Season 1

The "peaceful retirement" I’d envisioned was rapidly dissolving into a high-stakes game of psychological warfare, and the battlefield was a literal garden.

"You’re hovering," I said, not turning around.

I was kneeling in the dirt of the southern conservatory, my silk sleeves pushed back and my hands covered in potting soil. I was trying to prune a particularly stubborn rosebush—a metaphor for my life, really—and I could feel the weight of Cassian’s presence behind me like a physical heat.

"I am observing," Cassian’s voice drifted over my shoulder. He was leaning against a marble pillar, his golden hair catching the light through the glass ceiling. He looked less like a Duke and more like a predator watching a particularly interesting bird.

"Observation usually involves a bit more distance," I muttered, snipping a dead branch. "You’ve been standing there for twenty minutes. Don't you have a rebellion to crush or a treaty to sign?"

"The rebellion can wait," he said, stepping closer. The shadow of his tall frame fell over me. "I find your sudden interest in manual labor far more suspicious. The Evelyn I married wouldn't touch dirt if her life depended on it."

I turned, sitting back on my heels and wiping a smudge of mud across my cheek with the back of my hand. "The Evelyn you married was dying of boredom and neglect. This Evelyn likes roses. And I like things that grow when you give them a little attention. You should try it sometime."

Cassian knelt. It was a slow, deliberate movement that brought him eye-level with me. He didn't care about the dirt on his expensive trousers. He reached out, his fingers catching my wrist. His grip wasn't tight, but it was absolute.

"I am giving you attention," he whispered. "In fact, I find I can’t give it to anything else."

He took the pruning shears from my hand and set them on the grass. Then, using a white lace handkerchief that probably cost more than a commoner's house, he began to meticulously wipe the mud from my face.

"You’re spoiling me, Evelyn," he said, his eyes tracing the line of my jaw. "The tea. The sweets. The way you look at me as if I’m something worth saving. Do you know what happens when you give a starving man a feast?"

I felt a shiver that had nothing to do with the cool breeze of the conservatory. "He gets full?"

"No," Cassian’s voice dropped to a low, dangerous hum. "He becomes terrified of the hunger returning. He starts to hoard. He starts to build walls to ensure no one else can take a single bite."

He leaned in closer, the scent of sandalwood and something metallic—the smell of a man who spent his mornings at the sword-range—filling my senses.

"The original female lead... Lady Lilian," he said, the name sounding foreign on his tongue now. "I thought I wanted her because she was the sun. Everyone wants the sun. But the sun is far away. It’s indifferent."

He tucked a loose strand of my black hair behind my ear, his knuckles grazing my temple.

"You’re not the sun, Evelyn. You’re the hearth. You’re right here, in my house, taming my edges with sugar and silk. And I’ve realized... I don't want to be 'good.' I just want to be yours."

I opened my mouth to speak, to tell him that "being mine" shouldn't involve guards at my door, but the words died in my throat. The "villain" wasn't being rewritten into a hero. He was being refined into something much more focused.

In the novel, he burned a city for a woman who hated him.

Now, he was looking at me as if he’d burn the entire world just to keep me in this garden.

"Cassian," I breathed, my hand tentatively resting on his chest, feeling the heavy, steady thud of his heart. "Possession isn't the same as love."

"To a man like me, it’s the only version that exists," he replied. He stood up, pulling me with him until I was flushed against his chest. He looked down at my mud-stained dress, then back at my face.

"Change your clothes," he commanded, though his eyes were soft. "We’re having dinner in the city tonight. Just the two of us. No guards in the room, just at the doors."

"Is that your version of a date?" I asked, a small, wry smile tugging at my lips.

"It’s my version of a warning," he said, leaning down to press a lingering, possessive kiss to my forehead. "Enjoy the roses, Evelyn. Because once we leave this room, I’m never letting the world see you this way again."

As he walked away, I looked down at the rosebush. I had successfully broken his obsession with Lilian. But as the "pitiful wife," I was realizing that being the sole focus of a villain's heart was like standing in the middle of a beautiful, roaring fire.

It was warm. It was mesmerizing. And if I wasn't careful, it was going to consume me entirely.

***Download NovelToon to enjoy a better reading experience!***