ADELE’S POV

The palace was quiet, the kind of deep, heavy silence that only comes late at night when everyone else is asleep. Moonlight spilled through the half-open curtains, silver and cool across the bed. I was already in my nightgown—a thin silk slip the color of midnight, short enough that it barely skimmed the tops of my thighs. I’d chosen it on purpose earlier, telling myself it was just comfortable, but really I knew better. I was playing the same game he was.

I sat propped against the headboard, pretending to read a book I hadn’t turned a page in for twenty minutes. Lucien had been in the bathroom...