Tempted by my brother-in-law.

POV: Hazel

BLUE

I hated blue.

But I was standing in front of the mirror in lingerie the colour of a cold morning, and I hated every second of it. The cut was nice. The fabric sat right against my skin, cool and smooth, the delicate lace edges tracing the curve of my hips and the swell of my breasts exactly as the saleswoman had promised.

The colour made my pale skin look even paler, almost fragile, like something that could bruise if touched too hard. I looked exactly like what I was trying to be—soft, inviting, the kind of wife who might finally make her husband pause and really see her.

That was the problem.

I had not always been a woman who bought things she hated because of something she overheard.

Three weeks ago I had been standing in the hallway when Kaden laughed on the phone. Real laughter. The loose, unguarded kind he had never once aimed in my direction. Somewhere in that conversation he said blue was his favourite colour. Just like that. Casual.

I had written it down.

I went out the next day and bought this.

One year of marriage had made me into someone who took notes. I kept a small notebook in the drawer of my nightstand—dates, offhand comments, the exact tone he used when he said my name. I tracked what made his shoulders relax even a fraction. I studied him like a language I was determined to speak fluently, even if he never bothered to learn mine in return.

I turned slightly in the mirror. My hair was down, dark and straight against my shoulders, catching the low light from the bedside lamp. My eyes stared back at me with an expression I did not want to spend too long reading. I looked away first.

Downstairs, the gate dragged open.

I knew that sound. I had catalogued every sound in this house in the first month. The gate opening at exactly 7:15 most evenings. The front door clicking shut with its precise weight. The particular rhythm of his footsteps on the stairs when he was tired—slower, versus when he wasn’t—steady. I had learned all of it and done nothing useful with any of it yet. Every detail filed away.

I moved to the bed and sat the way I had practised earlier that afternoon in front of the same mirror. One leg crossed over the other, body angled just so, hair falling slightly forward to frame my face. I had told myself it looked effortless. Maybe it did. I had spent twenty minutes adjusting the angle of my shoulders, the tilt of my chin, until it felt natural enough that it might actually work. I waited, breath steady, the wine from earlier still humming faintly in my veins.

His footsteps on the stairs were steady tonight. Not tired then. I straightened slightly, heart picking up its pace despite every effort to stay calm.

The door opened.

Kaden Varyn walked in and the room did not change for him. That was the thing about my husband. He moved through spaces like he was the only person in them, like the air itself rearranged to accommodate him without question. He loosened his tie without looking up, the silk whispering as it slid free. He set his phone face-down on the dresser with the same deliberate motion he used every night. He shrugged off his jacket. The jacket went over the chair. The phone stayed face-down. Everything in its place, every habit unchanged.

Then he glanced at me.

One second.

"How was your day?" he asked.

Same three words. Same flat delivery. He asked it every evening like it was written into the terms of our arrangement, which maybe it was. I had stopped trying to read anything into it eight months ago.

I kept my voice low and soft. I had read it somewhere, that men responded to a quieter register. Something unhurried, almost intimate.

"It was good," I said. "I was waiting for you."

He frowned. Looked at me properly for the first time since walking in, his gaze flicking over the blue lace, the way my legs were crossed, the fall of my hair. For one heartbeat I thought maybe—maybe—this time something would shift.

"Are you feeling sick? Your voice sounds off."

I stared at him.

He had already turned back to the wardrobe. One hand moving through his hanging shirts with calm efficiency. His back was broad and completely unbothered, the line of his shoulders relaxed in a way that made my stomach twist. I stood there in blue lingerie I hated, the fabric suddenly feeling cheap and obvious against my skin, and felt something curl and die quietly in my chest.

I stood up.

Proximity, then. If nothing else was working.

I crossed the room and stopped directly in front of him as he turned around with a fresh shirt in hand. I looked up at him and I held his gaze and I waited for something to shift. Anything. Any version of him that knew I was standing there in something I had chosen specifically for him, that understood what this meant.

His eyes dropped. Just briefly. Just once. Down to the lace, to the curve of my waist, then back up to my face.

That flicker of hope. Pathetic and persistent, the same way it always was.

"Hazel." His voice was even. Controlled. "Cover up. It's cold."

He stepped around me without another word and walked out of the room, the door clicking shut behind him with the same quiet finality as every other night.

I did not move for a moment. The wardrobe mirror held my reflection like an accusation. Blue lingerie. Dark hair. The same woman who had been trying for a year and still had nothing to show for it.

I sat on the edge of the bed and picked up my phone because my hands needed something to do. The screen lit up. I had a message. Unknown number, no name attached, nothing.

I opened it.

One line. I read it once and then read it again because the first time my brain had refused to process it properly.

I looked at the door Kaden had walked out of. Then back at the screen.

"I wonder how long you can stay with the Varyn's without a heir."