"There are some desires," he said, his voice quiet and unhurried and entirely certain of itself, "that were never meant to be governed."

The clock on the wall kept counting.

Neither of them moved.

The air between them crackled with unspoken meaning.

Louisa’s lips curved into a slow smile at that. She tilted her head slightly, her eyes gleaming with challenge and curiosity.

"And what might those urges be?" she asked, her voice low and coaxing, as if she were inviting him to share the deepest secrets of his heart.

Julian leaned back slightly in his chair.

"Aunty... the questions are piling up more and more. And as you know, I am not motivated enough."

The words were so unexpected that Louisa actually rolled her eyes for a brief second. She caught herself and recovered quickly, but the frustration had already shown itself before she could pull it back entirely.

"..."

She leaned forward again, deliberately pushing her chest out and offering him an even more generous view than before.

But what she received in return this time was not the hungry, transfixed look she had anticipated.

Julian glanced at her once.

Then he turned his head away entirely, as though the sight had simply not been interesting enough to hold his attention. He reached for his wine glass, lifted it to his lips, and took a slow sip.

Louisa’s brow raised in frustration.

"What?" she asked, the word coming out sharper than she intended, the polished velvet of her tone cracking just slightly at its edges.

Julian set the glass down without looking at her. He considered it for a moment and then finally allowed his gaze to drift back to her face.

"That wasn’t enough, Aunty," he said casually, his tone almost bored. "It seems you must do something else."

The words landed in the room like something dropped from a great height.

For a full moment, Louisa’s mind went entirely blank.

How could he sit there and say that with such complete and unshakeable ease? No matter what particular fetishes he harbored, no matter what Cathy had told her about his attachments to the women of the family, was he truly so certain that she would simply follow wherever he pointed?

Was he not even slightly afraid of what it would mean if any of this were to surface beyond the walls of this room?

If word reached the wrong ears that she, Liam’s wife, had been alone with Kraven in a private chamber, dressed the way she was dressed and offering herself the way she had been offering herself...

For one brief and furious moment she considered standing up and walking out.

She could make a scene. She could sweep back through the castle with her chin raised and her composure perfectly intact and tell whoever needed to hear it that Kraven had spoken to her in a way that was entirely inappropriate.

It would damage his reputation instantly.

The impulse burned hot for exactly three seconds.

Then she buried it.

There were too many threads pulling in the wrong direction. The soldiers at the library entrance had seen her waiting for him. The choice of this particular room, so far removed from the rest of the castle, had been entirely hers.

If she tried to reframe this now, every question raised against him would curve back and land squarely on her instead.

And beyond the personal damage, it would destroy the only remaining path she had left open for their plan to move forward at all.

So she stayed seated.

Her fists closed beneath the table, tight enough that she could feel her own nails, before she made a conscious effort to release them one finger at a time.

She drew a slow breath in through her nose and let it leave quietly through parted lips. She swallowed her anger down.

When she looked at him again, her expression had returned to its composed and elegant mask. Her eyes, however, carried something in them that had not been there before.

A mix of frustration and something that, against every reasonable instinct she possessed, was edging toward genuine curiosity.

"You are playing a very dangerous game, Kraven," she said softly, her voice finding its velvet quality again. "Pushing me like this. Do you truly believe I will simply do whatever you ask of me?"

Julian smiled faintly. He lifted his glass again and swirled the wine in circles before he answered.

"I think you came here prepared to do exactly that," he replied.

"Otherwise, you wouldn’t have worn that corset. You wouldn’t have chosen this private room. And you certainly wouldn’t have pressed your breasts against my arm the entire way here."

The flush that moved across Louisa’s cheeks was faint but real.

Louisa’s cheeks flushed slightly, but she didn’t deny it.

She held his gaze for a moment longer, and then recrossed her legs so the slit in her skirt parted high up her thigh.

"Fine," she said, her voice dropping into a register that carried something almost like danger in it now.

"You want motivation. Then tell me what you want. Be specific. Do not dress it up and do not play games with me."

As soon as her words ended, Julian’s eyes moved.

They traveled down from her face with no particular hurry, taking in the way the corset drew her waist into that precise, elegant curve, the soft swell above the neckline and finally the long pale line of her leg where the fabric had parted.

She looked like a temptation given form.

Only after roaming all over her, did his eyes come back to her face.

"I want you to stand up," he said calmly. "Come around the table. Stand right here in front of me."

Louisa held his gaze for a long moment.

The room felt smaller than it had a moment ago. The silence between his words and her response stretched itself out, and in that stretch she was aware of her own heartbeat in a way she had not been before.