Chapter Text
The chandelier above him looked like a crystallised migraine.
Laurent stood by the floral arch, a flute of something golden and eye-wateringly expensive balanced between his fingers, his other hand was tucked neatly into the crook of Charles’s arm. He was dressed like a dream—black velvet tuxedo, collar sharp, cuffs studded with subtle gold—but every inch of him itched with static boredom.
People kept saying his name, though rarely just his name.
“That’s Charles Orsan’s fiancé.”
“Auguste DeVere’s brother. The useless one.”
“No, I think he’s the younger one—yes, that one.”
Laurent had perfected the art of smiling through conversations he wasn’t part of. He nodded when appropriate. Tilted his head just slightly when someone referenced a project he hadn’t worked on in months. He said “thank you” and “yes, Paris was exhausting” and “we’re very excited,” though the words meant nothing anymore.
Across the ballroom, photographers hovered like hungry wasps, flashes flaring every few seconds. The event was all over social media already—#OrsanDeVere, #FuturePowerCouple, CharLau (a monstrosity Laurent refused to acknowledge).
Charles looked perfect. Naturally. His suit was midnight blue, tailored within an inch of its life. His smile was polished, practiced, high-wattage political charm. The type that made donors open wallets and grandmothers swoon. Laurent glanced up at him, trying to remember the last time he’d been kissed like a person, not a brand extension.
“Try to look like you’re not planning your escape,” Charles murmured, still smiling for the cameras.
Laurent blinked. “Am I failing at that?”
“You’re vibrating with ennui.”
“Well, I’m engaged to a man who uses the word ennui without irony.”
Charles’s hand tightened on his arm—not enough to bruise, but enough to get the point across. “Your brother’s watching, behave yourself.”
Of course he was. Laurent didn’t need to look to know exactly where Auguste was stationed, right by the champagne tower, flanked by two major donors and a cabinet minister. Auguste DeVere—impeccable, powerful, terrifying in a very polite way.
Laurent lifted his glass in a vague toast. Auguste didn’t smile back, just raised one perfectly groomed eyebrow like a warning.
The pianist shifted into something elegant and non-invasive. People clapped. Someone gave a short speech. Charles was thanked for his service to public education reform. Laurent was thanked for—well, existing, presumably.
He tuned most of it out.
His reflection caught in the mirrored wall behind the stage. For a moment, he looked like someone else. Someone older. Someone tired. Someone trapped in a picture frame.
He turned back to Charles.
“How long do we have to stay?”
Charles didn’t answer right away. He was shaking hands with someone from the Home Office. When the man left, Charles leaned in just enough to say:
“Until the cameras leave. Then you can go back to being wherever you were before this.”
Laurent laughed, too loud, too sharp. “How generous.”
And then he smiled. Because the cameras were still watching.
-
The speeches were over. The cameras had relaxed, slightly. Enough for people to loosen their ties, refill their glasses, and start drifting into their preferred corners: the donors, the strategists, the socialites, the opportunists. Laurent stood somewhere in between all of them, invisible and sparkling.
He hated this part most—the blur of cocktail hour when the real powerbrokers got to gossip under the cover of flattery and aged wine. He was approached a dozen times in fifteen minutes, none of it memorable.
“Loved your fall line. Very dangerous.”
“Do you design full-time or just when the mood strikes?”
“I didn’t realise you and Charles were still together! We never see you anywhere.”
Laurent smiled. He lied. He laughed at jokes made at his own expense. He posed for two photos he didn’t remember agreeing to.
And then—like a pimple on the day of a photoshoot—Aimeric slithered into view.
Of course it was Aimeric.
He was Charles’s oldest university friend, if you could call that bloodless dynamic a friendship. He worked in policy consulting—whatever that meant—and had the bland, inbred good looks of a man who’d never once been told no.
Laurent clocked him from across the room. The posture. The confidence. The subtle scorn already curling his lip.
Charles lit up when he saw him. “Aimeric! You made it.”
“Wouldn’t miss it,” Aimeric said, clasping his hand. “Future Prime Minister and his—well, future.”
His eyes slid to Laurent like an afterthought.
“Laurent,” he said, voice flat. “Still wearing black to happy occasions?”
“Still making observational jokes to fill the silence?” Laurent returned, smiling without warmth.
Aimeric laughed, but not because he was amused. He looked at Charles. “Honestly, I’m impressed. You’ve always had a thing for rescuing strays, but I never thought you’d actually commit to one.”
Laurent blinked once. Slowly.
Charles said nothing.
Aimeric sipped his wine and shrugged. “I mean, it's bold. A designer. Or—whatever it is you’re doing these days. Keeps the tabloids interested, at least.”
Charles put a hand on Laurent’s back, lightly. A silent don’t.
But it was too late.
Laurent took the nearest glass of wine—deep red, thick, expensive—and threw it straight into Aimeric’s face. It hit with a wet, glorious splatter. The room gasped.
A silence followed. Then chaos.
Aimeric reeled back, eyes wide, red dripping down his jaw like blood. He sputtered something, but Laurent didn’t hear it. All he could hear was the camera shutter. Just one. Then another. Then a dozen.
Across the room, Auguste’s face had gone corpse-white.
Charles let out a quiet exhale through his nose, the kind that said I knew you’d do something like this.
Laurent handed off the empty glass to a stunned waiter. “Now gentlemen, if you’ll excuse me.”
He walked out before anyone could stop him.
-
He made it as far as the private lounge before Charles caught up with him.
The door slammed behind them. The lighting was lower here, less forgiving. Charles’s face was tight with rage, the polite mask long gone.
“What the hell was that?”
Laurent dropped into a velvet chair, legs crossed, and began peeling off his cufflinks with exaggerated care. “I think it was called a boundary.”
“You humiliated Aimeric.”
“Aimeric humiliated himself. I just accessorised.”
Charles was pacing now, back straight, jaw clenched. The picture of restraint on the edge of collapse.
“You don’t get to blow up my career every time you get bored.”
Laurent looked up. “Your career?”
Charles froze.
“And what exactly,” Laurent continued softly, “am I in this equation? A pet? A headline? A trophy with slightly too much personality?”
Charles didn’t answer. Which said enough.
The door opened again. No knock. Just a sudden burst of cold political fury in a custom navy suit.
Auguste.
His brother was composed, as always, but the way he looked at Laurent could have shattered glass.
“You’re leaving,” Auguste said flatly.
Laurent gave a tight smile. “Don’t I even get a good evening?”
“No. You don’t. You just sabotaged a room full of donors, ministers, and photographers.” He turned to Charles. “Damage control’s already underway. I’ve issued a statement. Aimeric’s being paid off.”
Charles nodded grimly.
“And you,” Auguste said, fixing his gaze on Laurent again, “are going far away until this dies down. You’ve embarrassed me enough for one lifetime.”
Laurent stood, slow and theatrical. “I’ve embarrassed you?”
“Yes. Me. And Charles. And yourself, though I doubt that matters much.”
Charles rubbed his temples. “Just go, Laurent. Please. We’ll figure this out after the press cycle cools.”
“Where exactly am I meant to disappear to?” Laurent asked, already dreading the answer.
Auguste’s phone buzzed. He checked it. “You’ve got a rental booked under a private alias. Cottage in Loch Lomond. It’s remote. And you’ve been there before. Won’t be new.”
Laurent froze. His throat went dry. Loch Lomond. Laurent had been there alright.
Charles didn’t notice. “It’s for the best. One week. Two, at most. Just get your name out of the headlines.”
Laurent didn’t respond right away. Just nodded once, slow and unreadable.
Then, with that signature DeVere smile—the one that never quite reached his eyes—he said, “Lovely. I’ve always enjoyed unplanned holidays.”
-
The train wound north through hills that looked almost unreal—too green, too wide, too still. Laurent stared out the window like someone being ferried to exile, which, in fairness, wasn’t far from the truth.
He hated how quiet it all was.
No paparazzi. No phones buzzing. No Charles, no Auguste, no endless swirl of engagements and curated images. Just foggy hills and the occasional sheep, judging him from a distance.
When he stepped off the train at the tiny station, a single elderly porter gave him a nod. No one asked for a signature or a selfie. No one seemed to care who he was.
Because, here, he wasn’t Laurent DeVere.
He was Thomas Blake, according to the fake booking Auguste’s office had arranged. The name sounded like a failed novelist or a man who sold antique clocks, but Laurent didn’t protest it. It was fine. Boring. Anonymous. He could work with that.
The air smelled like pine and damp earth and something faintly nostalgic. It was annoying.
