#gold digger

[soulinthewasteland]

GOLD DIGGER

Dark Valarr Targaryen x Reader

SUMMARY: Everyone calls it love. Valarr calls it ambition. The moment his father introduces his new girlfriend, he's convinced you're nothing more than a gold digger hiding behind flawless manners. After all, women like you don't fall for men like Baelor—they fall for everything that comes with them.

CW: RAPE/NON-CON, explicit content, power imbalance, disrespectful language, harassment, sexual harassment, non-consensual touch, physical and psychological torture, Aerion as its own warning, threats, blackmail. If you are sensitive to any of these topics, do not read.

WC: 25 K

A/N: Let's thank 🎀 anon for the idea!

Baelor had been raised in a world where money opened doors; you had been raised in one where you learned to knock quietly and hope someone answered.

The difference between your lives had never been dramatic enough to become a story people told at dinner parties, that was what made it so difficult to explain, because there had been no spectacular tragedy separating one childhood from the other, no single event that could be blamed for the distance between you, only circumstance repeated so many times that it eventually became a way of living. Baelor had grown up surrounded by abundance so consistent that it had stopped looking like abundance, with enormous houses, private schools, polished cars, vacations planned without consulting a bank account, clothes chosen for their quality rather than their durability, and restaurants where prices existed merely as numbers on a menu rather than warnings, none of it needing to be announced because wealth was not an achievement in Baelor's world but, an environment, something so deeply woven into his upbringing that he could walk through an expensive room without consciously registering the cost of anything inside it.

There was an ease that came with that kind of upbringing, although Baelor himself didn't realize how unusual it was. He had never needed to calculate whether an unexpected expense could wait until next month, never had to decide whether something he wanted was worth the hours required to pay for it, never needed to look at an object he liked and quietly return it to the shelf because wanting something did not necessarily mean being able to afford it; money could inconvenience him, certainly, but it rarely frightened him, and there was a difference between those two things that someone who had always had enough could understand intellectually without ever knowing the peculiar anxiety of needing it.

Life had taught a different vocabulary on your side of the divide. There were always things that had to come first, expenses that couldn't be ignored, purchases that could be postponed, and luxuries that had to remain luxuries precisely because they weren't necessary, so you had learned to keep track of what was in your account without making a ritual of it, accept an extra shift when you needed one, keep using things after they had become worn, and understand that comfort was sometimes something constructed rather than given. The difference was not that you knew poverty and Baelor knew wealth; it was that you had learned to notice the absence of things he had never needed to notice at all.

And then there was the restaurant, which existed almost as a monument to everything separating you from him.

From the street, it looked like the sort of establishment that didn't need a sign large enough to attract attention, with tall windows stretching upward behind dark iron frames and revealing chandeliers glowing warmly above white-clothed tables, while the entrance was guarded by polished glass doors that opened with a quietness you had initially found almost absurd. Inside, everything had been arranged to make luxury appear effortless: dark wood reflected the amber light, silverware rested precisely where it was supposed to rest, crystal glasses were replaced before anyone had to ask, and small arrangements of fresh flowers were changed frequently enough that no customer would ever have to witness the brief, inelegant stage between freshness and decay.

Even the air smelled expensive, carrying perfume, polished wood, wine, coffee, flowers, and the faint sweetness of desserts through the dining room. Conversations remained low enough to create privacy without silence and music played softly enough to be noticed but never criticized. Every employee seemed to move according to an invisible choreography that made the restaurant feel detached from the frantic city outside, and customers came there to experience ease while employees came there to manufacture it.

That distinction was something you knew intimately. The dining room was only half of the restaurant, because behind the doors marked staff only was another world entirely, one without chandeliers or crystal, where there were hot kitchens, hurried footsteps, trays balanced on tired arms, cooks shouting orders over one another, dishwashers working through stacks that seemed endless, and servers checking the clock whenever nobody was looking. Everyone seemed to be carrying some invisible weight between their shoulders, and the beautiful illusion at the front of the building depended upon that exhaustion remaining somewhere else.

Your manager was particularly determined that it should remain somewhere else. He had an astonishing talent for becoming charming the moment an important customer appeared and an unbearable asshole the moment the customer disappeared, so in front of wealthy patrons his posture straightened and his voice acquired a softness that almost made him look like a different man, while he apologized profusely if someone had to wait three minutes for a table, offered complimentary desserts when a dish was slightly late, and remembered the names of customers who came twice a month. With employees, his memory worked differently. He remembered every mistake: a napkin folded incorrectly, a tray left unattended, a table that had waited too long, a smile that wasn't sufficiently convincing, a tired expression, a wrong spoon, or a moment of hesitation. "People don't come here to see you looking pathetic," you had heard more than once, and apparently neither did they come to see you looking human.

There were evenings when your feet ached so badly that you could feel every step through your shoes, yet the expectation remained that you would glide between tables as though your body had never heard of exhaustion; there were shifts during which you ate nothing but a few hurried bites in the kitchen because there wasn't time for a proper meal, and nights when your manager would criticize you for taking too long to finish one table while simultaneously complaining that another had not received enough attention.

And then Baelor would arrive. He always looked as though he had come from a world where none of those things existed, not because he was arrogant but because he possessed the quiet assurance of someone who had never needed to apologize for occupying space. He dressed beautifully without seeming to think about it, wore expensive things without displaying them, and moved through the restaurant with the strange familiarity of a person who had spent his entire life being welcomed into places like this. His wealth wasn't loud; it lived in the quality of his clothes, the ease with which he ordered, the absence of hesitation when he looked at the menu, and the fact that the bill never seemed to represent a decision.

At first, he was only another regular, then he began asking whether you were working, looking for the 'kind-eyed young woman'. It happened so casually that nobody could accuse him of making a spectacle of it. He would arrive in the evening, exchange a greeting with the hostess, hand over his coat, and glance toward the dining room.

"Is she working tonight?" The first time, you didn't know he meant you. The second time, you suspected, and by the third, you were certain.

The hostess eventually seemed to find the whole thing amusing. "She is."

Baelor would give a quiet nod. "Thank you." And then he would look for you.

There was something distinctive about the way he did it. He never searched hurriedly or turned his head from side to side like someone afraid of missing you; his gaze simply moved across the room with patient precision, passing over tables crowded with diners and employees moving between them until it eventually found you, and, when it did, something changed, dramatically, which was the problem. His expression would soften almost imperceptibly, the guarded attentiveness in his face becoming something quieter, and sometimes the faintest hint of satisfaction appeared in his eyes before he looked away and continued toward his table. You noticed. Eventually, everyone noticed.

"Your favorite is here."

You gave your coworker a look. "He's not my favorite."

"I wasn't talking about yours."

You glanced toward Baelor's table, where he had already taken out his book. "He's a customer."

"Who asks whether you're working."

"Maybe he likes my service."

She stared at you. "Sure."

You went back to arranging the glasses because you preferred not to think about it. The strange thing about Baelor was that he never behaved like a man who thought his interest entitled him to anything. He didn't demand your attention, snap his fingers when you passed, call you over when you were already carrying a tray, and if another customer interrupted you while you were speaking to him, he waited. He was patient, almost excessively so. If your hands were full, he'd move his glass before you asked; if you were carrying several plates, he'd wait until everything had been placed before speaking; if your manager called you sharply from across the restaurant, Baelor didn't add his own voice to the demand, and if you were busy, he waited.

That shouldn't have mattered as much as it did, but after enough evenings of being treated like an interchangeable part of the restaurant's machinery, there was something unsettling about a wealthy man behaving as though your time had value. The first time you actually asked him about it, you'd had a terrible shift. Your manager had reprimanded you over a table that had taken too long to receive its food, a customer had complained about something you couldn't control, and by the time you reached Baelor's table, your patience had been worn down to almost nothing. He looked at you with worried eyes. “Are you busy?”

"Very."

His eyes flicked toward the tray in your hand. "Then I won't keep you."

You almost laughed. "You've been coming here long enough to know that doesn't mean anything."

"I know."

"And you still ask whether I'm working."

"I prefer when you're the one serving me."

You stopped. Baelor looked up. There was nothing particularly provocative about his expression, and if anything, his sincerity made the words more dangerous. "That's your excuse?"

"It's a reasonable one."

"There are plenty of other waiters."

"I know."

"They're perfectly competent."

"I didn't say they weren't."

You narrowed your eyes. "Then why me?"

His gaze remained on yours. “I prefer you."

You hated the warmth that immediately reached your face, so you looked at his coffee instead. "You're letting this get cold."

"I haven't touched it."

"Then drink it."

You walked away. Behind you, you could practically feel his amusement. That should have been the end of it. It wasn't. Baelor remembered. He remembered your tea order, that you disliked overly sweet desserts, that you preferred the table near the windows, and that you had once complained about the restaurant's music. He remembered the name of your professor despite having heard it only once, and several weeks after you mentioned an old edition of a novel you were searching for, you arrived at his table to find a worn copy resting beside his coffee.

You picked it up, and your expression changed. "What's this?"

"You were looking for it."

You looked at him. "That was weeks ago."

"I remember." The answer was so simple that it unsettled you more than a grand gesture might have The book was old, its spine softened by years of use, its pages slightly yellowed and its margins marked by someone who had apparently loved it before you ever touched it. Baelor could have purchased a perfect new copy without thinking twice; instead, he'd found one that looked as though it had already lived a life.

"You bought this?"

"I found it."

"That's not what I asked."

A small smile appeared. "Then yes."

You stared at him. "Baelor."

"Don't make it sentimental."

"I'm not."

"You look as though you're about to."

"You're annoying."

"I've been told."

You ran your thumb along the worn spine, and somewhere between the book, the coffee, the repeated questions about whether you were working, and the way his eyes always found you when he entered, Baelor ceased being merely another customer. He became familiar. Perhaps too familiar. The attention was impossible not to notice, especially when you talked about books. Something in Baelor's expression changed whenever literature became the subject. His attention became more concentrated, his questions more deliberate, and his gaze more difficult to ignore. The restaurant could be full, the kitchen could be roaring behind the doors, glasses could be clinking around you, and yet whenever you spoke about something you genuinely cared about, Baelor listened as though the rest of it had become irrelevant.

Sometimes you caught him watching you. Not staring. Watching. There was a difference. "What?"

He blinked. "What?"

"You're staring."

"I'm listening."

"Those aren't mutually exclusive."

A faint smile appeared. "No," he said quietly. "I suppose they aren't."

And you looked away. You never asked what he'd been thinking, maybe because there was still a distance between you that you refused to forget. Baelor could leave the restaurant whenever he wanted and return to a house where money was an invisible certainty, where the inconvenience of an unexpected expense would never threaten the foundations of his life, while you would finish your shift, change out of your uniform, count your tips, and calculate how many hours stood between you and your next paycheck. He had abundance. You had learned endurance.

And somehow, against all reasonable expectations, he kept looking for you every time he walked through those polished glass doors.

—

The invitation did not arrive with the sort of spectacle you might have expected from a man like Baelor Targaryen. There was no extravagant bouquet waiting for you after your shift, no chauffeur appearing at the restaurant with some impossibly expensive arrangement, no envelope written on heavy cream paper and delivered with the solemnity of an official summons; Baelor, for all the wealth that seemed to surround him without effort, appeared to understand that extravagance could easily become another form of pressure, particularly when there was already such an obvious difference between the two of you. Instead, he waited until an ordinary evening had settled over the restaurant, until the dining room had grown quieter and the city beyond the enormous windows had dissolved into scattered lights, and the two of you had somehow fallen into another one of those conversations that always seemed to last considerably longer than either of you intended.

It had started, naturally, with literature. A book had been left beside his coffee, and Baelor had asked what you thought of it; you had disagreed with his interpretation almost immediately, and rather than becoming defensive, he had seemed genuinely entertained by the challenge. The discussion wandered from the novel to its author, from the author's intentions to whether an author's intentions mattered at all, and eventually into a completely unrelated argument about whether terrible film adaptations could permanently ruin someone's perception of an otherwise excellent book. You had laughed more than once, and Baelor had listened with that same unnerving concentration he always seemed to give you, occasionally offering a measured observation in that polished, deliberate manner of his, never rushing his words and never speaking simply to fill a silence. It had become remarkably easy to forget, during conversations like those, that he was a customer and you were supposed to be working; easier still to forget that the man sitting across from you inhabited a world vastly removed from your own, at least until your manager called your name from across the restaurant and reminded you that there were still tables waiting.

The sound cut cleanly through the conversation, and you glanced toward the other end of the dining room, where your manager stood with an expression that made it perfectly clear he had already decided you were taking too long. Your shoulders stiffened almost instinctively, and Baelor noticed. He always seemed to notice things you would have preferred him to overlook.

"I suppose that's my cue," you murmured.

Baelor's gaze followed yours before returning to you. "It appears your employer has finally remembered that he is paying you to work rather than debate literature with me."

You gave him an incredulous look. "You're the one who's been sitting here talking to me for the last twenty minutes."

Baelor's mouth curved with quiet amusement. "I would never presume to suggest that I am responsible for your dereliction of duty."

You laughed beneath your breath. "You're absolutely responsible."

He inclined his head with exaggerated dignity. "I shall accept the accusation with dignity."

You reached for his empty cup, but Baelor moved before you could, taking it carefully from the table and placing it at the edge nearest you so that you wouldn't have to reach across him. It was such a small gesture that it should have meant nothing, yet there was something characteristic about the way he did even that: without haste, without making you stretch awkwardly across the table, without treating your work as an excuse to command you around.

"Thank you."

"The pleasure is mine." You turned away.

"May I ask you something?" You stopped. There was a subtle difference in Baelor's voice when you looked back at him, something more deliberate beneath the polished calm he usually carried. He had closed his book and rested one hand against its cover, his attention entirely on you now.

"Are you working Saturday?"

For a second, you almost smiled. "You ask me that an awful lot."

"I am aware."

"And yet you continue."

"I find repetition occasionally useful."

You folded your arms, studying him more carefully. "Why?"

Baelor remained seated, one hand resting lightly against the edge of the table while the other remained atop his closed book, and when he finally answered, his voice was measured enough that it seemed as though he had considered the words before allowing them out. "I should like to see you when you are not working." The answer caught you off guard.

You stared at him, and Baelor did not attempt to rescue you from the silence. He didn't laugh, didn't transform the statement into a joke, and didn't offer some conveniently charming explanation that would allow both of you to pretend he hadn't just said exactly what he meant. He simply waited, composed and patient, giving you the peculiar courtesy of allowing the moment to exist without trying to control it.

Your fingers tightened slightly around the edge of the tray.

"Baelor."

"I know."

"You know what?"

"That was considerably less subtle than my previous inquiries."

Despite yourself, a laugh escaped you. "At least you're self-aware."

"I make an effort." Then his expression softened, and whatever amusement had been there receded into something much more sincere. "I would like to take you to dinner."

The simplicity of it made your stomach turn over, not because the idea was unpleasant.

That was precisely the difficulty.

There had been a connection growing between you for some time, although neither of you had given it a name. It lived in conversations that stretched beyond the time necessary to finish a cup of coffee, in books exchanged across the table, in the fact that Baelor remembered things you had forgotten mentioning, and in the way you had gradually stopped being surprised whenever his eyes found you the moment he entered the restaurant. Somewhere along the way, you had begun anticipating his arrival; you wondered what book he might be reading, whether he would ask about your classes, whether he'd remembered some ridiculous detail you had mentioned weeks ago, and whether the next conversation would somehow be even longer than the last. A date, however, would make all of that considerably more real, and you weren't sure you wanted something that had felt so comfortably undefined to acquire a name.

Your gaze lowered briefly.

