"It wasn't a wedding; it was a sentence. His father, the cold-blooded patriarch of the empire, had decided their fates with a single stroke of a pen. For the father, she was nothing more than a pawn in a bigger game-a fragile girl to be sacrificed for an alliance or a secret only he knew. But for his son, this marriage was an insult to his freedom. He stood at the altar, his eyes burning with a silent rage, looking at the trembling girl in red lahenga who was now legally his. He didn't want a wife, especially not one so innocent that her presence felt like a mockery of his darkness. He leaned in close to her ear, his voice a lethal whisper that made her shiver: 'My father might have forced me to put this ring on your finger, but don't expect a home in this house. You are just a bird in a golden cage, and I am the one who holds the key.' "did he know, the girl he planned to ignore would soon become the only person capable of bringing him to his knees."