He found the key under the flowerpot exactly where the rental agency said it would be, and let himself into the cottage. It was picturesque, in a rustic, too-many-textures kind of way. Worn armchair. Old kettle. Window boxes with flowers that were probably dying of neglect. There were books on the shelf. A fireplace. A walking stick by the door, as if the previous guest had wandered out and never come back.
Laurent dropped his suitcase and flopped onto the couch with a dramatic sigh.
“Loch Lomond,” he muttered, staring at the wooden ceiling. “Where scandals go to drown.”
He wasn’t thinking about Damen.
He absolutely wasn’t.
Just because every inch of this place echoed with memories—of laughter in the rain, stolen kisses near the water, the wild, dangerous spark that had ended with midnight bad decisions and a morning hangover—didn’t mean he was thinking about him.
It had been seven years. That was ancient history, practically prehistoric.
He sat up, yanked the curtains closed like a man barricading himself against ghosts, and made a silent vow:
He would lie low. Stay out of trouble. Not think about Damen.
By sunset, he’d broken all three.
-
Laurent had been walking for nearly two hours before he realised he was completely lost.
Not just in the poetic, soul-searching in the mist kind of way. He was physically, stupidly, geographically lost. Somewhere on the wrong side of the loch, no signal, no map, no sense of direction, and zero useful survival instincts.
The boots weren’t helping. They were fashionable hiking boots, not functional ones. Designer. Suede. Practically allergic to mud.
The wind whipped through the trees, tossing his hair into his eyes. His coat, all aesthetic and no insulation, was soaked through at the collar. His thighs were already beginning to tremble from a mix of cold and pride.
He hadn’t meant to hike. He’d meant to walk off the nerves. Clear his head. Maybe brood a little. But the path kept going, and he kept walking, and the further he got from the cottage, the more stubborn he became about not turning back.
By the time the fog rolled in, Laurent could barely see ten feet ahead.
“Brilliant,” he muttered, voice echoing off the wet silence. “This is how it ends. Mauled by a bad decision and a woodland creature.”
A low branch slapped him across the face as if in agreement.
He didn’t hear the loch until he was almost on top of it—the stillness of the water, a smooth silver sheet between the trees. He stopped at the edge, breathing hard, chest tight. His skin buzzed. His head spun.
The world tilted slightly to the left.
Then everything went dark.
-
He came to slowly, with sharp scent of antiseptic assaulting his senses. Lights above him, bright, too fucking bright, a blanket over his chest, and something beeping nearby.
For a wild moment, Laurent thought he’d woken up in some sterile London clinic and imagined the whole thing. The engagement. The wine toss. The hike. Damen.
Then someone walked into view. Tall. Broad-shouldered. Scruffy. And with such eerie calm, it nearly melted Laurent’s insides, said—
“Well, well. Look who finally woke up.”
The world tilted slightly. Laurent knew that voice. Knew it almost as well as his own.
There was silence. An awful, never-ending silence. And then a cocky, “welcome back, husband.”
And then everything went black again.
-
Next time Laurent woke, he felt like death incarnate. There was a buzzing in his head, and the ache there lingered. Everything felt too much, Laurent didn’t know where he was. He tried to get up—
“Easy.”
Laurent blinked.
The face hovering above him was not a hallucination, though he almost wished it were.
Damianos Akielos. In the flesh. Older. Sharper. Broader in the shoulders. Same jawline you could cut glass on, same brows pulled together in that eternally disappointed expression Laurent used to find unfairly attractive.
He hadn’t changed much—just grown into himself. Still grumpy. Still solid. Still not smiling.
Laurent opened his mouth. No words came out.
Damen stood at the foot of the narrow clinic bed, arms crossed over his chest, dressed in scrubs and irritation.
“How are you feeling, princess. Or should I say husband?”
The word hit like cold water.
Laurent sat up too fast and immediately regretted it. His head swam. The room dipped sideways.
Damen didn’t flinch. Just handed him a glass of water and watched him fumble with it like he was fifteen seconds from dramatic collapse (again).
“What—” Laurent croaked. “What did you just call me?”
“Princess? Husband?” Damen said like it was a joke.
“No, I—no. That’s not—we—” Laurent rubbed his forehead. “That got annulled. Ages ago.”
Damen raised an eyebrow, slow and brutal.
“Did it?”
Laurent stared at him.