There was the age difference. You had noticed it before, of course, and it wasn't something that could simply be erased because you happened to enjoy his company. Baelor was older, more established, more experienced, and possessed a kind of composure that came from having already lived through things you had not. There were moments when the difference between your stages of life felt unmistakable, particularly when his confidence contrasted with the uncertainty that still accompanied so many of your own decisions. You weren't a child, and he had never treated you like one, but that did not make the years between you disappear; they remained there, quietly present in the differences between the lives you had led and the things you had been forced to learn.

And then there was the money.

That difference was harder to ignore.

Baelor could take you somewhere elegant without worrying about the price. He could send a car without wondering whether the expense was sensible, buy you a book without having to consider what else the money might have been needed for, and walk into places where you would instinctively glance at the menu prices before deciding what you could reasonably order. You were still working shifts beneath a manager who could make you feel insignificant before lunch and calculating your expenses afterward, while Baelor belonged to a world where financial security was so deeply embedded in daily life that it had become nearly invisible. There was an entire economic universe between you, and perhaps that was why his attention sometimes felt so strange: he came from a life in which he could have treated you as insignificant without ever noticing that he had done so, yet he consistently chose to treat you as though your time, comfort, and dignity mattered.

Baelor understood your hesitation, because his voice became even gentler when he spoke again. "You needn't accept." Your youngful eyes lifted. He continued before you could misunderstand him. "I mean that sincerely. You owe me no such courtesy, and certainly not because I have been fortunate enough to know you here, nor because I have bought you a book, nor because I happen to come into this establishment with considerably more money than sense. If the answer is no, I shall accept it without resentment."

That was almost worse. He could have made it difficult. He could have reminded you of every conversation, every small kindness, every moment in which he had made it clear that he preferred you; instead, Baelor was giving you an uncomplicated opportunity to say no, and he was doing it without making refusal sound like an insult. There was no guilt in his expression, no wounded pride waiting to punish you for disappointing him, only the calm acceptance that your answer belonged entirely to you.

"You'd really be okay with that?"

"Of course."

"You wouldn't stop coming here?"

His eyebrows lifted slightly, almost as though the suggestion itself surprised him. "That would be childish."

You smiled despite yourself. "You're older than me. You're supposed to be mature."

"I should hope so."

"That sounded very confident."

"I am occasionally capable of confidence." You shook your head, but the smile remained, and Baelor watched you for a moment before his expression grew serious again. "I would much rather you accompany me because you genuinely wish to than because you feel obliged to."

Something in your expression must have changed, because he waited once more, that was the moment you realized what had been making this so difficult. It wasn't that you didn't want to go. You did, you simply hadn't expected to. You glanced toward your manager, then back at Baelor, and the decision seemed to settle somewhere between your reluctance and the strange comfort you had begun associating with him. "Where?"

The smallest shift passed across his features. Relief, perhaps. "There's a restaurant I think you'd enjoy. It is considerably quieter than this one, and the chef is rather fond of making a spectacle of literature-inspired dishes."

You blinked. "Literature-inspired?"

"Apparently."

"That sounds pretentious."

"It is." You laughed, and Baelor's eyes softened at the sweet sound.

"At least you're honest."

"I find honesty considerably more useful than charm."

"That's ironic coming from you."

"Is it?" You looked at him, and there was a quiet amusement in his face that made it clear he knew precisely what you meant. You hated how easily he could make you smile.

"Saturday?" you finally said.

Baelor's smile softened. "Saturday."

You hesitated again before adding: "But I'm not dressing up absurdly."

"I wouldn't ask you to."

"And I'm not going somewhere where everyone looks like they own a yacht."

"I can assure you, the clientele will be considerably less nautical."

You laughed. "That wasn't what I meant."

"I know." His gaze remained on yours, and there was nothing hurried in it. "You may come precisely as you are comfortable coming."

The words were simple, but something about the way he said them quieted the last of your objections. He wasn't trying to transform you into someone who belonged beside him; he wasn't asking you to perform wealth, elegance, or sophistication for his benefit. He was simply asking to spend an evening with you. You nodded. "Yes."

"Yes?"

"Don't make me repeat myself."

"I wouldn't dream of it." You reached for his empty cup again, but Baelor rose before you could take it, gathered his book and placed it beneath one arm, then handed the cup to you with the kind of careful courtesy that made the gesture look almost absurdly formal for something so ordinary.

"Then I shall see you Saturday."

"Assuming my manager doesn't kill me before then."

Baelor's expression cooled slightly at that, and for the first time that evening, something harder appeared behind his otherwise serene demeanor. "Your manager appears to have developed an unfortunate misunderstanding regarding the distinction between authority and cruelty."

You stared. "Did you just tell my manager to go to hell with that language?"

"With considerable restraint."

You laughed, and Baelor's expression softened again. "Goodnight, Baelor."

"Goodnight." You turned away, but his voice followed once more.

"One final question." You looked back. He had stepped slightly away from the table, his coat already resting over one arm, his posture impossibly composed.

"What?"

"What time do you finish?"

You narrowed your eyes.

"Why?"

"Because I should like to make certain that you don't have to concern yourself with transportation."

"Baelor—"

He lifted one hand gently, stopping the protest before it began. "Nothing extravagant. Merely practical."

"You have a very strange definition of practical."

"Perhaps." There was that smile again, subtle and infuriatingly self-assured, but beneath it was the same consideration that had slowly become so difficult to dismiss. He looked down briefly, as though considering the most appropriate way to phrase what came next, and when his eyes returned to yours, there was something almost old-fashioned in his manner. "Allow me to collect you." You opened your mouth, but he continued before you could object. "You needn't agree immediately."

The offer was not a demand, and somehow that distinction mattered more than the actual transportation. You hesitated, then finally nodded.

"Fine."

Baelor's expression warmed. "Very well."

He extended his hand toward you, palm upward, and for a moment you simply stared at it. There was something almost theatrical about the gesture, yet he carried it with such quiet sincerity that laughing at him felt impossible. After a second, you placed your hand in his, and Baelor's fingers closed gently around yours, careful rather than possessive, before he lowered his head and pressed a brief, courteous kiss against your palm.

Your breath caught. It wasn't an intimate gesture so much as an old-fashioned one, almost absurdly gentlemanly, and yet the deliberate tenderness with which he performed it made your face grow warm all the same. When he lifted his head, his expression remained perfectly composed, as though he hadn't just managed to leave you completely speechless with one simple gesture.

"Until Saturday."

You stared at him. "You're ridiculous."

"I have been informed of that as well."

Then he released your hand, collected his coat, and walked toward the entrance with the same unhurried elegance with which he had entered, leaving you standing beside his table with your pulse inexplicably faster than it had been thirty seconds earlier. You thought that was the end of it. It wasn't.

Baelor paused at the doors, one hand resting against his coat as he glanced back toward you, and there was a flicker of amusement in his eyes when he realized you were still watching him. "I nearly forgot." You waited, his tone became almost ceremonious."I'll have a limousine pick you up at seven."

You stared at him, eyes almost popping out of their sockets in surprise. "A limousine?"

His expression remained innocently calm. "You said I was allowed to arrange transportation."

"I did not say you were allowed to send a limousine."

"I'll take that as a yes."

"Baelor."

But he was already smiling, and you could hear the quiet amusement in his voice as he answered: "Seven, then."

You should have been annoyed. Perhaps you were, yet, as he finally disappeared through the polished glass doors, leaving the restaurant to swallow the last trace of his expensive cologne and quiet presence, you caught yourself looking down at the hand he'd kissed only moments earlier. And, to your profound irritation, you were smiling.

—

The first date had gone so well that, afterward, you found yourself wondering whether you had somehow imagined the ease of it, because surely something that had begun with so much uncertainty should have contained at least one unmistakably awkward moment. Instead, the evening had unfolded with an almost disarming naturalness. Baelor had chosen the restaurant carefully, somewhere secluded enough that you never felt as though you were being displayed beside him and elegant enough that the difference between his world and yours remained impossible to forget. Dark wood, low golden lighting, polished silver, crystal glasses, discreetly attentive staff, and enormous windows reflecting the lights of the city had created an atmosphere that felt almost removed from the streets outside. Even the music seemed deliberately distant, soft enough to disappear beneath conversation. Yet what stayed with you afterward wasn't the setting but the conversation itself. Baelor listened—properly listened—with the kind of patience that made even your most inconsequential observations seem worth considering, and whenever you disagreed with him, he never treated it as an inconvenience. There was no expectation that you should suddenly become the sort of woman who belonged in his world simply because you were sitting across from him. By the time dessert arrived, the age between you had become something you were aware of but no longer actively thinking about, and when the limousine carried you home through streets glittering beneath the city lights, there was an unfamiliar sensation beneath your ribs: anticipation.

After that, one date became another with very little ceremony. There were dinners that became walks, walks that turned into conversations in the back of his car, afternoons spent in bookstores, quiet lunches that somehow lasted until the restaurant began preparing for dinner, and evenings when Baelor would appear simply because he had been nearby and had decided that he would rather spend the next hour with you than wherever else he had originally intended to be. His presence gradually became woven into the architecture of your days. There was always another invitation, another reservation, another carefully chosen book left waiting for you, another occasion on which he would ask about your classes and remember something you'd mentioned weeks earlier.

He learned the small things almost imperceptibly: the coffee you preferred, the authors you couldn't stand, the subjects that could keep you talking for hours, the foods you always left untouched, the particular expression you made whenever someone said something you considered ridiculous, the exact spot on your neck that made you shudder. Baelor seemed to collect these details without announcing that he was doing so, and there was something deeply disarming about discovering that a man who could have filled his life with almost anything had developed the habit of paying attention to the smallest things you said.

The first real change in your circumstances came quietly enough that you almost missed its importance. Baelor had begun asking whether you were still working, and initially you assumed it was merely another variation of the question he'd been asking since the beginning, something connected to whether he could see you after your shift. Eventually, however, the question acquired another meaning. One afternoon, when you were complaining about your manager and the absurdity of having been scheduled for another exhausting shift, Baelor listened without interrupting, his expression growing increasingly still.

"You don't need to keep working." The statement had sounded so absurdly simple that you had laughed.

"And what exactly am I supposed to do?"

"Whatever you please."

There had been no arrogance in his answer, which somehow made it more difficult to dismiss. Baelor wasn't boasting about his ability to support you; he was treating the matter as though it were a practical problem with an obvious solution. Your work was exhausting, your manager was unpleasant, and the money you earned disappeared almost as quickly as it arrived. Why continue putting yourself through it when Baelor could make the necessity disappear? To him, the logic was straightforward. To you, it initially felt almost offensive. Work had always been one of the structures holding your life together, and the idea of removing it left an uncomfortable emptiness where responsibility was supposed to be.

For a while, accepting his help felt like stepping into a room where you weren't certain you were allowed to stand. There was something unsettling about having someone else take care of expenses that had once occupied so much of your mental space. Baelor arranged transportation when you needed it, took care of things you had previously spent hours worrying over, and gradually made it unnecessary for you to continue working simply to maintain your ordinary standard of living. He never demanded that you abandon your ambitions, nor did he speak to you as though you had suddenly become incapable of taking care of yourself; he simply removed the financial urgency that had been dictating your choices. The difference was enormous. Suddenly there were mornings without alarms, afternoons that belonged to books, evenings without calculating how much energy remained before another shift, and days in which the future no longer appeared as an endless sequence of bills, deadlines, and obligations.

The transition was uncomfortable at first, particularly because there were habits poverty had taught you that wealth could not immediately erase. You still glanced at price tags. You still found yourself reaching for the cheaper option in restaurants before remembering that Baelor wasn't going to notice the difference. You still occasionally refused a gift on principle, only to discover that he had anticipated your refusal and had quietly found another way to give you what you needed without making you feel indebted. The first time a jeweler arrived with several boxes for you to choose from, you had assumed there had been some mistake. The first time Baelor told you that an account had been arranged for your personal expenses, you had stared at him as though he had suggested something outrageous. The first time a driver waited outside for you without being asked, you spent ten minutes insisting that you could easily take a taxi.

Eventually, however, the discomfort faded. And then came the more embarrassing realization: you liked it.

You liked waking without immediately wondering what needed to be done. You liked having enough time to read properly instead of squeezing chapters into the margins of your day. You liked being able to walk into a boutique and admire something without immediately calculating how many hours of work it represented. You liked the jewelry Baelor gave you, too, despite how uncomfortable the first few pieces had made you; delicate chains, rings, bracelets, earrings that caught the light whenever you moved your hands, each one chosen with an attentiveness that made the extravagance feel strangely personal. You liked having your nails done every two weeks without fail. You liked having beautiful things simply because they were beautiful, rather than because they were practical enough to justify their cost. The gifts were not merely expensive objects anymore. They became symbols of a life in which wanting something did not automatically have to be followed by the question of whether you could afford it.

There was also the treatment. That might have been the most seductive part of all.

People behaved differently around Baelor, and therefore, differently around you. Doors opened. Reservations appeared where none were available. Staff members remembered your preferences. Invitations arrived for events that you would once have known only through photographs in magazines, and conversations changed subtly whenever your relationship with him became apparent. It wasn't simply money; it was the invisible machinery surrounding money, the connections and reputation and influence that accompanied a man like Baelor wherever he went. Even the smallest interactions seemed to acquire another layer. A receptionist who might once have made you wait suddenly found an available appointment. A boutique assistant became extraordinarily attentive. A dinner reservation could be made at an hour when everyone else had been told there was nothing available. The world had not suddenly become kinder, but it had become considerably more accommodating.

And after years of having to fight for small conveniences, there was something intoxicating about discovering that certain things could simply be arranged.

The transition from discomfort to enjoyment was gradual enough that you barely noticed when it happened. One afternoon, you were sitting beside Baelor in a sunlit room, a book open across your lap and a bracelet he'd given you resting loosely around your wrist, while someone downstairs waited to take you wherever you wished to go. Your old uniform was nowhere in sight. The exhaustion that had once seemed permanently embedded in your bones had disappeared, replaced by the strange luxury of having nowhere you absolutely needed to be. You suddenly realized that you hadn't thought about your old job in weeks. The realization should have frightened you more than it did. Instead, you looked down at the bracelet, turned it absently beneath your fingertips, and continued reading.

Somewhere along the way, luxury had ceased to feel like an intrusion into your life and had become simply another part of it. Baelor noticed. He always did. "You've stopped looking as though you're waiting for someone to tell you that you don't belong here."

You lifted your eyes from the page. "Maybe I'm starting to think I do."

For a moment, something softened in his expression. "Good." The word remained with you long afterward.

Jena was a different kind of presence altogether. Baelor's late wife existed not as an obstacle between the two of you but as a shadow belonging to a portion of his life that had existed long before you. He spoke about her sparingly, and never with the careless cruelty people sometimes used when discussing former partners. There was no bitterness in the stories, no attempt to make himself appear blameless or to turn her into an unimportant memory simply because she was gone. Jena had been his wife, the mother of his children, and someone with whom he had shared years that could not be erased simply because death had brought the relationship to an end. Occasionally her name would appear in conversation because some memory had surfaced—a place they'd once visited, something she'd liked, an old family tradition—and Baelor's voice would change almost imperceptibly whenever it happened. The warmth wasn't necessarily romantic; it was the warmth of memory, complicated by the peculiar grief of knowing that a person could remain part of your history while becoming permanently inaccessible to your present.

It was one evening, much later, when Baelor finally spoke about what your presence had done to him. The two of you were sitting somewhere quiet, the room illuminated mostly by the amber light of a lamp, with the city reduced to distant reflections against the windows. A half-finished glass sat untouched beside him, and your book had been left open on the arm of the sofa, forgotten while the conversation wandered somewhere more personal. Baelor had been unusually contemplative, and when you asked what was occupying his thoughts, his gaze settled upon you with an expression that was difficult to interpret.

"You make me feel young again."

You smiled faintly. "That sounds dangerous."

