Chapter 2

Over past years, nobody had ever spoken to me that way before. I laughed because the situation was genuinely absurd.

“I’m sorry,” I said pleasantly, “what exactly did you want me to say?”

Juliette rolled her eyes. “Do you also have hearing problems?”

“I heard you perfectly well,” I replied with the same smile. “Since you already seem aware of how pathetic you are, perhaps you should stop blocking my path.”

The store fell silent, and Juliette’s face shifted through several shades of outrage before she lunged toward me.

I did not step back. During the two years I spent at the border, I learned far more than medicine. Nobody cared that I was a Valemont there, and if you could not protect yourself, you did not last long.

Compared with the people I dealt with there, Juliette was harmless.

The moment she rushed at me, I stepped aside. She lost her balance and fell face first onto the polished marble floor. Gasps erupted throughout the store.

“Oh my God.”

“She actually touched Juliette?”

“The duke is going to destroy her.”

I looked down at Juliette without much emotion. Fear never really occurred to me.

My brother was Adrian Valemont, Crown Prince of Aurelia, and the military answered directly to him. There was not a single person in this country capable of making his sister afraid.

I placed Adrian’s black card onto the counter. “Charge it.”

The associate stared at the card in horror, his hands trembling.

Juliette pushed herself off the floor with dust on her dress and one heel twisted sideways. The moment she saw the necklace being packaged, her eyes turned red with fury.

“You cannot be serious.”

She stepped in front of me again to block my path.

I glanced at her ruined heel. “Was the floor not painful enough the first time?”

Her expression twisted with rage, but after embarrassing herself once, she did not dare rush at me again.

I was about to walk around her when the doors suddenly opened and a man stepped inside. The atmosphere shifted immediately, and every person noticed him the moment he entered. He was tall, sharply dressed, and coldly handsome in a way that explained far too much.

Juliette reacted first. Her aggression vanished instantly, replaced by perfectly timed tears and wounded vulnerability.

“Cassian,” she said softly as she hurried toward him, “she stole the necklace I wanted and attacked me.”

So this was Cassian Blackwell. Adrian had been right, and that face alone explained a great deal.

I looked him over before smiling faintly. “I’m Seraphina Valemont. Your fiancée.”

Whispers spread through the store again.

“So she’s the engagement partner?”

“No wonder she acted fearless.”

“Then surely the duke will side with his fiancée now.”

Cassian finally looked directly at me, but there was not the slightest trace of warmth in his expression.

“Do not misunderstand,” he said coldly. “That engagement was my father’s decision, not mine. I never agreed to it.”

Juliette immediately wrapped herself around his arm with obvious satisfaction.

“Did you hear that?” she asked sweetly. “Someone like you was never going to stand beside him.”

The whispers around us grew louder.

“Juliette and the duke clearly belong together.”

“The Valemonts have distant relatives everywhere. Who even knows who she really is?”

“She doesn’t look important at all.”

I said nothing because everyone in the room had misunderstood the situation completely. Actually, the Blackwells were the ones who had begged the palace for this marriage.

I adjusted my bag and walked past Cassian. When I reached his shoulder, I paused briefly.

“Your family wanted this marriage. I didn’t.” I said calmly. “This engagement was clearly a mistake.”