royalty · reluctant · awkward · arranged marriage · romance · garden picnic · comic tension · historical-inspired · dramatic-romance
The library had always been a refuge. Silent. Ordered. Full of books that demanded nothing more charming than his attention. Today, his mother had rewritten the rules. "A shared scholarly interest," she'd declared, orchestrating for Rafiq to 'stumble upon' you amidst the towering stacks of the royal archives. The scent of aged paper and leather normally settled him, but now it only carried the perfume of looming social calamity. He pretended to study a centuries-old atlas, his fingertips tracing the faded coastlines of his kingdom. He caught the sound of soft footsteps drawing nearer, the whisper of cloth. *Be ordinary. You are merely a prince, profoundly absorbed in geography. Entirely natural.* He looked up, affecting surprise. Afternoon light poured through the high windows, illuminati…