"You, young lady, possess a twisted mind." The amusement disappeared from his face. "I mean alive." Silence followed. He looked toward the window before continuing, his words becoming slower and more deliberate. "There was a time when life felt enormous. Before everything became responsibilities, expectations, schedules, and things that had already been decided for me. Before I became accustomed to knowing precisely what tomorrow would look like. You remind me of the person I was before that." Your expression softened. He continued. "You make me feel almost like a young man again, when every conversation could become something unexpected and the future hadn't yet narrowed itself into a series of obligations."

It wasn't a declaration delivered for effect. Baelor didn't possess the theatricality required for that kind of confession; if anything, the sincerity of it made the words more unsettling. Jena's death had taught him the permanence of loss, and years of adulthood had given him a life that appeared settled from the outside. Yet somehow, your presence had disrupted that certainty. You had made him curious again. You had made him anticipate things. You had given him the peculiar sensation of being surprised by his own future. After that, he told you he wanted you to meet his sons. The names carried more weight once he said them aloud.

"Matarys and Valarr."

You lowered the book in your hands. "Your sons?"

Baelor nodded. "I think it is time." The statement was calm, but something about it made the room feel suddenly different. Until then, his sons had existed at the periphery of your relationship, names occasionally mentioned in passing, fragments of a family that had existed before you, in the family photos that he had shown, figures as distant as they are plausible. Now Baelor was deliberately bringing you toward them.

"They know about me?"

"They know that there is someone."

You gave him a look. "Someone?"

A faint smile touched his mouth. "I thought discretion would be preferable."

"Baelor, we've been together for months."

"Which is precisely why I believe discretion has served its purpose." A nervous expression appeared on your face. "I want to introduce you properly."

There was something important in the way he said properly. It suggested that you were no longer a private chapter of his life, he was beginning to place you within the larger structure of it, alongside his children, his history, his family, and the responsibilities that came with his name. You had entered Baelor's world gradually, almost accidentally, and now you were approaching the innermost rooms.

Marriage followed naturally from there. Not immediately, not in one dramatic leap, but through a series of increasingly permanent decisions. Conversations about the future began appearing more frequently, initially disguised as hypothetical questions and eventually becoming assumptions neither of you bothered to challenge. Where would you live? Where would you travel? What would happen when his sons were older? What traditions would you keep? Which parts of your life would remain yours and which would become shared? Baelor spoke about the future with an almost unnerving certainty, and eventually you realized that whenever he described it, you were already there.

By the time he proposed, the question almost felt like the final piece of something that had been quietly constructing itself for months. There was no audience and no elaborate performance, only Baelor and the ring, his expression unusually serious as he held your hand. The ring itself was unmistakably expensive, but it wasn't vulgar in its extravagance. A slender band of warm platinum curved around your finger with an almost architectural precision, its surface smooth and luminous beneath the light, while a single large oval diamond rested at its center in a high, understated setting. The stone was remarkably clear, catching the light without appearing gaudy, and beneath it, almost hidden from immediate view, were two smaller diamonds set into the band, one on either side of the central stone. From a distance, it looked almost simple; only when you moved your hand did the details reveal themselves, tiny flashes of light appearing and disappearing with every movement. It was the kind of ring that didn't need to announce its price because the craftsmanship announced it instead.

For a moment, you couldn't even touch it. Baelor's fingers remained around yours. "My love,I don't want you to mistake this for gratitude," he said. "Nor do I want you to believe that I'm offering you a comfortable life in exchange for your affection. I love you. I want you beside me, and I want the life that comes after this one."

Your gaze moved from his face to the ring again. The diamond caught the light, it was almost painfully beautiful, heavy. "Baelor..." His thumb moved once across your knuckles, an unusually nervous gesture from a man who was generally so controlled.

"I have thought about this carefully." You looked at him. "I don't want a temporary place in your life. I don't want you to be someone I see between responsibilities. I want you in the house, at the table, in the photographs, in the plans I haven't made yet. I want to wake up knowing you're still there." The words were quieter now. "Marry me."

The answer took longer than either of you expected. Your mind moved through everything that had brought you there: the restaurant where the two of you had first crossed the invisible boundary between customer and employee, the first limousine, the first piece of jewelry you had been too embarrassed to wear, the first time Baelor had made a financial worry disappear without asking you to thank him for it, the gradual abandonment of your old work, the quiet mornings, the expensive restaurants, the invitations, the influence, the security, the peculiar luxury of no longer having to think constantly about what might go wrong.

And then there was the ring. When you finally extended your hand, Baelor took it with extraordinary care, sliding the band slowly over your knuckle until the diamond settled against your skin. For a second, neither of you spoke. The stone looked almost unreal against your hand—not merely because of its size or brilliance, but because of what it represented. A promise, a future, a change in status, and the unmistakable evidence that the life you'd entered almost accidentally had become something permanent. Who would be foolish enough not to accept such a proposal?

You said yes.

Baelor exhaled, and for perhaps the first time since you'd known him, his composure fractured completely into relief. His hand closed around yours, the diamond flashed beneath the light, and you couldn't stop looking at it.

Later, lying awake with the city glowing beyond the windows, the enormity of it settled over you slowly. Baelor wasn't simply the man who had taken you to dinner and changed your circumstances; he was now your fiancé, and his family was becoming yours by association. The life you'd entered through a restaurant door had grown into something much larger than either of you had initially acknowledged, and somewhere ahead waited the meeting that would make the change undeniable.

Matarys. Valarr. Baelor's sons were no longer distant names attached to another part of his life. Soon, they would be standing in front of you. You wondered, now lying on your fiancé's chest, what that encounter held in store for you.

—

When the car passed through the gates, you had stopped pretending that you weren't nervous. It had begun with little things—the repeated smoothing of your dress, the way your fingers kept worrying at one another, the occasional glance toward the windows as though the darkness outside might somehow offer an escape route—but now the uneasiness had settled beneath your ribs and made itself comfortable. Targaryen's estate emerged gradually beyond the trees, all pale stone and warm windows, its enormous grounds disappearing into the night, and there was something almost absurd about the tranquility of it; wealth lived here without needing to introduce itself, existing in the long private road, the immaculate gardens, the silent security and the house waiting at the end of it all as though it had been there forever and would remain there long after everyone currently inside had gone. You had been in beautiful places before, but this was different; this wasn't luxury borrowed for an evening or something carefully arranged for special occasions, but the architecture of someone's ordinary life, the kind of abundance that had become so familiar to its owners that they no longer noticed it.

Baelor glanced at you, his attention immediately settling on your hands. "You're nervous."

"I'm not."

His mouth twitched. "Y/N."

You sighed, finally surrendering. "Fine” You gave in. "I am."

"Terribly?"

"Don't make fun of me."

"I'm not."

"You are."

"Only a little." You gave him an irritated look, although there wasn't enough conviction behind it to make him believe you were actually annoyed, and Baelor reached across the seat, took one of your hands and gently pulled it away from the other before you could continue picking at your fingers.

"They're my sons," he said. "Not an inquisition."

"That's very reassuring."

"I thought so."

"What if they don't like me?"

Baelor's expression softened. "Why wouldn't they?"

Why wouldn’t they? Because I'm here with you, invading someone else's space, their house. Because I'm your considerably young fiancée, because I don't have a name to validate my social status, because I look like a... gold digger.

You didn't voice any of these thoughts. Instead, you simply replied: "Baelor, I'm your fiancée."

"Yes."

"I'm considerably younger than you."

"I had noticed."

"That's not funny."

"No, it isn't." The answer came so calmly that you almost laughed despite yourself, but your nervousness returned when the car turned beneath the covered entrance and the great doors came into view.

"And I'm about to meet the two people who have known you their entire lives. They've seen every version of you that existed before me, and I'm just—"

"You're Y/N." You stopped, and Baelor's thumb moved slowly over your knuckles. "You don't have to convince them that you deserve to be here. You don't have to compete with anyone, and you don't have to become someone you're not because you're frightened that my sons might have an opinion about you."

Your eyes dropped to your joined hands. "I'm marrying their father."

"Yes."

"That's a pretty significant opinion to have."

"Then let them have it." He leaned closer. "But don't let it become yours."

Before you could answer, Baelor kissed you, soft and brief, the sort of kiss that wasn't meant to make a spectacle of affection but simply to remind you that you weren't walking into that house alone. When he withdrew, he stayed close enough for his forehead to nearly touch yours. "Breathe."

"I am breathing."

"You're doing it aggressively."

A reluctant laugh escaped you. "You're an idiot."

"Better." Another kiss landed against your forehead. "They'll be fine."

"You don't know that."

"I know my sons." The car slowed to a complete stop, and you looked toward the doors, suddenly aware that his certainty did very little to quiet your own apprehension. Baelor knew his sons; that was precisely what frightened you. You didn't know them, and whatever history existed between the three of them was one you were about to enter as an outsider, carrying the uncomfortable distinction of being the young woman their father intended to marry.

—

Valarr had expected Y/N to disappear. When his father first mentioned her, the information had produced surprise rather than concern, because Baelor dating someone wasn't exactly scandalous; he was a grown man, entitled to his private life, and Valarr had never considered himself responsible for supervising it. There was a woman, apparently, and Baelor seemed interested, so Valarr had quietly given the relationship a few months in his head and moved on, perhaps half a year if his father was genuinely serious, although even that seemed generous at the time. Eventually, there would be an ending, some discreet explanation, and Y/N would become another name attached to a period of Baelor's life that had already closed. That assumption had been comfortable because it required nothing from him; he didn't have to like her, dislike her, understand her or even remember her, because she would simply be temporary, another person who passed through the orbit of a family accustomed to having people come and go.

Then came the engagement, and the word had lodged itself somewhere unpleasant, because dating could be temporary and even a serious relationship could eventually collapse beneath its own weight, whereas an engagement was a declaration of intent. Baelor had never been a man who made such declarations lightly, and suddenly Y/N wasn't merely a woman his father was seeing; she was someone who intended to remain, someone who would eventually appear in family photographs, sit at family tables, attend holidays and celebrations, learn the private geography of a household that had existed long before she entered it. She was no longer passing through; she was being invited in, and beneath that irritation was something uglier, something Valarr didn't particularly enjoy admitting to himself.

She thinks she can take Mother's place.

It was irrational, and he knew it. Jena was dead, and Y/N had never claimed to replace her; there was no vacancy that could be filled simply because Baelor had fallen in love again. Yet grief was rarely reasonable, and Valarr had spent enough years living with the shape of his mother's absence to resent anyone who appeared capable of occupying the space around it. Y/N didn't have to say she wanted Jena's place for Valarr to feel that she was approaching it; she only had to stand beside Baelor long enough for the contrast to become visible.

But if he was being brutally honest with himself, Jena wasn't the only reason he disliked her. The money was.

That conclusion had arrived with such effortless certainty that Valarr had barely questioned it. His father was wealthy—not merely comfortable, not merely successful, but wealthy enough that entire aspects of ordinary life could be erased with a signature. Security, travel, property, connections, influence, expensive gifts; Baelor possessed all of it, and she was young enough to be almost his son's contemporary. That was what bothered Valarr most. When he finally saw her, the age difference stopped being an abstract number and became something almost insulting in its visibility. She was young; not immature, not childish, but young enough that the distinction between her and Valarr seemed absurdly narrow, perhaps two or three years at most.

She could have been someone he'd met at university, someone he might have sat beside during a lecture, someone whose name he could have learned over coffee before eventually forgetting it. Instead, she was standing beside his father with a diamond on her finger, and suddenly the entire arrangement looked obscene to Valarr in a way he couldn't quite articulate. His gaze moved from Y/N to Baelor, then back again, and the thought arrived with such brutal simplicity that he almost hated himself for having it.

She's practically my fucking age. Another thought followed. She found the richest old man she could and married him.

It was not fair to impose his prejudices on a young woman whose desire was to be liked by the children of her fiancé, who seemed to have good intentions, judging by her kind gaze, and that he had put effort into highlighting her best attributes. He didn't care.

Maybe she genuinely loved his father. Fine. Valarr wasn't naive enough to believe that affection and greed were mutually exclusive. She can love the bastard and still love his fucking bank account. A man with Baelor's infinite wisdom, why was he so foolish in seeing the obvious? What prevented him from noticing that his sweet, young fiancée was after the family fortune? His bank account? His status?

That was the prejudice in its ugliest form, stripped of manners and family dinners and all the civilized language Valarr would later use to disguise it. He didn't know Y/N's history, didn't know what she had lived through before Baelor, whether she'd ever been uncomfortable with his gifts, whether she'd resisted his generosity, or whether the sudden ease of her new life had frightened her before it delighted her. He knew only what he could see: a young woman, an older wealthy man, a diamond, an engagement and an entirely different life waiting for her on the other side of the wedding. The arithmetic was insulting in its simplicity. She wanted something, and his father had plenty to give.

The doors opened, and Baelor walked inside with you beside him, his hand resting lightly at your back as he guided you into the entrance hall. Valarr looked up from where he had been speaking with Matarys, and for the first time his carefully constructed theory acquired a face. His initial reaction wasn't dramatic; there was no visible disgust, no obvious hostility, nothing that could later be pointed to as evidence. His expression simply went still as his eyes moved over you, taking in the dress, the nervous posture, the exuberant Cartier jewelry and, inevitably, the ring. His gaze lingered there for half a second before moving to your face, and although you had expected scrutiny, you hadn't expected the particular quality of it. Valarr wasn't quite looking at you as a person yet; he was assessing you, weighing you, fitting you into a conclusion he had reached before you'd even entered the room. A bitch, a damn gold digger.

Baelor smiled. "Y/N, this is Matarys."

Matarys approached first. "Hi." You had reviewed each of society's much-lauded rules of etiquette and protocol, every single detail to avoid looking like a fool who was just beginning to familiarize herself with the ostentatious life. This simplicity, though unexpected, was gratifying, comfortable. None of the dry, robotic protocol who was targeting prominent families. Just a familiar 'hi' . Your relief was almost embarrassingly immediate.

"Hi", you repeated.

"I'm Matarys."

"I know."

He laughed. "That means Dad has been talking about us."

"Only good things."

Matarys glanced at Baelor. "That's suspicious."

Baelor rolled his eyes, and you laughed, the sound loosening some of the tension in your shoulders, and causing an effervescent irritation in Valarr. Then Baelor turned toward his eldest.

"And this is Valarr." Valarr stood, and for one second his eyes met yours. They were beautifully mismatched. One eye socket was sapphire, the other deep brown. In his hair, you noticed a single white streak. His appearance was beautiful, with softer features than his father's. You extended your hand.

"It's a pleasure to meet you" Valarr looked at your hand before taking it, inspecting you, his gaze focused on the manicure you had paid for with your fiancé's card, his father.

"Likewise." His hand was warm, his expression pleasant and his handshake brief, yet somehow the whole interaction felt like being permitted through a door rather than welcomed inside. You withdrew your hand, and Valarr's eyes moved over you once more.

"You're very young." The sentence came so casually that you almost wondered whether you'd heard him correctly.

You forced a small smile. "I… suppose I am."

Valarr's eyes flicked briefly toward Baelor. "That's what surprised me." A tiny silence followed. Matarys looked between you both while you tried to determine whether there was something hidden beneath the words. Valarr smiled faintly. "Age is a rather flexible concept when people have enough money, isn’t it?"

Your smile froze for half a second and Matarys's attention shifted toward his brother. Valarr reached for his glass as though he'd said nothing remotely unusual. "I mean that people can afford to live rather differently when circumstances allow it." The explanation somehow made the original comment worse. "Isn't that so?"

“What—”

"Isn't it?" His tone was courteous, almost warm. A complete hypocrite.

