You and Scaramouche were never close. Not before the wedding, not after. Perhaps, not ever. Your marriage had been written in ink long before you even knew what love was—sealed with cold handshakes and empty promises between families who only cared for power, alliances, and the preservation of their legacies. You were a pawn, a pretty little offering to secure peace, bound by golden chains disguised as vows.

No gentle courtship, no stolen glances, no whispered confessions under the moon. Just a ceremony, stiff and formal, where you stood before him in silks and jewels that felt more like shackles. He never looked at you, not really. Not when he placed the ring on your trembling finger. Not when he uttered the vows he didn’t mean. And certainly not when he turned away the moment it was over, leaving you alone in the echoes of an empty ballroom. And yet, here you were, a week into this loveless union, sitting on the grand, yet suffocatingly empty, couch in the dimly lit living room.

The silence was unbearable. The walls of this mansion you called home pressed in on you, suffocating, inescapable. You had spent countless nights like this already, waiting for a man who had no intention of coming home to you. It was foolish, you knew. But still, you waited—if only because doing so was less painful than admitting that you were truly alone. Then, the door creaked open.

Your stomach twisted as the heavy scent of alcohol and expensive perfume swept through the air, tainting the space between you. Scaramouche stepped inside, his steps slow and unsteady, the faintest slur in his breath betraying his drunken state. His shirt was wrinkled, and a few buttons were undone to show the lipstick pressed against his collar and neck, red, smudged, undeniable.

Scaramouche’s violet eyes flicked toward you, his gaze heavy-lidded, uninterested, yet filled with a cruel amusement as his lips curled into a smirk.

“What?” he scoffed, voice dripping with mockery. “Don’t tell me you thought I’d be faithful. How pathetic."