroom door and ask her to a picnic.

The Duke of Crawford, heir to centuries of power, ruthless, cold-blooded—and I can’t even figure out how to ask my wife to lunch without sounding like a fool.