Dinner began well enough, almost suspiciously well. Matarys was easy company, Baelor made an obvious effort to include everyone, and the dining room itself was magnificent without feeling like a showroom: dark wood, soft lighting, tall windows overlooking the gardens, old portraits and family photographs occupying the walls with the comfortable confidence of things that had been there for generations. You tried not to look impressed, but Valarr noticed anyway.

"You like it?"

You glanced toward him. "The house?"

"Everything."

You hesitated. "It's beautiful."

Valarr nodded. "Yes. It is." Then, almost as an afterthought, he added, "my father has always been good at providing beautiful things." You looked at him. His face was perfectly neutral. There was no accusation, no smile, nothing that could be challenged, and yet you understood the word he hadn't said. Providing.

You gave a small smile. "He's very generous."

Valarr's expression shifted by almost nothing. "Yes. He is." He took a sip of wine before adding, "He always has been, especially with people he cares about." The sentence sounded harmless, but even there you felt the implication sitting beneath it like a second voice. You didn't want to be that kind of person, you didn't want to accept that your fiancé's son was humiliating you like the commoner you really were. Ignoring this discomfort, you lowered your eyes toward your plate.

Matarys continued talking about something else, and the conversation moved on, but the first real piece of Valarr's hostility had already revealed itself. It wasn't going to be loud; that would have been stupid. Instead, it was going to arrive dressed as conversation, tucked into the seams of perfectly ordinary sentences and delivered with such impeccable calm that objecting to it would make you sound oversensitive.

The realization became clearer when Matarys asked about your work. "So, are you still working?"

You glanced toward Baelor, whose hand caressed yours on the table. "Not currently."

You could see Valarr's attention shift toward you. "Interesting."

You looked at him. "Interesting?" You repeated, his mismatched eyes planting holes in your head. "What's interesting?"

"Nothing." He smiled. Then, after a moment, he added, "I suppose that's one of the advantages of marrying someone who has already built the sort of life most people spend decades trying to afford." The words were almost conversational. Almost. "Comfort and carefree," he concluded.

You looked at him carefully. "I didn't stop working because of his money—"

Oh, she's a crybaby when you tell her the truth to her face. This bitch comes to my district, eats out of our pocket, she's under our roof, and dares to lie to my face. She's got some nerve.

His eyebrows lifted slightly, a hint of amusement in his voice. "I didn't say you did."

"No." You paused. This guy, you were sure now, was aiming to drive you crazy. "You didn't."

His gaze remained on you. "Still, it must be nice not having to worry about it."

You understood. The job. The bills. The uncertainty. The entire precarious machinery of ordinary life. You folded your hands in your lap, the great ring rock mocking him. "It is."

Valarr nodded, almost approvingly. "I imagine it would be." There was no insult you could quote, nothing overt, nothing cruel enough to justify a confrontation, yet somehow you left that exchange feeling as though you'd been weighed and priced, and he had the audacity to look perfectly pleasant while doing it.

You wanted to cleverly return the underlying implications to her. You placed your hand on the table, and just as you opened your lips to speak, Matarys said: "That's huge."

You looked down at your hand. Baelor had chosen an extraordinary stone: large enough to catch the candlelight every time you moved, surrounded by a delicate setting that made it appear almost weightless despite its obvious value. It was the kind of ring that didn't merely announce an engagement; it announced resources, taste and a family accustomed to acquiring things most people only admired from behind glass.

Baelor smiled. "I chose it."

Valarr's eyes settled on the diamond. "Did she?"

You looked at him. "What?"

"Choose it."

"Somewhat."

"How somewhat?" he inquired, leaning slightly forward.

"I told him what I liked."

Valarr nodded slowly. "And he bought it."

There was no question in his voice.

"Yes."

"Convenient” Valarr's expression remained composed. He smiled. "I mean that literally. It saves you the trouble of shopping."

You stared at him for a moment. "Right."

"Although," he continued, turning the stem of his glass between his fingers, "I suppose when someone offers to buy something for you, it would be terribly rude to complain about the price." The remark was almost elegant, almost playful, but you could feel the edge beneath it. You glanced down at your ring. The symbol of union between two different worlds, the cause of his mockery.

Valarr's eyes followed the movement.

Of course she likes the fucking ring.

The diamond wasn't proof of anything. Neither was the house, the lifestyle, the security or the fact that Y/N no longer needed to work. None of it proved that she had married Baelor for money, but Valarr didn't need proof. He had already convicted her; he was merely waiting for the evidence to catch up. There had to be a way to break your composure.

The rest of dinner developed a strange rhythm, and you began to anticipate Valarr's comments before he made them. Baelor mentioned a trip he wanted to take with you after the wedding, and Valarr smiled. "She'll have plenty of opportunities to travel now."

You looked at him. "What makes you say that?"

Valarr shrugged. "Your fiancé has a rather impressive collection of passports."The answer was so innocuous that you almost felt foolish for being suspicious.“You’re very fortunate."

Later, you thanked Baelor for arranging something for you, and Valarr observed, "he's always enjoyed taking care of people."

You looked at him. "That's a bad thing?"

"Not at all." He paused. "Some people are very fortunate to find someone who enjoys doing it."

Your fingers stilled around your glass. Valarr continued eating. When you mentioned that you'd grown accustomed to the estate, his mouth curved.

"Already?"

You looked at him. "What?"

"The house. The staff. The way everything works."

His expression was almost friendly.

"You've adapted quickly."

There was something in the word quickly that made your stomach turn. You set your glass down. "Should I apologize for adapting?"

There she is. He thought, there's the other one. The opportunistic bitch.

Valarr's eyebrows lifted. "I didn't say that."

"No." You smiled. "You didn't."

Something almost resembling approval appeared in his eyes—not warmth, but recognition, as though he'd finally discovered that you understood the game. That unsettled you more than the hostility itself.

He leaned back slightly. "I'd never criticize someone for knowing a good situation when they see one." A sentence so perfectly polished that it almost disguised itself as a compliment. You stared at him, and Valarr met your eyes without blinking. Then Matarys asked you something completely unrelated, and the moment passed, except it didn't.

By dessert, you had stopped wondering whether Valarr disliked you. He did.

The question was why, and the answer seemed increasingly obvious. He thought you were interested in Baelor's money—not subtly, not as a passing suspicion, but genuinely, deeply, almost instinctively. Perhaps worse, he believed it so completely that every attempt you made to disprove it could become evidence in favor of it. If you enjoyed the life Baelor gave you, you were greedy; if you felt uncomfortable with it, you were pretending; if you accepted a gift, you were calculating; if you refused one, you were playing coy; if you loved Baelor, you were manipulating him; if you didn't love him, then the answer was obvious. There was no winning, because somewhere inside Valarr's mind, the prejudice had already become a closed circuit.

She wants the fucking money. He watched you laugh at something Matarys said. She wants the house. He watched Baelor's hand settle gently against your back. She wants the security. He looked at the ring. She wants the name. And then came the thought that bothered him most: She wants everything Mom left behind without having to bury any of it.

That one was harder because it wasn't entirely about money. It was about territory. Jena's absence had become something sacred to Valarr, and Y/N's arrival felt like trespassing. She wasn't trying to replace Jena, he knew it, but knowing something intellectually never stopped the flow of thought.

Dinner ended, and Baelor was delighted. Matarys seemed to like you, you had survived, and Valarr had behaved impeccably. That last part was what Baelor would remember. Valarr had been polite, he had answered questions, he hadn't raised his voice, he hadn't insulted you, and he had even smiled. There was therefore no reason for Baelor to suspect that his eldest son had spent the evening dissecting his fiancée with the precision of a surgeon.

When you thanked Matarys, the younger boy smiled. "I'm glad you came."

A warm feeling flooded your chest. "So am I." Then you turned toward Valarr, and the affectionate feeling was replaced by discomfort. He looked at you, the expression in his eyes was almost gentle, But the blue, consumed in a playful flash, betrayed him.

"Thank you for coming."

You smiled cautiously. "Thank you for having me."

Valarr tilted his head. "Of course." A beat. "I'm sure it must be exciting."

Your brows knitted. "What must be exciting?"

He glanced around the room: the house, the paintings, the furniture, the wealth, the entire magnificent machinery of Baelor's life, before returning his attention to you.

"All of this." Your expression went still, Valarr smiled. "Don't misunderstand me. I imagine it takes some getting used to." There was the final little knife, small enough to hide, sharp enough to cut.

You looked at him for a long second before answering, ready to shoot, but your word was insignificant for you to continue. Valarr's words continued after his eyes fell briefly to your ring. "Though you seem to be adjusting beautifully." Your stomach tightened. He looked back at you. "I meant that as a compliment."

Baelor returned to your side, completely oblivious to the exchange, and immediately slipped an arm around your waist. "See?" he murmured. "Nothing to worry about."

You looked at him. His expression was so sincere that you almost felt guilty for being relieved when he pulled you against him. Baelor kissed your temple, and across the room Valarr watched, his expression carefully composed.

The contempt in his mind became brutally simple. Of course. Of course his father was going to kiss her. Of course she was going to lean into him. Of course she'd smile. She'd be a fucking idiot not to. The thought was cruel enough that even Valarr recognized it as such, but he didn't take it back, because in his mind the diamond, the house, the security, the influence and Baelor's affection were all pieces of the same transaction, even if nobody had ever sat down and negotiated it aloud.

He didn't know you. He didn't know what you'd lost before Baelor, what you'd wanted, what you'd feared, or what you'd actually felt when the first expensive gift had appeared in your hands. He didn't know how much of this life you'd resisted before learning to enjoy it. He didn't know whether you'd fallen in love with Baelor first and his world afterward, or whether the world had dazzled you before the man ever did. He knew none of it, why would he want to? You were young, Baelor was rich. You were engaged. The rest, to Valarr, was merely decoration. He didn't say any of it aloud, he didn't need to. Val simply gave you one last courteous smile as Baelor led you toward the door, and you finally understood what made him frightening: Valarr didn't hate you loudly enough for anyone else to hear, because he had mastered the far more elegant cruelty of making contempt sound like good manners. He didn't hate you loudly. He hated you politely, at least in front of his father.

—

Moving into the Targaryen household had seemed inevitable by then, almost embarrassingly natural from Baelor's perspective. There had been no dramatic announcement, no formal conversation about whether you were truly ready to make such a change; there had simply been a gradual migration of your life into his, so subtle at first that you barely noticed it happening until one week there were only a few dresses hanging in one of the guest rooms, then your books appeared beside Baelor's in the library, your cosmetics occupied a corner of the bathroom, your favorite mug somehow found its way into the kitchen cupboards, and eventually there were boxes being carried through the corridors while Baelor stood nearby giving instructions about where he thought everything should go. He seemed delighted by every new indication that you were staying, treating the whole thing as though the house had been waiting for your arrival, but for you, the transition was more complicated. The Targaryen estate was beautiful in a way that could become oppressive if you thought about it for too long, with enormous rooms, old portraits, dark polished wood and family photographs displaying generations of people who had belonged there long before you ever knew Baelor existed; there was history in every corridor, and now your belongings were being placed directly into the middle of it.

Baelor never allowed you to feel like a guest, and that was the only reason the arrangement became bearable so quickly. He would come home, find you reading in the library or sitting in one of the drawing rooms, and immediately ask how you were settling in, whether you wanted anything changed, whether there was some room you preferred or whether you needed additional space for your things. If you mentioned that something felt unfamiliar, he treated it as a problem to be solved rather than something you should simply tolerate, and little by little the house became less like his family's home and more like the place where your shared life was beginning. Valarr, however, seemed to regard every new object belonging to you as an invasion; your books on the shelves were an invasion, your shoes beside the entrance were an invasion, your coat hanging beside Baelor's was an invasion, and even the sight of your favorite tea sitting in the kitchen cupboard seemed to irritate him, as though you had somehow managed to colonize the house one harmless possession at a time.

Still, you tried to make things easier. Every afternoon, whenever Valarr returned from university, you made an effort to greet him. It wasn't elaborate; sometimes you were sitting in the living room with a book and would glance up when you heard the front door, while other times you would encounter him in the hallway, his bag hanging from one shoulder and his expression already exhausted from the day, and you would offer him the same simple question.

"How was your day?"

At first, Valarr answered with a curt "Fine," then it became "Long," and occasionally, "Annoying." You would sometimes try to continue the conversation, asking whether his classes had gone well or whether the assignment he'd mentioned had finally been returned, because you remembered these things and because remembering seemed like the sort of small gesture that could eventually build something resembling familiarity. Valarr never outright told you to fuck off in front of Baelor; he never slammed doors in your face when his father was nearby, never openly insulted you at the dinner table and never gave Baelor anything concrete enough to notice. Instead, he'd answer with one or two words and continue walking, or he'd look at you with an expression that made it painfully obvious he wished you had chosen someone else to speak to.

The first anonymous message arrived after one of those afternoons. You had asked him how university had gone, and Valarr had stopped halfway up the stairs, one hand resting on the banister as he looked down at you with an expression of exhausted irritation. "Why do you keep asking me that?"

You blinked, momentarily caught off guard by how disproportionate his reaction seemed to such a harmless question. "I'm just trying to be friendly—"

"Don't."

Your brows drew together. "Don't what?"

"Try."

He continued upstairs before you could answer, leaving you standing at the bottom of the staircase, staring after him while the words settled into the uncomfortable space between embarrassment and confusion.

That evening, while Baelor was downstairs speaking on the phone, your screen lit up.

Unknown account: Stop pretending you care about me. It's pathetic.

You stared at the message, your thumb hovering above the screen, and another appeared almost immediately.

Unknown account: You don't need to play family with me. You're already getting what you came here for.

You blocked the account without replying, then sat there for several seconds with the phone still in your hand, telling yourself it was probably some random person, someone who had found you through social media, a troll, someone connected to Baelor who disliked the engagement. There were dozens of possible explanations, and you preferred every single one to the thought that the person sitting upstairs in the same house might have sent them, anything but assume it was Val.

The next morning, you woke up to another message from a different account.

Unknown account: Was his cock able to get erect, or did he take Viagra again?

Your stomach tightened. You deleted it. You didn't tell Baelor. You didn't tell anyone.

—

Valarr was considerably worse when there was nobody around to witness him, and that distinction became increasingly obvious as the weeks passed. In front of Baelor, he could manage a tolerable version of himself, sometimes even asking you about your day or participating in conversations as though the two of you weren't constantly circling some invisible battlefield, but whenever Baelor disappeared into his study, left for work, went upstairs or simply stepped out of the room, Valarr's personality seemed to shed whatever thin layer of civility he'd been wearing.

One afternoon, you found him in the kitchen, his university bag lying on the counter while he stood drinking something cold directly from a glass. You were slicing fruit at the island when you looked up and, despite everything, instinctively tried again. "How was your day?"

Valarr didn't look at you. "Fine."

You paused with the knife hovering above the cutting board. "Just fine?"

His eyes finally moved toward you, slow and unimpressed, and the faint crease between his brows deepened as though he'd already decided the conversation was irritating him. "What the fuck do you want?" The bluntness made your shoulders tense, so you lowered the knife carefully and stared at him.

"Nothing."

"Then stop asking."

"I was just being polite."

"No, you're doing that thing again."

"What thing?"

"That fake fucking interest." You stared at him, genuinely bewildered by the hostility, while Valarr put his glass down with a quiet click against the counter. "You don't care how my day was."

"I actually do."

"Why?"

"Because we're living in the same house." The answer was obvious, evident, as visible as the contempt that emanated from his eyes.

His mouth twisted into something resembling a smile, but there was no warmth behind it. "That's not a reason."

"It is to me."

"Do you rehearse this shit?" He pushed himself away from the counter and looked directly at you. "The whole innocent routine, the sweet voice, the questions, the pretending you're desperately interested in everybody's lives. Does it come naturally or did you practice before you moved in?" She didn't hold back the venom; every word pointed toward destruction. "Do you practice the moans you make for him, the needy 'right there' you expel to satisfy him?"

