Chapter 40: Chapter 40: It suits you.

Rafael’s apartment in the capital was quiet in the way only distance could buy. Not the sterile silence of palace corridors, where even the air felt supervised, but personal.

He sat at the small dining table by the window, one leg crossed over the other, jacket tossed aside with uncharacteristic carelessness. A bottle of chilled white wine stood open beside him. One glass, half-full, already in his hand. Across from it, a plate of bread and cheese he had arranged out of habit rather than appetite.

He took a sip and grimaced faintly.

Too dry. He should have chosen something softer, but maybe the dryness of the wine would help him to keep his calm.

Rafael leaned back in his chair and stared at the ceiling, letting the irritation roll around his head until it settled into something usable.

So. That was that.

He had walked into the ceremony thinking he understood the parameters. He identified the pressure points, anticipated the angles, and survived the social choreography with minimal bruising. He had done it for years. Longer, if he was honest. He was very good at it.

What annoyed him most was not that the evening had gone sideways.

It was that it had gone sideways in ways he hadn’t predicted.

First: Gabriel.

Rafael huffed quietly and took another sip of wine, this one sharper.

Of all people.

Despite the carefully cultivated reputation of schemer, manipulator, and imperial menace with a polite smile, Gabriel had, inconveniently, been… thorough. Thoughtful, even. He had walked Rafael through the process with just enough transparency to make the consequences unavoidable but never framed it as a favor. Delphine was effectively neutralized.

The realization made Rafael’s mouth twist. He should feel relieved. He did feel relieved. What irritated him was how neatly it had been done.

“I hate it when people do that competently,” Rafael muttered to the room.

He set the glass down with a soft clink and exhaled through his nose.

And then there was Gregoris.

Rafael rolled his eyes toward the ceiling, already irritated all over again.

He had categorized Gregoris Frasner neatly. A powerful alpha who enjoyed pressure. A commander who mistook resistance for sport. Someone who liked watching people squirm when they couldn’t afford to refuse him.

Manageable. Annoying, but manageable.

Except.

Except Gregoris hadn’t reacted like a man being teased or denied. He hadn’t reacted like someone losing interest. He hadn’t even reacted like someone challenged.

He had reacted like someone changing tactics and enjoying every damn second of it.

Rafael’s fingers tightened around the stem of his glass. “That is not how that was supposed to work,” he said flatly.

The kiss had been a controlled plan. An endcap, not an opening move. A way to draw a line and step back from it. He had expected irritation, amusement, maybe even offense.

Not… attention.

Not that calm, infuriating certainty. Not the way Gregoris had looked at him, like Rafael had just confirmed something rather than disrupted it.

“Rafael, you are an idiot.” He said it out loud and let his head fall onto the table. “I should resign and move to a foreign land.”

Rafael pushed his chair back with a quiet scrape and stood.

’Enough spiraling.’

He was tired, irritated, and dangerously close to thinking in circles, which was never productive. Whatever conclusions he was going to reach tonight would not improve with more wine. He took the glass to the counter, rinsed it out of habit, then paused, annoyed at himself for still behaving like the palace might audit his kitchen.

He shed his shirt as he crossed the living space, buttons undone with quick, efficient motions. The fabric landed over the back of a chair. Shoes by the door. Each discarded layer felt less like undressing and more like reclaiming his personal space.

Shower. Sleep. Tomorrow would be easier once he had eight hours between himself and Gregoris Frasner.

That was the plan.

Rafael slowed halfway to the bedroom.

His apartment was neat. Not obsessively so, but orderly enough that deviations registered immediately. The coffee table sat where it always did, dark wood, clean surface, usually occupied by nothing more than a data slate or a book he kept meaning to finish.

There was something on it now.

Rafael stopped fully, irritation sharpening into alertness.

A long black box lay centered on the table, aligned with obsessive precision. Matte finish. Screaming ’EXPENSIVE.’

It had not been there when he came in.

He was certain of that. He would have noticed. He always noticed. His first instinct was to laugh, sharp and disbelieving.

’Of course.’

He approached slowly, every sense pulled tight. There was no disturbance to the door. No sign of forced entry; each ward still perfectly in place. Which meant either palace security had failed catastrophically, or someone had been allowed in.

Neither option pleased him.

On top of the box rested a single envelope.

The paper alone was an insult. Thick, subtly textured, the kind of stationery people used when they wanted the message to survive being crushed in someone’s fist. His name was written in elegant script.

Rafael stared at it for a long moment.

“No,” he said flatly to the empty room. “Absolutely not.”

And yet his hand moved anyway.

He broke the seal and unfolded the note, already knowing what he would find, his irritation deepening into something dangerously close to fury as his instincts were proven right.

The message was brief. Casual. Infuriatingly confident.

Congratulations on becoming an adult officially.

You should wear it tomorrow at the office.

It suits you.

Rafael closed his eyes.

Of all the presumptuous, invasive…

He exhaled slowly through his nose, jaw tight, and opened them again, gaze dropping to the box. His hand hovered above it, fingers flexing once as if deciding whether to throw the thing out the window or burn it where it stood.

Instead, he opened it.

The interior was lined in dark velvet.

Nestled inside lay a collar.

Black. Narrow. Impeccably crafted. Minimalist to the point of severity. At its center sat a single silver stone, polished to a cold, reflective sheen.

The same pale, unyielding shade as Gregoris’s eyes.

Rafael stared at it, pulse ticking loud in his ears.

“You have got to be kidding me,” he muttered.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep