14 - The Woman He Can’t Ignore
849 Words
Rain came just before dawn.
By the time Evelyn woke, the palace roofs were silvered with water and the courtyards below shimmered beneath a fine, steady mist. For a few quiet moments, the world seemed softened—less sharp, less dangerous.
It was a lie, of course.
But a beautiful one.
She was adjusting the sash at her waist when another knock sounded. This time, it was one of Li Jian’s personal guards.
“His Highness requests you in the library.”
“Requests,” Evelyn repeated. “That’s new.”
The guard wisely did not answer.
The imperial library was unlike anything Evelyn had ever seen: shelves towering toward painted ceilings, scrolls stacked in lacquered cases, rare texts bound in silk, maps inked by hand. It smelled of old paper, cedar, and history.
For a moment, awe overrode everything else.
Then she saw Li Jian standing beside a large table covered in scrolls and realized with some annoyance that he had known exactly what effect bringing her there would have.
“You planned this,” she said.
He looked up. “Planned what?”
“This.” She gestured around her. “You brought me somewhere I’d find impossible to resist.”
A faint glint entered his eyes. “And was I wrong?”
No. Absolutely not.
She moved to the table anyway.
“What am I looking at?”
“Records from the last three reigns. Succession disputes. assassination attempts. alliances by marriage.” He studied her as she scanned the documents. “You said history leaves patterns.”
“It does.”
“Then help me find the next move.”
So she did.
Hours passed with surprising ease. They worked side by side, comparing names, tracing loyalties, identifying households that had shifted influence from one faction to another. Evelyn’s mind sharpened in the work. Here, finally, was something she could use—her knowledge, her patterns, her instincts.
And Li Jian watched her.
Not constantly.
But often enough.
Sometimes when she leaned over a scroll. Sometimes when she spoke too quickly because she was excited by a connection. Sometimes when she forgot herself and reached across him for a text, only to realize far too late how close they had become.
At one point, her sleeve brushed his hand.
A simple accident.
Yet neither of them moved immediately.
Evelyn looked up.
Big mistake.
His gaze was already on her.
Steady. Dark. Entirely too aware.
The rain tapped softly against the lattice windows.
Somewhere in the room, a candle shifted.
But within the narrow space between them, everything became still.
“You do that often,” she said, because silence had become too dangerous.
“Do what?”
“Look at me like that.”
His expression barely changed. “And how is that?”
She should have lied.
Instead she said, “Like you’re deciding whether I’m a threat or a temptation.”
For the first time, Li Jian seemed genuinely caught off guard.
Then the corner of his mouth lifted.
“A wise man would assume both.”
The answer hit her with enough force to steal breath.
She straightened quickly, turning back to the documents. “Good. Then at least you’re not foolish.”
“And you?” he asked.
Her fingers paused above the parchment. “What about me?”
“Do you find me threatening?”
Yes.
In all the worst ways.
Evelyn forced herself to continue scanning names. “I find you difficult.”
A quiet sound behind her—almost a laugh.
“You avoid my question.”
“You asked a dangerous one.”
He moved then, not away but closer, until his presence was at her shoulder.
“Answer anyway.”
Her pulse beat at the base of her throat.
“You’re the crown prince,” she said. “You command armies, outmaneuver enemies, and walk through this palace like even the walls obey you. Of course you’re threatening.”
“Is that all?”
No.
Absolutely not.
But before she could answer, a servant entered, bowing low.
“Your Highness. The council waits.”
Li Jian’s expression cooled. Duty returned like armor sliding into place.
He nodded once. “Leave the scrolls here.”
The servant withdrew.
Evelyn stepped back, forcing space where instinct wanted none. “Go. Save the empire.”
His eyes held hers one last time.
“I may ask more dangerous questions later.”
“Then I’ll prepare better answers.”
He gave her a look that suggested he already doubted that.
When he left, the library seemed suddenly too large and far too empty.
Evelyn lowered herself into the nearest chair and stared at the rain-streaked window.
This was becoming untenable.
She had crossed centuries. Survived assassins. Read poison by scent.
Yet somehow the thing unbalancing her most was a prince in a library asking whether she found him threatening.
The answer, she realized with a sinking kind of clarity, was that he had become much more than that.
And if he asked again—
she wasn’t sure she would lie.
- Writer