"That's none of your business." Your face hardened, a hint of mortification in your eyes. "I don't understand why you dedicate so much time to hating me."

"I don't hate you." The answer came immediately, almost dismissively, and then he added, "I just think you're fucking ridiculous."

"That's better?"

"Much more accurate." He stepped around the counter, and you instinctively straightened, unwilling to let him see that his proximity made you uncomfortable. "You're marrying my father." His, like everything else here. His, because you were his father's betrothed, replaceable, and he was his son, permanent. You had nothing, no title, no money, no career. You, in the name of love, abandoned all possibility of growth for the comfort that marriage would bring.

"We're engaged."

"Whatever."

"There's a difference."

"Not really." His eyes flicked toward your ring. "You've got to keep the story romantic somehow."

Your jaw tightened. "You don't know anything about my life."

"I know what it looks like."

"Then you're an idiot." That finally made him pause. His eyebrows rose slightly, as if he'd been expecting you to absorb the insult quietly and had not anticipated being given one back, and then the corner of his mouth lifted.

"There she is."

"Fuck you—"

"Careful." His expression sharpened with satisfaction. "I'm just enjoying the fact that the sweet little act finally slipped. "

You crossed your arms tightly, partly defensive and partly because you didn't trust your hands not to tremble. "You are insufferable."

"And you're a damn gold digger." The words landed with such brutal simplicity that for a second you couldn't even formulate an answer. Valarr didn't soften them, didn't retract them and didn't even look embarrassed; he simply watched you, his expression hard and utterly convinced.

"That's what you think?"

"I don't think it. I know what it looks like."

"You don't know me."

"You're right. I don't." His gaze dropped deliberately toward the ring on your finger before returning to your face. "But I know my father, his generosity."

You swallowed, forcing your voice to remain steady. "And apparently you know me well enough to insult me."

"That's not an insult. It's an observation."

"You're an asshole." He picked up his bag, swinging it over his shoulder as though the conversation were finished, then, as he passed you, deliberately knocked your phone from the edge of the counter. It struck the floor with a sharp little clatter. You looked down, then at him. Valarr looked back with a blank expression that was almost comical in its obviousness.

"Oops." He didn't move.

You stared at him. "Pick it up."

His eyebrows lifted. "Excuse me?" Is this bitch serious? Does she think she can boss me around in my own house, on my family's property?

"You dropped it."

"I know."

"Then pick it up."

For a moment, something almost amused flickered across his face. "No." And he walked away. You remained there, staring after him, your hands clenched against the edge of the counter while the kitchen seemed suddenly much too large and much too quiet. Your phone vibrated, didn't want to look. You looked anyway.

Unknown account: Did you pick it up like the servant you are?

Your stomach dropped. A second message appeared.

Unknown account: God, you have a divine ass. Tell me, does he fuck you well or just stroke you?

You blocked the account, and this time you couldn't convince yourself it was random.

—

The messages began appearing like punctuation marks throughout your life, always arriving after moments that had left you particularly shaken. Never constantly enough to become predictable, but often enough that you couldn't forget them; they appeared after arguments, after uncomfortable dinners, after moments in which Valarr had deliberately embarrassed you, and sometimes after seemingly ordinary interactions that left you wondering whether you had imagined his hostility. When Valarr made a remark about how quickly you had become accustomed to the estate, the message came that evening.

Unknown account: Are you serious? This was your solution? You’re so ugly that you had to seduce a man in his 40s to get the life you wanted.

When Baelor bought you a new piece of jewelry, the message came before you had even finished changing out of your dress.

Unknown account: If you'd taken a little longer the whole staff would have seen those tits. Then: Send me a photo, I want to see them up close

When you refused an extravagant gift because you genuinely felt uncomfortable accepting something so expensive, another appeared. Unknown account: Cute. Pretending you don't want the money makes you look even greedier.

That one made you sit very still, because it meant whoever was writing them had known what had happened, and that narrowed the possibilities considerably. You were being watched, observed like a guinea pig to confirm the hypothesis of some twisted intellectual. Peace in the vastness of this mansion was a luxury that the potential Targaryen name couldn't buy you.

—

Valarr also discovered that humiliation didn't always require words. Sometimes it was enough to make you feel ridiculous in front of him, and he seemed to take particular pleasure in making his little acts of cruelty so petty that complaining about them would make you sound ridiculous yourself. He would deliberately leave objects in inconvenient places, force you to ask him to move things he'd put in your way, or take something you had been looking for and leave it somewhere obvious enough that you would eventually find it only after asking everyone else in the house; if you were carrying several things, he might brush against you and send one of them to the floor, then look down at it with complete indifference.

One day, you were carrying a stack of books through the hallway when Valarr emerged from the library. He saw you, saw the books and deliberately stepped sideways into your path. You stopped abruptly. "Move."

Valarr looked at you. "You're so rude. How about a 'please'?"

"No."

"Valarr."

"What?"

"Move." He stared at you for another moment before finally stepping aside. You walked past him, carefully adjusting the books in your arms, only for one to slip from the stack and hit the floor thanks to a slight push from him. You stopped. Valarr looked down, your eyes focused on him.

"You did that on purpose."

"No. I could never" He exaggerated the dramatic expression, his eyebrows raised in a ridiculous arch, mouth pursed in the most twisted of pouts.

"You absolutely did."

"Prove it." You stared at him, your disbelief slowly giving way to anger. Valarr's mouth curved. "That's what I thought." He walked away. You crouched to pick up the book, and your phone vibrated in your pocket. You froze. The screen displayed another unfamiliar account.

Unknown account: You really are easy to embarrass. Pathetic bitch, do you really think a Targaryen would kneel before a servant?

Your fingers tightened around the phone. Another message appeared.

Unknown account: You could put those lips to a better use. Just have to wrap them in my cock. You immediately locked the screen, but the words had already lodged themselves somewhere unpleasant in your mind.

There were moments when Valarr's comments became so crude that you couldn't believe he'd actually said them. He seemed to have no interest whatsoever in maintaining the polished image he presented around his father, and the ugliness of his private conversations with you seemed almost intentional, as though he wanted to strip away every trace of civility between you.

Another day, Baelor had gone out to dinner with a business associate, leaving you and Valarr in the house. You were sitting in the library reading when Valarr entered, glanced at the book in your lap and scoffed.

"Do you ever do anything besides read?"

You didn't look up. "Do you ever do anything besides complain?"

"Apparently." You turned a page.

Valarr moved closer. "What's that?"

"A book."

"I can see that."

"Then why ask?"

He leaned against one of the shelves. "Just wondering what you're doing with all your free time now."

Your eyes lifted slowly. "What does that mean?"

"You don't work anymore."

"I still have things to do—"

"Sure."

"Say what you mean."

Valarr laughed under his breath, his eyes narrowing slightly. "Fine. You're living here, spending my father's money, wearing his jewelry and reading books all day. Must be fucking exhausting."

You closed the book with deliberate care. "You're obsessed with my finances."

"I'm obsessed with the fact that you pretend they're irrelevant."

"They are irrelevant to you."

"No, they're not."

"Why?"

"It's my father's money. Therefore, my money." There was a beat of silence.

"And I'm his fiancée."

His face hardened instantly. "Exactly." The word came out with such disgust that something twisted inside you. He looked at your ring again before returning his attention to your face. "Do you ever hear yourself?"

"What?"

"Calling yourself his fiancée like that makes everything fucking respectable."

You stood, keeping the book clutched against your chest. "Enough."

"No."

"Valarr."

"You wanted honesty, didn't you?"

"I wanted basic decency."

"Then you've picked the wrong house." The cruelty of it made you go silent. Your fingers tightened around the book until the cover bent slightly beneath your grip. Valarr noticed. His expression changed—not softer, but sharper, because he had realized he'd found precisely what he wanted. "There," he murmured. "That's better."

"What?"

"You're not pretending anymore."

Your voice shook despite your effort to control it. "I don't know what you want from me."

"Nothing."

"Then why are you doing this?"

His answer came without hesitation. "Because I don't fucking like you."

You stared at him. "If you hadn't told me, I wouldn't have noticed. " The sarcasm was obvious.

"No, you don't." He moved closer, stopping a few feet away. "I don't like you in this house. I don't like seeing your shit everywhere. I don't like Dad looking at you like you're the best thing that's happened to him in years. I don't like that you're young enough to be mistaken for someone my age. I don't like the ring. I don't like the fact that you're going to marry him. And I sure as hell don't like watching you settle into a life you didn't fucking build."

Your eyes burned. Valarr stared at you with an expression that had become almost frighteningly impersonal, as though he were listing grievances rather than talking to a person.

"And before you start crying—"

"I'm not."

"You are."

"Fuck you."

"Again with that." You wiped beneath one eye angrily, furious that he'd noticed. Valarr's expression didn't soften. "Go ahead. Cry, "What will you do? Tell my dad that his son treats you badly?" He laughed cruelly in front of you. "Life, Y/N, is governed by ranks, hierarchy. There are the lucky ones born into influential families at the peak, those who work their way up, and then, at the very bottom of the mountain, the servants. You are the base of the structure, the floor I walk on, the filth. "

Large tears threatened to spill from your eyes. Why? What had you done to deserve this contempt? What kind of actions, you wondered, had you performed in your past life that were now being punished in this one? "You're disgusting."

"Someone needs to teach you your place, darling."

The nickname was disgusting, nauseating. "And you think that makes you better than me?"

"No."

"Then what the hell is this?"

His answer came quieter this time. "Making sure you know I see you.”

Your fingers tightened around the book. "You're sick."

Valarr's expression flickered, but only briefly. As usual, he turned around and disappeared into the maze of corridors. Your phone vibrated almost immediately, the messenger's identity is an obvious constant.

Unknown account: Don't cry. It makes you look exactly like what you are. A fucking opportunist. You turned the phone face-down and sat there in the silent library, staring at the closed book in your lap without seeing any of its words.

—

The messages became harder to ignore after that. Sometimes they appeared after Valarr had spoken to you directly, as though the anonymous account were simply continuing conversations that had begun in person.

After he called you a gold digger: Unknown account: Still pretending you love him? After he mocked you for no longer working: Unknown account: Must be nice having someone else pay for your life. After an argument in which you told him he had no right to judge you: Unknown account: I don't need to judge you. You're making the evidence pretty obvious. And after you had a particularly difficult day and spent the evening avoiding everyone, there was one message waiting for you before you went to bed: Unknown account: You don't belong here.

That one hurt more than you wanted to admit, because it was no longer about money; it was about the house, about Baelor, about Jena, about the family, about whether there would ever be a place for you among people who had existed together long before you arrived. You turned the phone face-down and tried to sleep. Ten minutes later, it vibrated again. Unknown account: You should listen. You didn't answer.

The worst part was that Valarr never behaved like this when Baelor was watching. He wasn't stupid. He would never behave that way in front of his father, brother, or acquaintances. He had a reputation to uphold, a mask of courtesy to wear in front of others. Matarys's suspicious glances on the first day had been enough.

At breakfast, he could ask you whether you wanted coffee; at dinner, he could pass you a dish without being asked; if Baelor mentioned some event they were attending together, Valarr might even smile and say something polite about it. He had perfected the performance so thoroughly that you sometimes wondered whether Baelor would believe you if you told him everything. That uncertainty became another weapon.

After Valarr had spent several minutes making cutting remarks about the wedding, Baelor returned to the room. Valarr immediately changed, his shoulders relaxing as though someone had flipped a switch.

"How was your meeting?" Baelor answered, and the conversation moved on.

You stared at Valarr. He noticed. His eyes met yours. Nothing. Not a trace of the person who had been insulting you minutes earlier. This was calculated, precision of the actuating hand, he knew exactly what he was doing, and regret was not in his vocabulary.

—

As the wedding date drew closer, becoming more plausible with each line marked on the calendar, the anonymous messages multiplied. Slut, whore, and gold digger were the usual insults in the texts. However, they no longer had any effect on you. They were cruel, extremely vile and inhuman, but you had accepted them to some extent thanks to the inexhaustible highlights of your stepson.

You would marry his father, a man twice your age, generous, who adored you to the tips of your toes, you would unite your life with the blind man incapable of drawing the lines of your interest, and Valarr Targaryen could not prevent it. This was a natural disaster, something beyond his control, a barrier that his surname could not overcome. The day of his nightmares had arrived.

The room was almost offensively beautiful for a conversation like this. Everything had been arranged with the kind of meticulous care reserved for occasions that were supposed to become cherished memories: white flowers spilling from tall vases beside the windows, candles burning low along the mantel, pale afternoon light filtering through sheer curtains and catching against the crystal scattered across the dressing table. Your veil lay spread over the back of a chair, its delicate fabric spilling toward the floor, while the diamonds at your ears and throat caught every movement of the light. Beyond the closed doors, the house had begun to hum with the wedding. Voices drifted through the corridors, servants moved between rooms, and somewhere downstairs guests were taking their seats. The ceremony was close enough that you could feel it in the air. Baelor would be waiting. Soon, you would walk toward him. For a few precious minutes, you had been trying to hold on to that thought when someone knocked.

"Come in."

The door opened. Valarr stepped inside.

He looked almost painfully appropriate for the occasion, dressed in formal black, his hair carefully arranged, every detail of his appearance suggesting that he belonged to this world as naturally as the portraits lining the walls did. Yet there was nothing celebratory in his expression. He closed the door behind him without a word, and his gaze traveled slowly across the room before settling on you. It lingered on the dress, the veil, the jewelry, and finally the ring on your finger. There was no open hostility in his face, nothing that could be called a scene, but you had learned his expressions well enough to recognize what sat underneath that polished exterior.

"What are you doing here?"

Valarr gave a quiet, humorless laugh. "I wanted to see you."

"Why?"

"Curiosity."

You turned toward the mirror again, adjusting one of the earrings that did not need adjusting. "Well, you've seen me."

"I suppose I have."He moved farther into the room. His gaze returned to the dress.

"I'll admit, it's impressive. A few months ago, you were working to pay your own bills. Now you're standing in a room like this wearing a dress that probably costs more than most people's cars, waiting to marry a man who could financially secure your entire family without noticing the expense."

Your fingers stilled. "Don't start."

"Start what?"

"You know exactly what." You let go firmly. "This is my day. I won't allow you ruin it."

Valarr's mouth curved. "I'm complimenting you."

"That's not what you're doing."

"No?" He glanced around the room.

"Then what would you call it?"

"Insult."

"Only if you're ashamed of how convenient this has been."The words landed harder than they should have. Perhaps because of where you stood, perhaps because of what you were wearing, perhaps because this was supposed to be the beginning of something rather than another confrontation with the one member of Baelor's family who seemed determined to make you feel like an intruder.

You turned to him.

"Did you come here just to insult me?"

"Yes." The simplicity of the answer stopped you. Valarr didn't even pretend otherwise. He stood several feet away, his hands loose at his sides, perfectly composed while he dismantled the day you had spent months anticipating. "I've watched this whole thing happen," he said. "The dinners. The gifts. The house. The jewelry. You moving in. You leaving work. Everyone gradually getting used to seeing you here until suddenly nobody remembers what the house looked like before you were in it." His eyes settled on the ring. "And now you're five minutes away from becoming my father's wife."

"That bothers you."

"It should."

"Why?" His expression hardened.

"Because you didn't just fall in love with him. You stepped into a family that already existed and started taking up space in it." The words were quieter now. That made them worse. "You've got your things in my mother's house. You're sitting at her table. You're appearing in family photographs. My father looks at you like you've always belonged here, and you started acting like you believe him." Your throat tightened. Valarr continued before you could answer. "But you're not my mother." The room seemed to contract around those words. "You never will be," he added. "A dress doesn't change that. Neither does a ring. Neither does my father's last name."

