The Questions That Refuse to Behave
Morning arrived without ceremony.
No dramatic sunrise. No epiphany. Just a thin line of pale light slipping through the sheer curtains of the east wing, touching the edges of a room that did not yet feel like Aurelia's—but would have to become so.
She lay awake long before the light appeared.
Sleep had come in fragments: Lucien's voice, the contract breathing between them, the way his eyes had lingered on her hand as if touch were a language he'd forgotten how to speak fluently. Every time she drifted, her mind dragged her back to the same thought—
This isn't just research.
The room was immaculate in that impersonal way money perfected. Neutral colors. Minimal art. No fingerprints of life. Aurelia sat up, pressing her feet into the plush carpet, grounding herself.
Professional, she reminded herself.
This is work.
She showered, dressed simply—soft blouse, fitted trousers, hair pulled back without fuss. Armor disguised as restraint. By the time she stepped into the hallway, she had rehearsed her boundaries twice.
Lucien was already awake.
She sensed him before she saw him—the way some presences bent space around them. He stood near the tall windows of the adjoining study, coffee untouched in his hand, gaze fixed on something beyond the glass.
"Good morning," she said.
He turned. The tension in his shoulders loosened just a fraction.
"You slept," he said.
It wasn't a question.
"A little."
He nodded, as though that mattered more than she knew.
The study was nothing like the rest of the penthouse. Books—real ones—lined the walls. Not curated for aesthetics, but worn, bent, lived in. Marginal notes peeked from pages like whispered secrets.
Aurelia's breath caught.
"This," she said softly, stepping inside, "this is where the truth lives."
Lucien watched her reaction carefully. "That's why I brought you here first."
She ran her fingers along the spine of a book, resisting the urge to pull it free. "Before we start," she said, turning back to him, "we need to agree on how this works."
He set his coffee down. "Name it."
"No performances," she said. "No rehearsed answers. If you don't know something, say so. If you're uncomfortable, we sit with it."
Lucien inclined his head. "And you?"
She held his gaze. "You don't get to edit me in the moment. You can react later. You can argue later. But when I ask a question, you answer honestly—or you refuse honestly."
A pause.
Then, quietly: "Agreed."
She took out her notebook, flipping to a blank page. The sound felt loud.
"Let's begin," she said. "Not with your success. Not with the company."
Lucien's jaw tightened.
"Tell me," she continued, "about the first time you learned silence could protect you."
The question landed with surgical precision.
He didn't answer immediately.
Instead, he moved to the chair opposite hers and sat, elbows resting on his knees, hands clasped loosely. When he finally spoke, his voice was lower. Less controlled.
"I was eight," he said. "My father believed silence was obedience."
Aurelia didn't interrupt.
"He wasn't cruel in the way people imagine," Lucien went on. "He was… exacting. Precision was his religion. Noise was disorder."
Lucien leaned back, staring at the ceiling as though the memory lived there. "I learned quickly that the less I spoke, the safer I was. Words gave him something to correct."
Aurelia's pen moved gently across the page.
"And your mother?" she asked.
A muscle twitched in his jaw. "She survived by disappearing."
The room felt smaller.
"She used to say, 'If you make yourself light enough, the world won't notice when it steps on you.'"
Aurelia's chest tightened. "Did you believe her?"
Lucien turned his gaze back to her. "I believed I would never be light."
She looked up then, meeting his eyes.
"And you became heavy instead," she said. "Untouchable."
His mouth curved faintly. "Effective."
They sat in silence for a moment—one that felt earned rather than imposed.
"Do you ever resent them?" Aurelia asked.
"Yes," he said immediately. "And myself for understanding them."
Her pen stilled.
"That contradiction," she murmured. "That's where the story is."
Lucien watched her with something like awe. "You see it already."
"That's my job," she replied. Then, softer, "But seeing doesn't mean judging."
Something shifted in his expression—relief, perhaps. Or something more fragile.
The hours passed strangely after that. Questions unfolded like careful incisions. Childhood. Loss. The first betrayal. The first time money became a shield rather than a goal.
Lucien answered everything.
Not easily. Not cleanly. But honestly.
By noon, Aurelia's notebook was heavy with ink and emotion. Her hand ached. Her mind hummed.
"You need a break," Lucien said, rising. "Lunch."
She hesitated. "We're on a roll."
"So is bleeding," he replied gently. "Come eat."
The kitchen was sunlit and expansive, yet oddly quiet. Lucien prepared the meal himself—simple, precise movements. No staff. No spectacle.
"You cook," Aurelia observed.
"It calms me," he said. "Control that feeds instead of dominates."
She smiled at that.
They ate in companionable quiet until Aurelia spoke again. "Why me?"
Lucien set his fork down.
"There are better writers," she continued. "More famous. More malleable."
His gaze sharpened. "You don't write to impress. You write to expose."
She tilted her head. "That's not always flattering."
"Exactly."
A beat.
"And," he added, quieter, "you're not afraid of me."
She met his eyes steadily. "I am. Just not in the way you're used to."
His breath slowed.
After lunch, they returned to the study. The light had shifted, shadows longer now.
Aurelia closed her notebook.
"One last question for today," she said.
Lucien nodded.
"What do you want this book to forgive you for?"
The silence this time was heavier.
Lucien stood, pacing once before stopping near the window. When he spoke, his voice was rougher.
"Wanting more than I was taught to deserve."
Aurelia felt something inside her soften dangerously.
"That's not a crime," she said.
He turned to her, eyes dark. "It feels like one."
Their gazes locked. The air between them vibrated with things unsaid.
Aurelia stood abruptly, gathering her notebook as if motion were necessary to prevent something irreversible.
"That's enough for today," she said, voice steady despite the rush in her veins.
Lucien didn't argue.
As she reached the doorway, he spoke softly behind her. "You're changing the way I remember myself."
She paused.
"That's what happens," she said without turning, "when the truth finally has a witness."
She left him there—surrounded by books, light fading, a man undone not by power, but by being seen.
And in her room that night, Aurelia realized something she hadn't allowed herself to think before.
This story was no longer just about Lucien Vale.
It was beginning to ask things of her too.