Damen walked over to a little counter, picked up a clipboard, and flipped through a few sheets with clinical detachment. “You collapsed near the old south trail. Two hikers found you. Hypothermic. Dehydrated. Looked like a kicked puppy in thousand-pound boots.”
Laurent didn’t know what to say.
“You’re lucky someone saw you. You would’ve passed out into the loch and drowned under the weight of your own ridiculous coat.”
Damen set the clipboard down and leaned against the wall, finally looking at him. Not with concern. Not with curiosity. With a sort of low-simmering exasperation that felt… weirdly intimate.
“I’d ask what you’re doing back here, but I don’t particularly care. Just don’t die on my shift. Paperwork’s bad enough without the corpse of my husband in the hallway.”
Laurent gripped the water glass tighter. “Okay, seriously, can you stop calling me that?”
Damen gave him the faintest shrug. “Legally, still accurate.”
There was silence. Thick, awful, heavy silence. Laurent cleared his throat, his voice still came out scratchy. “I thought the annulment—”
“You thought wrong.”
It was followed by another pause. Laurent tried to find something smart to say. Or cutting. Or self-defensive. But all that came out was, “oh.”
Damen pushed off the wall, turned towards the door. “You have to stay under observation for a while. I’ll give you more painkillers in an hour. Rest for now.”
He was almost gone when Laurent said, too softly, “you could’ve told me.”
Damen didn’t look back. Just said—
“I tried.”
And then he was gone.
Door shut. Room cold. Heart pounding.
Laurent closed his eyes.
What the actual fuck?
-
True to his word, Damen came back an hour later.
He didn’t speak right away. Just walked in with a clipboard and a cuff, like this was any ordinary check-in, like he wasn’t currently upending the entirety of Laurent’s already shaky reality. He stopped at the side of the bed. “Need to take your vitals.”
“I don’t need—” Laurent started.
Damen sat anyway. Took Laurent’s wrist in his hand like it was nothing. Warm skin, steady fingers. Efficient as always. It was the first time they’d touched in seven years. Laurent hated that his pulse spiked. Hated that Damen’s brow ticked upward like he’d noticed.
“Still dramatic,” Damen muttered, cuffing Laurent’s arm and inflating it with methodical precision.
“You look like you’re enjoying yourself,” Laurent countered, scratchy and half-hearted.
“Not even a little.”
He wrote something on the chart, silent again. The cuff deflated. The touch left Laurent’s arm, and he found himself stupidly, disproportionately aware of it.
“Any nausea? Dizziness?”
Laurent blinked. “Are you being professional right now?”
Damen looked up, all blank patience. “I’ve treated worse patients.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“No, it’s not.”
Another silence passed. The stethoscope came out next. Cold metal met Laurent’s chest through the thin fabric of the hospital gown.
“Breathe in,” Damen said.
Laurent didn’t. Just to spite him.
“I don’t have time for your nonsense, Laurent. Breathe.”
Laurent obeyed.
“Again.”
He did it again, slower this time.
There was something disarming about how quiet it all was. How close Damen was. The faint smell of clean soap, antiseptic, something vaguely herbal. Maybe mint. Maybe memory. Damen pulled back, finally. Jotted down more notes.
Laurent felt something crack in his chest. “You look tired,” he said before he could stop himself.
Damen paused mid-note, flicked his eyes upward. “You’ve been awake eight minutes. Don’t start psychoanalysing me.”
Laurent leaned back against the pillows. “I wasn’t. Just—observing.”
“Then observe quietly.”
He moved to stand. Laurent sat up a little straighter, stubborn despite the nausea still churning in his stomach. “Are you going to tell me I hallucinated our last conversation, or is this some sort of rural Scottish humour?”
Damen didn’t smile. “You’re not hallucinating.”
Laurent blinked. “Excuse me?”
“You’re still married,” Damen said simply. “To me.”
There was a pause.
Then Laurent laughed. Sharp, incredulous. “That’s not funny.”
“I’m not joking.”
“I—” Laurent stood too fast, felt the world tilting again. Sat back down.
“settle down or I will give you a sedative.”
“That’s impossible. We annulled it. I signed the papers. You signed the papers.”
“You did,” Damen said. “Except the witness didn’t.”
Laurent blinked again, as if his brain was buffering.
“The what didn’t?”
“The witness. You need a signature. We had one, but—” Damen exhaled. “It was invalid. Wrong form. Not legally binding.”
Laurent stared at him. “So what, I’ve been—what—married this entire time?”