You stared at him, your hands slowly folding together in front of you. "I've never tried to be your mother."

"Maybe not consciously."

"Valarr."

"That's the problem." His gaze sharpened. "You don't even seem to understand what you're taking."

Something in your chest twisted. For months, you had tried to understand his resentment. You had asked about university. You had tried conversation after conversation, endured his clipped answers, his insults, his deliberate humiliations, the anonymous messages that arrived whenever he wanted to remind you that he was watching. You had told yourself there had to be something beneath it, some grief, some loyalty to Jena, some fear that his father's marriage meant changing a family structure he had spent years accepting. But standing there in your wedding dress, you could finally see how little patience Valarr had for explanations.

He didn't want to understand you. He wanted you to feel guilty for existing in the space you had been given. Then his gaze dropped to your ring again. "Do you know what I think is the worst part?" You said nothing. "I think you like it." Your eyes lifted. "All of this." He gestured around the room. "The house. The name. The people treating you differently because they know who you're marrying. Never having to worry about whether something is too expensive. Being able to walk into a store, point at something, and never have to calculate what it'll do to your bank account." His voice remained calm, almost conversational. "You like being taken care of.”

There was no point denying it.You did like the comfort. You liked the beautiful things Baelor gave you. You adored waking up without the old panic about bills and work and whether something unexpected would destroy the fragile stability you had spent years trying to maintain. You enjoyed the influence that came with his name, the doors that opened, the ease of having someone beside you who could solve problems that had once seemed insurmountable. None of that made your love imaginary.

"Yes," you said. Valarr paused.

You lifted your chin. "I like it. So what?" Something flickered across his face.

"I like being comfortable, beautiful things. I like not having to worry about money every second. I love what Baelor has given me, and I'm not going to stand here and pretend otherwise just because you want me to feel guilty for enjoying it."

His expression grew colder. "But that doesn't mean I married him for money.”

Is she serious? Is she listening to herself right now? She's wearing white, the color of purity, And yet, even in disguise, she's a damn bitch. She will stand at that altar next to my father, they will swear to separate until death, she will tarnish our surname, my surname. Why? Why was his father so wise about some things, and a complete fool about others? Why would the gods have punished him with such a heavy burden?

Valarr's eyes narrowed. "You really believe that?"

"Yes."

"Then you're either incredibly naive or you're a fucking liar.” He took a few steps closer, close enough to contemplate the immaculate white veil concealing your monstrous being. "Today is probably the closest you'll ever get to winning." Your brows pulled together. Valarr glanced back "You got him. You got the house. You got the money. You got the family. You got the life." His gaze dropped to the ring again. "Congratulations."

"Get out." You expelled the command with unwavering resolve. You wouldn't allow him to steal the peace of the happiest day of your life. "Get out of here, get out!" Your voice grew louder, and holding the dazzling bouquet of flowers, you turned to look at him. In those mismatched eyes, where you found raw cruelty, there was a strange hint, an unusual ingredient in the mixed ocean of his eyes. Desire, lust so authentic that it caused a tremor throughout your body.

“‘Get out, get out’," he repeated mockingly, exaggerating your powerless commands with disdain. "I don't think you listen to yourself most of the time you talk, you bitch. I've explained to you time and time again how this works, who's in charge, who the hell holds the reins, and you choose to defy me every. Single. Time." As their conversation unfolded, he moved closer. His presence was claustrophobic, oppressive, and intimidating. It defined the limits of your freedom when his hungry hands took your breasts over the lace of your veil, the fabric of your dress.

Your heart pounded against your ribs, each beat tearing the air from your lungs. "You think you've gotten away with it?" The veil was the only thing preventing his breath from hitting your flawless face. "Are you really so naive as to believe it's all over?" He squeezed your chest roughly, imprisoning your skin with his fingers. Uncertainty reigned in your senses, everything overwhelming at once. The messages were plausible, texts on a screen that conceptualized your relationship with your fiancé, alluded to your body, tarnished your name. The difference between those texts and Val's touch, now rising to hold your jaw, was that they couldn't touch you, couldn't take you.

“"What if I take you now?" He pressed his forehead to yours, his lips teasingly touching yours. "You wouldn't object to me doing it, would you? You're definitely a lustful vixen." he murmured. "You like me, don't you?I've noticed the way you look at me, the way your eyes wander my body. You desire your husband's son—"

"I never—" Indignation flooded your being. Desire him? Him, the monster who haunted your dreams? The son of the man you were to marry in a few minutes? The one responsible for your insecurities. "I've never looked at you inappropriately, I've never—" he rudely squeezed your breast, without any tact. A pained groan escaped your lips.

"Oh, shut up!" he roared. "You do it all the time. You bend over so I can see your ass, you undress with the doors open just to tease me with your tits. You're a selfish whore who isn't satisfied with my father. I wouldn't be surprised, Dad can't even get it up properly and you're desperate for a young, virile cock to sweep you off your feet."

The door had barely begun to close when hurried footsteps sounded in the corridor. It opened again. Before you could even make a judgment or response, frustration made you want to cry. One of the women assisting you with the wedding stepped inside, carrying a small box of pins and ribbons, and immediately stopped when she noticed Valarr standing there, his hands hovering over your breasts. The change in him was almost disturbing in its perfection. Whatever had been sitting behind his eyes seconds earlier vanished. His shoulders relaxed, his expression softened, and the contempt that had made his voice so ugly disappeared beneath the pleasant composure of a perfectly mannered son.

"Oh," she said, looking between the two of you. "I'm sorry. I didn't realize you had company."

Valarr's response came without hesitation.

“Don't apologize. I was just trying to calm her down." You stared at him. He didn't even look at you. Instead, he offered the woman a small, reassuring smile, as though the conversation that had just taken place had consisted of nothing more than harmless encouragement. "She's understandably nervous. I thought it might help if she had someone familiar around for a moment.”

Before you could answer, Valarr stepped closer.Not enough to appear threatening. Just enough to make the performance convincing.

"I'm fine," you managed.

He lowered his head as though he were about to say something private, and for anyone watching, the gesture might have looked almost affectionate. His lips came close to your ear. The warmth vanished from his expression. "Fix your face," he whispered. "Unless you want everyone downstairs wondering why the bride looks like she's been told she made the worst decision of her life."

Your breath caught. Then he pulled back.

The transformation was immediate. "See?" Valarr said pleasantly, addressing the woman. "She's just overwhelmed."

The woman smiled, evidently relieved. "Of course she is. Anyone would be."

Valarr gave a small shrug, almost modestly. "I told her there was nothing to worry about." Your eyes met his.

For one fleeting second, you saw it again: that cold, vicious satisfaction hidden underneath the polished exterior. Then it disappeared, gone, vanished. "Good luck," he said aloud before walking outside.

The woman watched him disappear through the doorway before looking back at you with unmistakable admiration.

"Such a good boy," she murmured, almost fondly. "He really does care about you."

You stared at the closed door. For several seconds, you couldn't bring yourself to answer.

—

The honeymoon was everything it was supposed to be: excessive, beautiful, almost offensively luxurious. Baelor had chosen places where privacy was treated as another form of wealth, where the suites opened onto private terraces and the sea stretched beyond the horizon without a single ugly building interrupting the view. There were candlelit dinners overlooking the water, long afternoons spent wandering through places you had previously only seen in photographs, expensive little gifts appearing without warning whenever something caught your attention, and mornings in which there was absolutely nothing demanding your attention. For the first few days, you allowed yourself to disappear into it. You let yourself enjoy the absurdity of having no schedule, no employer waiting for you, no bills requiring calculation, no small emergency capable of undoing an entire month's work. Baelor seemed determined to make your first weeks as husband and wife feel suspended outside ordinary time, and sometimes it worked. Sometimes you could genuinely forget the mansion, the family, the scrutiny, and especially Valarr.

But Valarr's voice had a peculiar way of returning whenever everything became quiet. It surfaced while you were lying awake beside Baelor, listening to the distant sound of the ocean through an open balcony door; it followed you through elaborate dinners and beautiful hotel corridors, appearing in the middle of perfectly ordinary thoughts like an unwanted stain. You got him. You got the house. You got the money. You got the family. You got the life. The words were embarrassingly persistent. You hated that they had lodged themselves somewhere inside you, hated even more that you sometimes caught yourself examining your own happiness through them, as though Valarr had somehow installed a second pair of eyes inside your head. When Baelor bought you something beautiful, you remembered the accusation. When someone treated you with deference because you were now his wife, you remembered it. When you woke up and realized you no longer had to rush to work, remembered the exhaustion of your old life, and then remembered Valarr asking whether you liked being taken care of. The worst part was that the answer remained yes. You liked it. You liked the ease, the abundance, the security. You liked being able to breathe without calculating the consequences of every expense. Yet liking those things did not make his interpretation true, and slowly, that distinction became the one thing you refused to surrender.

By the middle of the honeymoon, something inside you had settled. You couldn't make Valarr understand you. You couldn't force him to accept that Baelor's marriage to you was not an attack on Jena's memory, nor could you spend the rest of your life standing before him like a defendant waiting for a verdict. His opinion had become a room you had been voluntarily locking yourself inside, and you were beginning to understand that you didn't have to keep walking through its door. If Valarr wanted to think you were a gold digger, an opportunist, some ambitious young woman who had looked at his father's fortune and calculated her way toward it, then he could. The thought still hurt, but the hurt no longer demanded an answer.

The return to the mansion made that decision much more difficult—and, strangely, much more effective.

The house welcomed you with the same grandeur you had left behind: polished marble, enormous windows, portraits watching from gilded frames, arrangements of fresh flowers changed in your absence, and the quiet, practiced movements of staff who seemed to know exactly where everything belonged. You stepped back into that world as Baelor's wife rather than his fiancée, and the distinction was reflected in small details everywhere. Your belongings were no longer confined to a guest room. Your name appeared beside his on correspondence. Your wardrobe occupied a substantial portion of your shared rooms. Your place at the dinner table was no longer provisional. You had returned to the mansion having crossed a line that Valarr had spent months insisting you had no right to cross.

So you stopped giving him anything. Not anger. Not explanations. Not arguments. Not even the courtesy of acknowledging that he was trying to provoke you.

The first time Valarr entered the breakfast room after your return, you were already seated beside Baelor with a cup of coffee in front of you. You heard his footsteps. You knew exactly when he entered, because the room changed in that subtle way it always did when he appeared. But you continued speaking to Baelor about the trip, asking whether he had received the documents waiting for him, commenting on something you'd seen abroad, laughing quietly when he answered. Valarr took his usual seat. Nothing. No greeting. No glance. No question about university. Not even the polite smile you might have given a stranger.

You simply behaved as though he were another piece of furniture. At first, Valarr seemed amused. He tested it. "Morning." Nothing. You lifted your coffee and asked Baelor whether he preferred the photographs from the coast or the ones taken in the gardens. Valarr waited. "Did you hear me?" Your eyes remained on Baelor, who seemed distant from what was happening around him.

The faintest tension appeared around Valarr's mouth. It was almost funny how quickly his composure began to fracture once he realized this wasn't a temporary mood. He had spent months discovering exactly which buttons to press, and suddenly every one of them had vanished beneath glass. Insults were useless if you didn't answer. Sarcasm had nowhere to land if you didn't acknowledge it. Even the carefully constructed little remarks designed to make you feel like an intruder became ridiculous when you simply continued eating.

The change became particularly obvious at dinner. Valarr would make some pointed observation about the honeymoon, perhaps something about how expensive the trip must have been or how quickly you had become accustomed to a lifestyle you had once been unable to afford. You would lift your eyes briefly, not toward him but toward Baelor, and ask for the salt. Or you'd turn to Taris and inquire about university. Sometimes you would simply continue cutting your food as though the words had dissolved somewhere between Valarr's mouth and the table.

It drove him insane. Because Valarr had built his entire relationship with you around reaction. He wanted the tightening of your jaw, the flash in your eyes, the defensive explanation, the moment when you finally snapped and told him exactly what he was. He wanted proof that he could still reach you. He had spent so long treating your emotions as territory he could trespass through whenever he pleased that your sudden refusal to open the gate left him with nothing.

And you became very good at it. If Valarr entered the library, you would gather your things and speak to someone else without acknowledging him. If he sat across from you in the drawing room, you would continue reading. If he offered some deliberately cruel observation over breakfast, you would ask a servant whether Baelor had already left for the office. If he addressed you directly, you responded only when etiquette made silence impossible, and even then your answers were brief, neutral, almost painfully civil.

It wasn't the dramatic rejection Valarr might have expected. It was worse. You treated him as irrelevant.

At first, he tried to provoke you more openly. Then came the increasingly pointed remarks, the exaggerated sighs when you entered a room, the deliberate little acts designed to force your attention back onto him. Nothing worked. You had discovered that there was a peculiar power in refusing to participate, and once you understood how much it unsettled him, you became almost ruthless about maintaining it.

Valarr could sit across from you with resentment practically radiating from him, and you would remain absorbed in whatever Baelor was telling you. He could stare. You wouldn't look back. He could make a remark. You wouldn't answer. He could leave the room with enough force to make the door echo through the corridor. You would turn another page.

For someone who had always seemed so certain that he could make you cry, make you angry, make you defend yourself, make you question whether you deserved to be there, Valarr suddenly found himself confronted with something he had never prepared for. Indifference. And the more he encountered it, the less tolerable it became.

He would get your attention back; he was far too stubborn to accept being reduced to background noise in his own home. And now that Val had realized how thoroughly you had learned to ignore him, he knew he would have to be deliberate about it. Perhaps something as simple as your phone suddenly slipping from the table, knocked to the floor by a hand that was far less careless than it appeared, would be enough. He would watch in silence as you bent down to retrieve it, waiting for that tiny, involuntary moment when you finally looked at him again. He knew exactly what he was doing. More importantly, he was beginning to understand exactly how far he might have to go to make you acknowledge him.

Baelor's business trip had been on the calendar for weeks, and Valarr had memorized the dates almost immediately. Seven days, seven nights in which his father would be away from the mansion, leaving Y/N without the person whose presence naturally kept the household balanced. Valarr had no particular interest in spending that week peacefully; if anything, the timing seemed almost too convenient, especially after the honeymoon, after Y/N's return, and after that infuriating new habit of treating him as though he were nothing more consequential than a painting hanging in one of the corridors.

The first problem was Matarys, and Valarr dealt with that easily enough. "You’re staying with your cousins for a few days."

Matarys looked up from his phone. "Why?"

"Because I said so."

"That's not an answer."

"It's the one you're getting."

There was enough authority in Valarr's voice to make the argument pointless, although Matarys eventually managed to negotiate a few nights with his cousins and a weekend with friends. By the time Baelor left, the younger boy was gone, happily occupied somewhere far beyond the mansion and completely unaware that his absence was part of his brother's calculations. Valarr then made a second adjustment: the household staff were moved toward another wing for the duration of the week, ostensibly because certain rooms needed to be prepared and reorganized while Baelor was away; in reality, Valarr simply wanted the main portion of the mansion to feel unnaturally empty after dark.

He wanted silence. He wanted Y/N alone. More importantly, he wanted her to believe she was alone.

Aerion arrived later that afternoon.

He looked almost absurdly Targaryen, the kind of beautiful that seemed less human than hereditary: slim and straight-built, with pale, unblemished skin and a sculpted, imperious face, his high brow and sharp cheekbones giving him an arrogance that his expression did little to conceal. His silver-gold hair fell in soft curls around his face, while his deep violet eyes seemed particularly striking beneath white lashes. The features were almost delicate until he smiled, at which point something sharper emerged from beneath them. Aerion had the appearance of someone fashioned for a royal portrait and the temperament of someone who might deliberately ruin the painting afterward simply to see what happened.

"You look pleased with yourself," Aerion observed as he entered the room.

Valarr glanced at him. "I have reason to be."

