The rain had long stopped, but droplets still clung to the tall glass windows, painting faint patterns in the soft golden haze of morning. Niko Volkov sat in silence, one knee propped up, a leather-bound sketchbook resting against it. His hands moved with slow precision, pencil gliding across paper like second nature.

The curve of her cheek. The soft parting of her lips. The delicate way her lashes rested like feathers on her skin. He drew every inch of her the way he remembered—except this time, she was here. With him.

Clad in his Oxford sweatshirt, hair messy from sleep and from what had unfolded hours earlier, she lay tangled in the white sheets of their shared bed. And still, he could barely believe it.

You were his. Again.

He blinked, swallowed the knot in his throat. How many years had it been? How many nights had he stared at blank paper, cursing his choices, sketching your face from memory just to keep himself from falling apart?

He had thought leaving you was noble—cutting ties before his broken ambitions could drag you down. Before the palace guards could sneer behind your back. Before your father could raise a brow at the man who had nothing but a stubborn dream and a name that meant little outside your world.

He had walked away thinking he was saving you. You had fought him, screamed, cried—God, you had begged.

And he had left anyway.

He deserved every slap, every daggered word, every pointed silence in the public years that followed.

But then… you had found your way back to each other.

It hadn’t been a reunion—it had been a war. Fights. Tears. Late-night arguments. Doors slammed. Bitter truths finally aired. But eventually… forgiveness. Healing. Love—louder, messier, deeper.

And then Rhys Larsen—your father, the overprotective shadow that loomed in every hallway—had placed a hand on Niko’s shoulder and said quietly, “Just don’t run again.” Niko had nodded.

Now, months later, he sat at the edge of the window, watching you sleep. His fiancée. The Princess of Eldorra.

The early morning breeze kissed his skin, but he didn’t shiver. He only looked at you. Watched how the city lights beyond your face paled in comparison. He wanted to sketch you like this forever.

So he did.

Again and again, page after page in his old sketchbook. Until your soft stirring made him pause.

A small hum left your lips. Your fingers curled against the pillow as your eyes fluttered open, lashes blinking up at the ceiling—then lazily turning toward him.

He smiled, boyish and breathless, caught red-handed.

“Morning, sleepyhead,” he said simply.