"You're right, Lady Victoria," Laurence said, his voice surprisingly steady, even if it lacked the booming thunder of a warlord. "I am not Jack Kaiser. I have no desire to butcher armies or solo Disaster-class dungeons. I like soft beds. I like good wine. And if left to my own devices, I would happily have lived out my days as a minor Baron forgotten by history."
Victoria's brow arched in cold surprise at his blunt confession.
"But Jack Kaiser did not leave me to my own devices," Laurence continued, meeting her icy gaze without blinking, though his pulse was hammering against his ribs like a war drum. "He bound me. He gave me eighteen hundred crates of resources that your father couldn't earn in three lifetimes. He bought your father's debts. And he decided that you and I are going to be married in three days."
He leaned in slightly, his posture shedding just enough of his subservience to reveal the desperate, cornered animal underneath.
