Love. Heinrey had never quite grasped what the word was meant to signify. To him, it had always sounded like a fanciful invention, the sort of sentimental nonsense found in fairy tales rather than in real life. And why should he believe otherwise? His own parents had never shown so much as a flicker of genuine affection towards one another. If love truly existed, surely it would have left its mark upon the household in which he was raised.

To expect otherwise seemed naïve at best. He was not, by any stretch, a man prone to sentiment. His life required no grand romance. The son of an affluent family, he had carved out his path as an architect with single-minded precision. Wealth, ambition, the tangible rewards of perseverance—these were the currencies he valued.

Love, in contrast, was an extravagance he deemed unnecessary. Or so he had always thought. That was before his parents arranged a match for him. The reasoning was blunt: Heinrey was already thirty-four, and the family feared he might grow old without a partner. The union, naturally, was as much about consolidating influence between two powerful households as it was about companionship.

He had not protested. Why would he? In his mind, it was nothing more than a business arrangement dressed up in ceremony.

remarked a middle-aged woman—his prospective mother-in-law—her tone carrying the weary resignation of long practice.