Evelina paused and then she added in an even softer voice, "Your Highness, you speak of granting me control over the empire’s trade, but you forget one fundamental rule of business: what the throne grants, the throne can take away on a whim."

Elian’s jaw tightened slightly.

"I value profit but above all else, I value freedom," Evelina’s words once again cut through the tense air like broken glass, "If I accept your offer, everything of mine will become property of the crown.

I would be managing your treasury, relying on your laws, and answering to your ministers. I prefer to own my businesses outright, completely independent of a throne."

She looked around the grand, gold-leafed solar as a mocking smile touching her lips.

"You think and you want me to think you are offering me the world, but you are simply trying to buy my brain and lock it inside this pretty cage," Evelina shook her head gently, "A golden cage is still a cage, Your Highness. And I am not a bird that can be bought."

The silence that followed Evelina’s words was suffocating.

The warm morning sun streaming into the imperial solar suddenly felt incredibly cold, and the sweet scent of jasmine tea turned sour in the air.

Prince Elian stood entirely still, his hand remaining frozen in mid-air where he had reached out to her.

The golden light caught the rigid lines of his jaw, which was clamped so tight the skin over his cheekbones went pale. For a long, agonizing minute, the only sound in the room was the soft rustle of the linen curtain blowing in the gentle breeze.

Since the day he was born, the world had been presented to him on a velvet cushion.

People, titles, lands, and wealth; there was absolutely nothing he could not possess with a single nod of his head.

He had never even had to ask for anything; it was simply given to him because he was the future of the empire.

He had never put anything or anyone truly in his eyes because everything beneath him was so easily obtained.

Yet, the moment he finally found something that caught his interest, the moment he put a woman in his eyes and took a step towards her, she had looked at him and said no, something nobody has ever said to him.

The warmth in his gentle eyes vanished, replaced by a dark, freezing abyss.

"A cage," Elian repeated.. He slowly lowered his hand, his long fingers curling into a tight, controlled fist against his thigh, "You call my empire a cage, Evelina?"

Evelina stood tall in her cream-colored gown, her green eyes matching his dark stare with a calmness, "I call things what they are, Your Highness. Protection from a throne is just a contract with a master. And I do not take masters."

Elian stared at her, his chest rising and falling in shallow, rapid breaths.

He looked at her flawless face, her steady hands, and the utter lack of fear in her posture. He had tried everything during this time.

He had tried to charm her with his intellect in the conservatory, he had tried to buy her appreciation by ruthlessly liquidating House Snow, and he had just tried to seduce her with the ultimate bait of supreme financial power.

But she couldn’t be bought. She couldn’t be charmed. She couldn’t be seduced.

"You are incredibly arrogant," Elian said, his voice smooth once more, but it was the smoothness of polished ice.

He turned his back to her, walking slowly toward the large glass doors that led out to the private imperial balcony, "Do you think you are untouchable just because you have conquered the markets of the capital in a few short months?"

"I know the value of my work, Your Highness," Evelina replied, her voice level, "And I know that the empire’s treasury needs my tariffs far more than I need your favor. If there is nothing else, I shall take my leave."

Elian didn’t turn around. He simply waved a dismissive hand.

Evelina picked up her small silk clutch from the table, deliberately leaving the box of House Snow’s deeds exactly where it lay.

With a graceful turn, she strode out of the solar, her linen skirt gently swaying against the marble floor until the heavy doors clicked shut behind her.

Left alone in the massive room, Elian didn’t move for a long time.

He stood on the edge of the stone balcony, looking out over the sprawling, golden rooftops of the Capital.

The city was vast, beautiful, and completely his. Millions of people lived beneath those roofs, and every single one of them would have dropped to their knees to kiss the hem of his robe.

’Except her,’ some twisted part of his brain whispered.

A heavy sensation began to coil in his stomach, spreading through his chest like a slow-acting venom.

Towards that woman, he felt some sort of twisted fascination that was rapidly morphing into something completely unhinged.

The fact that she had looked at his throne and rejected it on his face, didn’t make him hate her; it made him want to tear down the very sky just to force her to look at him.

He stepped off the balcony, his leather boots clicking softly as he descended the stone steps into the private imperial garden below.

In the center of the courtyard stood a grand, twisting bush of black-market blood roses; flowers that bloomed only in the freezing cold, their petals a deep crimson.

Elian walked up to the plant and stopped. He stared through the manicured hedges toward the distant palace gates.

From this high vantage point, he could see Evelina’s carriage pulling away, the dark green wheels turning smoothly as it left the imperial grounds.

He watched the carriage until it disappeared around the outer wall.

Slowly, Elian raised his right hand. His elegant fingers reached out toward the largest, most beautiful blood rose on the bush.