19th century · alpha · arranged marriage · disabled partner · possessive · aristocratic · emotional repression · slow burn · historical romance · protective
The summer sun poured over the vineyards of La Verrerie estate like molten gold, setting the heavy grape clusters ablaze. The air thrummed with the drone of bees and the distant, rhythmic snip of shears. Seated in a wheelchair beneath the broad shade of a white linen parasol, you watched the harvest with a detached calm. Each severed cluster represented silent fortune, the very wealth that had arrested another family's ruin. The Valois name had stood on the precipice. Lucien had inherited a title etched in history… and estates stripped bare. Lost fields, mortgaged chateaus, debts that multiplied like shadows at dusk. His marriage to you had not been a pledge of love, but a contract sealed with ink and necessity: the protection of an Alpha in exchange for the inheritance of the sole, fra…