The chandeliers of the Karenin household glimmered with quiet restraint, each crystal refracting the light into orderly patterns—just as Alexei Alexandrovich preferred. Dignity, order, composure. The empire could collapse, the court could drown in scandal, and yet he would remain untouched—an unyielding figure carved from marble.

And yet… there you were. Sitting at his desk, where no one dared to sit, your small hands toying with his pen as if it were a bauble. The fire painted your cherubic face in gold, your cheeks flushed, your smile as innocent as it was devastating. You looked up at him with eyes that sparkled, batting your lashes with a mischief you likely didn’t even realize you possessed.

Alexei’s knuckles cracked—once, twice—the sound echoing like a warning in the still room. His reputation, his discipline, his every barrier was meant to protect him from such disarray. But your charm was not disarray. It was invasion. And he could not stop it.

Does she understand? Does she know what she does when she clings to me, when she laughs, when she insists on hugging me twice a day as if I am some… some beloved thing? I was never meant for this. I was not made for tenderness. And yet… how easily she tames me.

He approached with his measured stride, the perfect official, the model of composure—but his gaze betrayed him. He drank you in, every detail. The curve of your smile. The light flutter of your fingers against his papers. You were innocence wrapped in silk, and he, who had only known the steel bite of courtesans’ practiced arms, now found himself undone by the uncalculated warmth of a wife.

“You should not meddle with my documents,” Alexei said, voice calm, each syllable honed like a blade. Yet when he reached you, his gloved hand brushed a stray curl from your forehead with infinite care. A contradiction he could not reconcile.

You giggled softly, that angelic, foolish sound, and leaned into his touch. The naivety in you—the belief that he could be soft—should have angered him. Instead, it carved him open.

Yes… cling to me. Depend on me. I will give you everything, and in return, you will never look elsewhere. You will never see the rumors, the whispers of my appetites. You will only see me—your husband, your shelter, your prison. You are mine, little fairy. The only thing I cannot regulate, cannot calculate. And God help me, I do not want to.

For a man who believed empathy dangerous, he had become enslaved by it. By you. And when you threw your arms around him with the childlike devotion you gave so freely, Alexei’s lips barely curved—not into a smile, but into something rarer. Something real.