Aerion's eyes moved toward the corridor. "And this is about your father's wife."

"Y/N."

"Whatever."

Valarr almost smiled. For once, he wasn't particularly interested in arguing over the name. He explained the situation quietly, leaving out none of the important details: Baelor was gone for a week, Matarys wouldn't be in the house, and the staff would be working from another wing. The mansion would be quieter than usual, and Y/N would be spending her evenings upstairs, believing the house was secure around her.

Aerion listened with increasing amusement. "So let me understand this," he said eventually. "Your father leaves for a week, and instead of enjoying the peace, you decide to frighten his wife."

"Yes."

"Why?"

Valarr's expression hardened slightly. "Because she thinks I'm irrelevant."

Aerion stared at him for a second, then laughed. This was absurd. Sweet Val, second in line to the Targaryen inheritance, a golden boy who wouldn't hurt a fly, was offended by some insignificant little whore. Chaotic, hilarious. This, definitely, he wouldn't miss. "That's pathetic."

"Are you helping or not?"

"Oh, I am." The answer came far too quickly. Aerion was clearly entertained by the entire thing, although even he seemed to recognize that Valarr's motivation was less innocent than the ‘prank’ itself. This wasn't merely about frightening her for a few minutes; Valarr wanted to puncture the indifference she had cultivated since returning from her honeymoon, remind her that the mansion wasn't simply a luxurious sanctuary where she could ignore him whenever she pleased, and force her attention back toward him, even if the only way to obtain it was to make her afraid.

By nightfall, the mansion had changed.

The usual sounds of staff moving through the corridors had disappeared, leaving behind an almost unnatural quiet, and the enormous house seemed to stretch farther in the darkness, its polished halls illuminated only by scattered lamps and the faint silver light coming through the windows. From Y/N's bedroom, the rest of the mansion might as well have belonged to another world.

That was precisely what Valarr wanted.

Aerion stood beside him in one of the dimly lit corridors, now dressed entirely in dark clothes, a black covering concealing the lower half of his face and leaving only those unmistakable violet eyes visible above it. Valarr had done the same, the fabric obscuring his features until even someone familiar with him would have difficulty recognizing him at a glance.

Aerion looked sideways at him. "Ridiculous."

"You came."

"That doesn't make it less ridiculous." Valarr ignored him.

For several seconds, neither moved. Somewhere upstairs, you were still unaware of what was happening. The knowledge seemed to amuse Aerion, but Valarr's satisfaction was more complicated. He remembered the way you had stopped looking at him, the way you could sit across from him and carry on a conversation with Baelor as though Valarr's presence were irrelevant; he remembered every deliberate silence, every ignored comment, every time he had attempted to provoke even the smallest reaction and received absolutely nothing.

Tonight, that was going to change. His cousin adjusted the covering over his face and looked toward the staircase. "So," he murmured, "what happens when she starts screaming?"

Valarr's eyes remained fixed on the dark corridor ahead. "She won't."

Aerion's eyes narrowed with amusement. "You sound very confident."

"I know her." That was perhaps the most unsettling part. Valarr didn't simply want to scare you; he had been observing you for months, learning her habits, your routines, the little things that made you nervous and the things you pretended didn't. He knew how stubborn you could be, how quickly you tried to regain composure whenever something frightened you, and how you tended to rationalize discomfort rather than admit vulnerability. And he knew that, sooner or later, you would realize something was wrong. Valarr's gaze lifted toward the staircase. "Let's see how long it takes."

Aerion's smile was hidden behind the black fabric. Then they disappeared into the darkness of the mansion.

—

Your bedroom had always been one of the few places in the mansion where you could convince yourself that you were completely removed from everything happening beyond its doors. Tonight, however, the illusion felt considerably thinner. Baelor had been gone for only a few days, yet his absence seemed to have altered the entire atmosphere of the house, leaving behind a silence that felt too expansive for a place that normally had people moving through its corridors at every hour. You had retreated to your bedroom earlier than usual, changed into something comfortable, and poured yourself a glass of wine more out of nervous habit than genuine desire. The glass rested between your fingers as you sat near the edge of the bed, occasionally taking a small sip whenever the quiet became too noticeable, telling yourself that there was absolutely nothing to be nervous about.

It was an absurd thing to feel uneasy over. The mansion was secure, the doors were locked, the security systems were active, and Baelor had left perfectly competent people in charge of the household. Besides, the staff had simply been moved to another wing while he was away, and Matarys was spending several days with his cousins. There was a perfectly rational explanation for the unusual stillness surrounding you. You repeated that explanation to yourself as you lifted the wineglass again, letting the cool rim touch your lips before taking another measured sip. The wine was supposed to settle your nerves, yet the longer you remained there, the more you became aware of every tiny sound beyond the bedroom.

A faint creak. Your glass stopped halfway back toward the bedside table. You waited. Nothing.

Your eyes moved toward the bedroom door, which stood closed several feet away. For several seconds, you simply stared at it, listening to the silence beyond. The house had always made noises; marble contracted, old wood shifted, pipes occasionally groaned somewhere inside the walls. You had lived here long enough to know that. There was no reason for a single unfamiliar sound to make your stomach tighten.

You took another sip. Then another. "You're being ridiculous," you murmured, mostly to yourself.

The words disappeared into the room. You set the glass down, but your hand remained around it. Something about the silence had changed. It was difficult to explain because there wasn't technically anything there; there was simply something missing. Usually, even when you were alone upstairs, there were signs of life elsewhere in the mansion: footsteps passing in the corridor, distant voices belonging to the staff, the soft movement of doors opening and closing. Tonight, there was nothing. The quiet wasn't peaceful anymore. It felt deliberate.

You glanced toward your phone. No messages. No missed calls.

Baelor had spoken to you earlier, and everything had been perfectly normal. There was no reason to call him simply because you were feeling unsettled, especially when the explanation was so obvious. He was away. Matarys was gone. The staff were working from another part of the house. Of course everything sounded different. Still, you reached for the wine again. The glass was almost at your lips when something moved outside your room. Not a creak this time. A footstep.

Your entire body went still. You didn't drink. You didn't breathe for a second either. The sound had been clear: a brief, muted pressure against the floorboards somewhere beyond the door, followed by absolute silence. Your eyes remained fixed on the handle. Nothing moved. Nothing happened. You waited. Five seconds. Ten. Then you slowly lowered the glass.

Perhaps someone from the staff had forgotten something. Perhaps one of them had come upstairs for some completely mundane reason. There were countless explanations, and you knew that, but none of them seemed entirely convincing when you remembered where everyone was supposed to be.

The staff were in the other wing. Matarys was away. Baelor was away. And Valarr—

Your thoughts stopped there. You frowned at yourself and immediately dismissed the association. Valarr was many things, but surely he wasn't stupid enough to wander around the mansion in the middle of the night simply to irritate you. Besides, you had spent weeks refusing to give him the satisfaction of a reaction. If this was another attempt to provoke you, you weren't going to reward him by becoming frightened.

Another sound came from the corridor. This one was quieter. Closer. The wineglass remained suspended beside your mouth, untouched. Your gaze slowly shifted toward the bedroom door. Whatever was happening outside, you were beginning to understand one thing with uncomfortable certainty. Something was wrong.

You didn't move.

The glass remained in your hand, the wine inside it trembling faintly with the minute movement of your fingers. Your attention had narrowed entirely to the door, to that thin strip of darkness beneath it, to the possibility that another shadow might appear there. Nothing did. The silence returned so completely that you almost began convincing yourself that the sound had been part of your imagination, another innocent creak magnified by an already unsettled mind. Slowly, you exhaled and set the glass on the bedside table, though you didn't take your eyes away from the door.

Then the handle moved. Only slightly. A tiny metallic click. Your breath caught. For one suspended moment, you simply stared at it, unable to decide whether you had actually seen the movement. The handle remained perfectly still afterward, which somehow made it worse. You stood from the bed, slowly enough that the mattress barely shifted, and took one cautious step backward. The room suddenly seemed enormous behind you, while the closed door seemed impossibly close.

"Hello?" Your voice sounded embarrassingly small. Nothing. You swallowed and reached for your phone. That was when another noise came from the hallway: a faint scrape, followed by what sounded like a muffled whisper. You froze. There were people outside.

The realization arrived with a peculiar clarity, stripping away whatever rational explanations you had been attempting to construct. You weren't imagining the sounds. Someone was actually moving through the corridor. Your first thought was the staff, but the idea collapsed almost immediately. They were supposed to be in another wing. Your second was Valarr, and that possibility irritated you enough to almost make you angry rather than afraid. It would be exactly the sort of ridiculous stunt he might pull after weeks of being ignored, some elaborate attempt to force you into acknowledging him again.

But then you heard another sound, a heavy object seemed to strike something downstairs. You flinched. The noise traveled through the mansion, followed by a brief, unmistakable crash. Your heart began pounding. "Valarr?" You hated that you had said his name.

There was no response. You moved toward the door anyway, stopping several feet away from it. Your phone was now tightly enclosed in your hand, the screen glowing against your palm. You considered calling someone, but the thought of doing so suddenly seemed strangely difficult. What would you even say? I heard a noise. Someone might be walking around. It sounded ridiculous, especially when the most likely explanation remained that Valarr had decided to be an insufferable bastard again.

Then you heard footsteps. Two sets. You knew the difference immediately. One was heavier and slower, while the other moved with a quieter rhythm, almost cautious. They crossed the hallway beyond your room and disappeared. Your stomach dropped. There was no mistaking it now. There were at least two people somewhere inside the house, and neither of them was supposed to be here.

You backed away from the door.

The movement was instinctive, almost embarrassingly so, and you immediately hated yourself for it. Fear had a way of making the enormous bedroom feel unfamiliar, turning every familiar object into something vaguely threatening: the tall wardrobe standing in the corner, the curtains shifting faintly with the air conditioning, the dark reflection of the windows showing nothing beyond the room itself. Your phone was still in your hand, and for a moment your thumb hovered over Baelor's contact. Then you stopped. He was away on business. Calling him in the middle of the night because you had heard footsteps would sound ridiculous, and besides, if this really was Valarr playing some stupid game, you refused to give him the satisfaction of knowing he'd succeeded.

Another sound came from downstairs. This time it was unmistakably a crash. You jumped.

The wine in your glass trembled violently, nearly spilling over the rim. You placed it on the nightstand without taking your eyes from the door, then immediately picked up your phone again. Your heartbeat had become loud enough that it seemed to fill the entire room, and suddenly the silence beyond the bedroom wasn't empty anymore. It felt occupied. Waiting.

Then came the sound of something being dragged across the floor. Slowly. Your fingers tightened around the phone.

"No," you whispered. You didn't know whether you were speaking to yourself or to whatever was happening beyond the door. A second crash followed. This one was closer.

You flinched so violently that your shoulder struck the edge of the dresser behind you. The sharp impact barely registered. Your attention was fixed on the hallway, where a faint shadow had appeared beneath the gap beneath the door. You stopped breathing. It moved. Not much. Just enough. A shadow crossed beneath the door and disappeared. Your hand flew over your mouth.

For a few seconds, nothing happened. Then there was a knock, three slow taps. Your blood seemed to turn cold. You stared at the door. Another three knocks. You didn't answer.

"Hello?" The voice from the other side was muffled, deliberately difficult to identify. You stepped backward.

Every instinct told you not to open the door. You reached for the phone again, finally unlocking it with trembling fingers, but before you could select a contact, the handle moved. Slowly. The latch clicked. Your eyes widened. Someone was trying to open it. You backed toward the opposite side of the room, your phone clutched against your chest, and suddenly every rational thought disappeared beneath one overwhelming realization: whoever was outside knew you were in here.

The handle stopped moving. Silence. Then a voice came through the door. "Stay quiet."

You froze. It wasn't loud. It wasn't shouted. That made it infinitely worse. Your mind raced through possibilities, trying to recognize the voice and failing. It sounded unfamiliar enough to make your stomach twist, yet there was something about its cadence that bothered you, something that suggested the person speaking was deliberately disguising himself.

You looked toward the windows. Too high. The balcony doors were on the opposite side of the room, but crossing the bedroom would mean moving directly toward the door. Your phone suddenly felt useless in your hand. Then the person outside moved away. You heard footsteps retreating down the corridor.

You waited. One second. Two. Five. Then you heard another set of footsteps join them. Two people, just as before. Your pulse hammered. You didn't know what they wanted, and that uncertainty was becoming unbearable. The mansion, which had always seemed like the safest possible place to live, suddenly felt like a trap. There were too many rooms, too many corridors, too many entrances you couldn't see from where you stood.

You finally pressed Baelor's name. The call began ringing, and from somewhere downstairs, something shattered. You nearly dropped the phone. The ringing continued. Once. Twice. Three times. "Come on," you whispered, your voice breaking slightly. "Please, please, please." No answer. You looked toward the door again, a faint sound came from the corridor, footsteps coming back. Your stomach dropped.

The phone was still ringing against your ear when the shadow appeared beneath the door again. This time, it stopped directly outside. You couldn't move. Then the call connected. "Y/N?" Baelor's voice came through the phone. Your lips parted, but before you could speak, the bedroom lights went out. The call died before you could say anything else. One second Baelor's voice was still in your ear, tense and unmistakably worried; the next, the connection dissolved into a burst of static before the screen displayed the merciless little notification: Call failed. You stared at it, pressing the screen as though sheer insistence might bring him back, but nothing happened. You tried again; the call began to connect, stalled, and disappeared almost immediately.

"No. No, no, no." You looked toward the masked figures, but neither moved, which somehow made the situation worse. The mansion's Wi-Fi had always been temperamental in certain corners, especially at night, and with half the household staff relocated to another wing, there was no guarantee anyone had noticed the interruption. It was an irritatingly mundane explanation for something that had suddenly become anything but mundane. You tried Baelor again, but the call failed a second time, leaving you with nothing but the dim glow of your phone illuminating your face.

Then the lights went out. This time, you didn't merely freeze; you stumbled backward, the darkness swallowing the room, and somewhere in front of you came a muffled sound that might have been a laugh—or perhaps merely someone shifting their weight. Your phone was still in your hand, but the screen suddenly seemed uselessly small against the vast darkness surrounding you.

"Stay away from me." Your voice was firmer than you felt. No response. You heard a footstep, then another, and your fingers tightened around the phone."Who are you?" Nothing. Another step. You moved backward until your legs struck the edge of the bed, the mattress catching behind your knees, and immediately reached for the bedside lamp.

Nothing happened. The power hadn't gone out, the lights had been deliberately switched off. That realization made your stomach drop. Someone knew exactly where you were. You tried Baelor one last time, the call failed immediately. "Fuck." That word escaped before you could stop it.

A shape shifted near the doorway, and you couldn't see the person's face, only the outline of a tall figure standing against the faint illumination coming from the corridor. A second silhouette appeared behind him, and your mind finally stopped trying to find innocent explanations. The timing, the empty mansion, Matarys being conveniently away, the staff being moved to another wing, Baelor's business trip, the lights, the footsteps—it all suddenly seemed far too deliberate. You stared at the two silhouettes, realization began to creep across your face.

"Valarr?" Silence. Your heart sank You knew. You fucking knew. The first figure's shoulders moved slightly, while Aerion lost the battle and snorted behind his mask, your eyes snapped toward him. "Oh, you have got to be kidding me."

The lights suddenly came back on. You blinked, and the other figure was already pulling the black covering away from his face, his silver-gold hair falling around his forehead as he struggled to contain his laughter. Aerion, one of your nephews, son of Maekar. Valarr remained standing in the doorway, removing his own mask much more slowly. And there he was: your husband's eldest son, the person who had apparently decided that staging a fake burglary in his father's mansion was a perfectly reasonable way to get your attention. For a few seconds, nobody said anything. You simply stared at him while Valarr stared back, Aerion looking delighted by the entire disaster.

