Chapter 3: I don’t find you attractive

"Strip."

The word hung in the air between them. Naya searched his face for some sign she’d misheard him.

There was none.

Her heart slammed against her ribs. He’d already told her their marriage came with obligations. She supposed this was what he meant. There was no use fighting it. Not tonight. Not after everything else.

Her fingers trembled as she reached for the first fastening on her dress.

She kept her eyes fixed on the wall behind him, refusing to look at his face while she worked the silk loose. Every movement felt like surrender. She told herself this was simply the price her family had already decided she would pay.

The dress slid from her shoulders.

She stood there, exposed and shaking, waiting for him to close the distance between them.

Instead, Ronan laughed.

It wasn’t a warm sound. It was sharp, mocking, the kind of laugh that made her stomach twist.

"What’s so funny?" Naya demanded, snatching the fallen fabric back against herself.

"You," he said. "You actually thought I wanted you."

Her face burned. "You told me to—"

"I told you to strip. I never told you why." His eyes were merciless. "Apparently the Ripley sisters have more in common than I realized."

"I am nothing like Elara."

"Aren’t you?" He tilted his head. "Elara used her body to earn Seraphine’s trust before she poisoned her. You walked into my room and undressed without asking a single question."

"You’re my husband. I didn’t think I had a choice."

"You really are just like your sister."

The words landed like a slap. Naya’s throat tightened. "I didn’t poison anyone. I didn’t run. I didn’t betray you."

"None of that matters to me."

"Then why—"

"I wanted to see if you’d obey," he said simply. "Nothing more."

Naya stared at him, humiliation curdling into something colder. "You never intended to touch me."

"No." His voice didn’t soften. "I find nothing about you that interests me that way. This marriage exists on paper because your family needed to give me a body to replace the one they lost. Not because I chose you."

"So all of this—" she gestured at herself, at the dress pooled at her feet, "—was just to prove a point."

"It was to make something clear." He stepped closer, and she forced herself not to retreat. "Being my wife doesn’t make you wanted. It makes you mine. If I ever decide to exercise my rights as your husband, don’t mistake it for affection. I don’t have to love what belongs to me. I only have to decide what happens to it." ℯℯ𝘭.

Naya said nothing. There was nothing to say to that kind of cruelty.

"Dress," he said, already turning toward the door.

She grabbed her robe and pulled it around herself, hating how her hands wouldn’t stop shaking.

Ronan paused at the threshold. He didn’t look back at her when he spoke.

"You may be my wife on paper," he said, "but you’ll never be my woman."

Then he was gone.

The door clicked shut behind him, and Naya stood frozen in the sudden silence.

She dressed quickly, hands fumbling with buttons she could barely see through the heat behind her eyes. She refused to cry. She was angry at him, at his cruelty, at the game he’d played with her humiliation.

But she was angrier at herself.

For a handful of seconds, some foolish part of her had believed he wanted her. That maybe this marriage, however forced, however broken, might still hold some small piece of a future she could live inside.

She’d been wrong. She’d been wrong about everything since the moment she woke up that morning.

That morning, she’d been Naya Ripley, arguing with servants who wouldn’t tell her where her sister had gone. Now she was a stranger’s wife, standing alone in a room that didn’t belong to her, having just been humiliated by a man who’d made his hatred as plain as his name.

She sank onto the edge of the bed and pressed her palms against her eyes.

When she finally lowered her hands, she let herself actually look at the room for the first time.

It was beautiful. Too beautiful. The furniture was carved with careful detail, the curtains chosen to match a color scheme someone had clearly put thought into. Little touches sat on the vanity — a hairbrush, a jewelry box, a folded shawl — as though someone had already lived here.

Then she saw the portrait above the mantel.

A woman. Dark hair, soft eyes, a smile that looked like it had never known cruelty.

Seraphine.

Naya rose slowly and crossed the room. There was another portrait near the window. And a third, smaller one tucked beside a stack of books.

This wasn’t a room prepared for a new bride.

This had been Seraphine’s room. Or the room meant for the woman Ronan actually intended to marry.

Naya looked down at the ring on her finger, then back at the portrait. Seraphine looked effortlessly at home here, like she belonged in every corner of this house, in every corner of Ronan’s life.

Naya wondered, briefly and painfully, what it must have felt like to be loved by a man like him.

Then she remembered his voice. The grief buried under all that ice. The way he’d looked at her like she was nothing more than a reminder of everything he’d lost.

She wasn’t just replacing Elara.

She was living in Seraphine’s shadow too.

Elara was the woman he’d wanted. Seraphine was the woman he’d loved. And Naya was simply what remained after both of them were gone.

She sat back down, suddenly exhausted in a way that had nothing to do with the hour. She wanted to lock the door. She wanted five minutes where nobody expected anything of her at all.

Knock. Knock.

Naya’s head snapped toward the sound. Her pulse spiked before she could stop it, half-certain Ronan had returned.

She smoothed her expression before answering. "Come in."

The door opened to reveal a maid, eyes respectfully lowered.

"My lady," the maid said. "His Majesty requests your presence in the royal council chamber."

Naya’s stomach tightened. "Why?"

The attendant lowered her eyes. "I wasn’t told, my lady."

Naya blinked. After everything that had just happened in this room.

Her gaze flicked, unbidden, to Seraphine’s portrait above the mantel.

Then back to the maid, who hadn’t moved, who was clearly waiting for an answer that wasn’t really a question at all.

"Please prepare yourself," the maid said gently. "His Majesty is waiting."