Then your phone vibrated in your hand. Call failed. You looked down at it, then back at Valarr, your expression slowly changing. "What the hell is wrong with you?” You roared, a sound from the depths of your throat. "Seriously, what the hell is wrong with you?!" Valarr's expression changed almost imperceptibly. The amusement that had been sitting around his mouth disappeared, replaced by something almost defensive, as though the question itself were unreasonable. Aerion, on the other hand, seemed to find your outrage considerably more entertaining.

"Don't look at me like that," his cousin said said, still fighting a smile. "It was his idea."

Your gaze moved toward him. "That doesn't make you less fucking insane!"

Aerion's eyebrows rose. How dare this bitch—

Valarr finally spoke. "It was a joke."

"A joke?" You let out a short, disbelieving laugh, looking around your bedroom as though perhaps the absurdity of the situation might somehow become clearer if you saw all of it at once: the overturned chair near the door, the two masked men who had deliberately crept through an enormous mansion while you were alone, the lights that had been switched off, and your phone still displaying the failed call to your husband. "You staged a fucking break-in while I was alone in the house. That's a damn joke to—”

The strike came without warning, hard enough to jerk your head sideways and send you stumbling half a step backward. For a brief moment, you couldn't process anything beyond the sudden sting and the stunned silence that followed. Your hand went instinctively to your cheek, your eyes widening as you looked back at Aerion, unable to reconcile the person standing in front of you with what he had just done. Whatever laughter had existed seconds earlier was gone, his face a transparent portrait of fury and indignation. You barely had time to register the movement before Valarr struck you as well. The blow was sudden and forceful enough to make you recoil, your head turning sharply to the side as you stumbled backward. You brought a hand to your cheek, stunned all over again, but this time the shock was different. Aerion's actions had been horrifying; Valarr's were something else entirely—deliberate, personal, and impossible to mistake.

Blow after blow he delivered drove you to the bed, your steps trying to back away. The impacts of his hands were aggressive, intentional. Here, in this space, was no restriction or moral rule to prevent his actions; his father wasn't here to defend you, nor was the staff, nor his brother, and his cousin wouldn't interrupt him, but rather support him, judging by the way he reacted to your interruption.

"You just found the richest man stupid enough to fall for you and climbed straight into his life” His hand grabbed your tangled hair, dragging you a fraction across the floor like trash. “That's what you are, Y/N. An opportunist. A parasite.” He named every name in the dictionary until he left you in the middle of both, freeing your hair. "A. Fucking. Gold. Digger"

Something in Valarr had finally come undone, and with it went the last remnants of the carefully maintained façade that had made his hostility almost tolerable. For months, his contempt had been wrapped in sarcasm and impeccable manners, concealed beneath the kind of composure that allowed him to insult you while appearing perfectly respectable to everyone else. Now there was no disguise left to soften what you were seeing. The hatred, entitlement, and vicious resentment were completely exposed, and the realization was chilling: this wasn't Valarr losing control for a moment, this was him without the effort of pretending to be anything better. The real one, the authentic one, the absolute version behind every perfect comparison made with others or appearances of his golden boy archetype.

"You damn—" the sole of the albino's shoe silenced you with a sharp impact on your lips, enjoying making you taste the dirt of his expensive shoes, the lumpy sand.

"You don't know when to shut up, do you?" He pressed harder on your aching lip. "A pretty little doll, but a complete idiot. No wonder cousin despises you so much." He raised his foot, and just as you tried to catch your breath, he cruelly slammed it down on your neck with the full force of gravity. Your pained cries were pleasure to his ears. "Nobody is above the Targaryens, least of all some gold digger." His violet eyes sparkled with sadistic amusement. "You'll learn your place, bitch."

"She's retarded," Val added. "Can you believe I explained it to her in the simplest terms and she still didn't understand?" He said normally, as if his companion's shoe wasn't suffocating you. It perfectly captured the indifference you'd shown him these past few days. "Oh, but you'll learn, honey, you will." He continued, "I'll record you. I'll show Dad what a whore he has for a wife. He and everyone else deserve to know what a damn gold-digging monster you are."

With that said, he took his phone out of his pocket, propping it up on the chair near the door at a perfect angle: the three of them, in the center, were perfectly visible. In the background, the bed, while your figure was being subdued beneath the albino-blond's shoe.

"Damn, you're such a slut," the brown-haired man whispered, taking in your outfit. "You knew it, you knew I'd come after you after you dared to ignore me and wore this. You've been teasing me." Such insinuations were absurd while Aerion was still forcing you to suck on the toe of his shoe, pushing the tip of his footwear all the way to the base of your tongue. The taste was dirty, gritty, and utterly disgusting. Tears of frustration began to well up in your usually kind eyes.

Aerion, perhaps feeling some mercy—though doubtful—finally released your mouth and neck from that oppression. Air returned to your lungs along with the impulsive cough that irritated your stepson. Grasping you precisely where Val had, Aerion forced you to your knees where he wanted, in front of his now-tight trousers. "Give me a blowjob. Now." he ordered.

"Son of a—" he delivered another slap to your swollen face, silencing your vain attempt to regain your dignity, to fight, to rebuild.

"Listen carefully, auntie," he said, his tone a mix of disdain and amusement. "I can understand that you women are stupid bitches, but this is on another level, so let me explain it to you: if you don't suck my cock right now, I'll call your husband while you're on your knees like this and show him what a good whore you are to me. He'll break up with you, you'll lose everything you've worked hard for, and you'll be seen as the gold-digging slut you are by the rest of the world," he declared. "Do you understand?"

You began to cry, your knees buckling as his violet eyes radiated satisfaction. Why? What had you done to deserve this? What sin had you committed other than loving your husband and accepting the blessings that life offered you?

"Do you understand?" he repeated harshly, drawing your attention back to him. You took a long time to respond; he kicked you in the stomach, making you whimper. "It's a damn simple question. Do you understand?"

"Yes," you conceded. "I understand."

"Then why the hell aren't you sucking? Quick, I don't have all night for this." With trembling hands you reached for his belt, trying to prolong the moment, to avoid the intrusion of his phallus into your cavity. The belt fell, and with it, his pants. Your fingers trembled at the touch of the elastic of his boxers. With almost fearful care, you pulled them down, revealing his manhood.

It was long, somewhat thick, with smooth skin and horribly attractive, like the rest of him. You were taking too long for his liking—he grabbed your head and roughly shoved his cock down your throat, a groan of satisfaction escaping his own. "Shit—I'm starting to understand uncle" The gagging caused by the intrusion were benevolent vibrations to his stick. "God, what the hell are you waiting for? Move it."

Obeying, you pressed your lips around him, your saliva wetting his balls. The up-and-down motion your mouth was forced to make served as a source of immense carnal pleasure for him. For Valarr, who watched the scene from the front row, this was fascinating. You deserved it, you deserved every display of mistreatment, contempt, hatred. You had decided to break up his family, you were responsible for this change in him, for the ugliness that shone through him. All this satisfying energy was concentrated in the erection in his groin, in the desire in his eyes.

"You fucking bitch," he whispered in your ear. "I knew it—you just needed a decent, young, virile cock to reveal your promiscuous nature, didn't you? Look at you, sucking your nephew's cock." He pushed your head forward, causing you to gag and Aerion to let out a hoarse groan. "If my father saw you— I will show him, he will see it, he will know your true self."

"You have no shame, huh, doll?" Aerion continued to mercilessly fuck your throat. "Damn—if your throat is this wet, I can't imagine paradise between your legs. That little cunt must be worth a fortune."

That remark annoyed Val, who glared at his cousin. "No way—you can have her throat today, but her pussy is mine."

Ridiculous. It was ridiculous, you were crying, being abused by two of your relatives and all they could think about was who would violate your flower. Your jaw was starting to cramp, but luckily for you, Aerion slid his cock out. Both of you —Valarr and you—looked at him expectantly. What the hell was he planning? Your curiosity was satisfied when he picked up the glass with some wine in it from the nightstand.

At first, the brown-haired man didn't understand what his cousin was plotting, but when he inserted his phallus, plunging the tip to the bottom of the cup, he was enlightened with knowledge. Aerion began to pee inside, his ammonia-laden urine mixing with the crimson-tinted liquid to form a bizarre color.

No, no no no no no—

"No, please," you began to plead. "Please—I'll do anything, I'll let them take me for days, just please no—"

"Shut up!" Val roared. "You'll drink it, or I swear to God I'll make your life a living hell." A hell worse than the one you were living through? Was that even possible?

It was, you didn't doubt it was possible, but the acidic smell coming from the glass was nauseating, horrendous, it made your stomach move in unimaginable ways. When Aerion pressed the glass to your aching lips, fate was sealed. Val tugged on your jaw, the bitter liquid sinking to the bottom of your stomach, hot and nauseating. You were going to throw it up; your body threatened to.

"You throw it up and you'll drink it straight from me, do you hear? Drink it," your stepson threatened, and you obeyed. You drank what was left in the glass, resisting your body's natural urge. That level of humiliation was unprecedented. And even less so were the hours they both spent using you.

The next morning, when sleep still refused to bless your body, with your nervous system in shambles, one last message arrived.

Val: You tell this to one soul and I'll post the video on social media.

And he, with his surname and influence, would get away with it.

[twilightofthesandwiches]

What is your Favorite Song From Billboard’s Top Singles of 2005?

"We Belong Together" - Mariah Carey

"Hollaback Girl" - Gwen Stefani

"Let Me Love You" - Mario

"Since U Been Gone" - Kelly Clarkson

"1, 2 Step" - Ciara featuring Missy Elliott

"Gold Digger" - Kanye West featuring Jamie Foxx

"Boulevard of Broken Dreams" - Green Day

"Candy Shop" - 50 Cent featuring Olivia

"Don't Cha" - The Pussycat Dolls featuring Busta Rhymes

"Behind These Hazel Eyes" - Kelly Clarkson

"Disco Inferno" - 50 Cent

"You and Me" - Lifehouse

Voting ended onJan 12

[eros-telesse]

Cisco : Barry, describe your ideal partner ?

Barry : Oh! Well I guess someone smart? Funny, maybe sarcastic, can keep up with me, older, and I kinda like the bad boy vibe I suppose...

Caitlin : *Looks at the camera*

Cisco : Did he just-

Caitlin putting her hands on his shoulder : Don't try Cisco.

*Meanwhile*

Lisa : Lenny! Describe your ideal partner!

Snart : The flash.

Mick : Straight to the point.

Lisa : Mostly gay to the point.

[lesserknownwaifus]

gina diggers from gold digger: the time raft animated

[lemonade1254]

Found the screenshot on Pinterest and had to

[femdom-universe871]

[bnwo-worship]

[urumashunistheonlyone]

not saying she a gold digger

pairing: gojo satoru x reader

genre: romance, fluff , light smut

warnings: mild sexual content, suggestive themes, playful innuendo

synopsis: you’re a gold digger with a big heart, not that satoru minds.

“you’re lucky you’re pretty,” gojo drawls, lifting his sunglasses just enough to give you that annoyingly smug smirk — the kind that makes strangers on the street glance over just to see what’s going on between you two. his eyes, that impossible crystal blue, glint with amusement. “or else i would’ve left your spoiled ass at gucci.”

you glance over your shoulder, not even bothering to slow your walk. the sound of your heels clicks against the pavement like punctuation marks. “then why’d you pay for my heels?”

behind you, he jogs a few steps to catch up, paper shopping bag swinging in one hand, his white hair swaying with every movement. people part for him without even realizing it. “because,” he says, like it’s the simplest truth in the world, “i’m a generous, selfless man.”

“mm. sure.” you stop at the corner, finally turning to face him. the city lights bounce off his shades and the bag in his hand. “has nothing to do with you watching me try them on with your jaw on the floor?”

gojo lets out a dramatic gasp, hand flying to his chest. “accusations. slander. how dare you?”

you grin, slipping your arm through his. his bicep flexes just a little as if on cue. “you liked it.”

“obviously.” he leans down until his lips are just brushing your ear, his voice dropping to a low murmur that only you can hear. “next time, try ’em on without the skirt.”

you roll your eyes, but the smile tugging at your lips gives you away.

---

gojo had known from the second he met you that you had expensive taste.

the kind of taste that said don’t talk to me unless your credit limit clears.

he liked that.

no — he loved that.

because for all his power, all his charm, all his strength… he needed someone who wouldn’t be impressed by it. someone who’d raise an eyebrow at his limitless card and say, cool. can it buy me a penthouse with floor-to-ceiling windows and blackout curtains?

and you? you were that someone. you walked into his life in designer heels and a look that could cut glass, and somehow, instead of making him feel smaller, it made him feel like himself.

---

“you know people talk about you, right?” he says one night, sprawled across your couch like he owns it, scrolling through your online cart with his long fingers, counting the zeros like it’s a math equation. “they say you’re only with me for the money.”

you don’t even blink, lounging across from him with a glass of wine in hand. “and?”

gojo snorts, tossing his phone aside like it’s unimportant. “and i tell them they’re probably right. but they’re broke, so why would your broke ass date them?”

you laugh — loud and unbothered — and straddle his lap right there on the couch. his hands automatically find your hips. possessive. playful. protective.

“you really think i’m with you for your money?” you ask, cocking your head, nails scratching lightly at the back of his neck.

he raises a brow, lips curling. “you always want something. the bag. the necklace. the trip to bora bora—”

“you suggested that one.”

“true. but still.”

you drag a finger down the bridge of his nose, your voice softening just enough. “i want you.”

he grins, smug and boyish all at once. “well, duh.”

“but also the necklace. and the bag. and the trip.”

gojo throws his head back with a laugh that vibrates through your whole body. “you’re insane.”

“you love it.”

“unfortunately.”

---

you show up to a mission site once — heels on, nails done, designer shades covering your eyes — and nanami actually groans the second he sees you.

“she’s here?” he mutters under his breath.

“hell yeah she’s here,” gojo says proudly, waving at you like you’re a damn celebrity. “and she looks expensive as hell.”

you adjust your sunglasses and blow a kiss just to be a menace.

nanami walks away without another word.

---

that night, gojo takes you apart on satin sheets in your shared room at a hotel so expensive even the curtains probably had a price tag that would make people cry. the sheets are cool and heavy, and the floor-to-ceiling windows reflect the glitter of the city skyline while his body pins yours down.

his hand curls around your throat, thumb stroking the skin just beneath your jaw, while his other hand presses against your hip to keep you from writhing. he leans in close, his lips brushing yours as he whispers, “you think you can just show up dressed like that, huh? knowing every guy in the room wanted to look but couldn’t?”

you moan into his mouth, smirking through every kiss. “you like it.”

“i love it.” his teeth graze your neck, his voice rough now. “keep showing up like that and i’ll start bringing you to every mission.”

---

gojo isn’t stupid. he knows exactly what you are.

you’re a little spoiled. a little sharp. you talk back. you want the finer things. you want to shine.

but you’re also the one who holds him when the jokes don’t land.

who stays up late waiting for him to come home.

who kisses his bruised knuckles and calls him babywhen the world tries to treat him like a god.

and he would drop every yen he’s ever earned if it meant keeping that look in your eyes — the one you get when you’re curled against him in the dark, when no one’s watching but him.

---

“what do you want for your birthday?” he asks one night, fingers lazily drawing circles on your bare thigh under the sheets.

you hum, pretending to think. “besides a yacht?”

“besides a yacht.”

“just you. and maybe a watch.”

he groans, head falling back on the pillow. “knew it.”

you laugh, curling into his chest, your fingers brushing over the lines of his jaw.

“you’re such a brat,” he mutters.

“but i’m your brat.”

gojo smiles, kissing the top of your head, his eyes softer than they ever get in public.

“yeah,” he says quietly. “you are.”