“Yes.”
“To you?”
A hint of something passed through Damen’s expression. Irritation. Bitterness. Maybe something else. “Yes.”
“No,” Laurent said flatly. “No. That’s not—that’s not how this works.”
“I tried to tell you,” Damen said, voice low but firm. “I left messages. Emails. I even sent a letter to that ridiculous address you had in Paris.”
Laurent frowned. “I never got anything.”
“You changed your number. You didn’t want to hear it Laurent.”
Laurent crossed his arms tighter, like he could physically hold himself together.
“Well, forgive me if I assumed our drunken disaster of a midnight marriage had been quietly buried like it should have been.”
Damen didn’t rise to the bait. “I was going to file the paperwork myself,” he said. “But I didn’t have your updated information. The court needed both of us. So it stayed. In limbo.”
Laurent let out a slow breath. It felt like watching a house slowly burn down. His own house. From the inside. “So,” he said finally. “Let me guess. I call a solicitor, we’ll sign the correct forms, and it’ll be over by Tuesday.”
Damen shook his head. “No.”
“No?”
“I’m not signing anything.”
Laurent’s head snapped up. “What?”
“I’m not signing the papers.” Damen said like he was talking to an imbecile. “I’ve been stuck with it for seven years. You don’t get to come back and make demands.”
Laurent stood up with great effort, and took a slow step forward. “Listen, Damen, I’m engaged—”
“Oh yeah? Your brother found a new puppet master for you? your little wine stunt made headlines, by the way. Classy move. Now suddenly you're hiding out near the one person you didn’t want to see, and all you care about is cleaning up the mess?”
“This isn’t a mess, Damen. It’s my life.”
“You should’ve thought about that before walking out without a word.”
The silence that followed was thick. Laurent’s throat worked, but no words came out.
Eventually, Damen exhaled and stepped back. “You want a divorce? Go to court.”
“You’re being unreasonable.”
Damen raised an eyebrow. “Am I?”
“Yes.” Laurent folded his arms again, tightly enough to press the tremble out of his hands. “This was supposed to be a formality. A stupid technicality. We were drunk. We were twenty.”
“You were twenty,” Damen said. “I was twenty-five. Old enough to mean it.”
Laurent scoffed. “Don’t be sentimental. It doesn’t suit you.”
Damen didn’t flinch. Just leaned back slightly against the counter, arms crossed. There was that maddening calm again, like this was just another patient consult, another routine exam. Laurent wanted to throw something at him. A clipboard. A lamp. The last seven years.
“You’re seriously not going to sign?” he asked.
“No.”
“Why?”
“You vanished. I didn’t even get a conversation. Not a text. Not a post-it. And now, seven years later, you show up on my doorstep and expect me to play along while you pretend it never happened?”
Laurent’s throat felt dry.
“I’m not pretending it never happened.”
“You are. You think you can just clean your record, move on with your shiny new life? Political fiancé. Picture-perfect marriage. Great. You want that life? File a petition. Drag it into the public record. But if you go to court, know that your brother will find out. So will your fiancé.”
Laurent’s stomach turned.
“You’re bluffing.”
“I’m not.”
“You’d actually force this into a legal proceeding.”
Damen’s voice was even, unshaken. “Yes.”
-
Laurent found himself pacing in the narrow living room of the cottage, damp hair sticking to his forehead, hoodie clinging to his back. The wood stove crackled half-heartedly in the corner. His brain was running a million miles a minute.
Married.
Still married.
To Damen.
Court.
The word was a punch. Not metaphorical. Actual, physical nausea curled in his stomach at the thought.
Auguste would tip over.
Charles would call it “unfathomably embarrassing” in that pinched voice he used when someone failed to use the correct dessert fork.
Their PR team would implode.
His career, his image, gone in an instant.
All because of a technicality. A missing witness. A signature lost to time and bad stationery. He pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes and let out a noise halfway between a sigh and a scream.
This was supposed to be a sabbatical. A quiet little exile in the countryside where he could lick his wounds and wait for the press to move on.
Not... this.
Not Damen. Not the past. Not the way Damen had looked at him—calm and steady, like nothing Laurent said could shake him anymore. Like he’d already grieved it.
Laurent hadn't grieved anything. He’d just left.
And now, seven years later, the mess was still here, sitting neatly folded like a shirt in a drawer he’d never opened again.
He knew Damen wasn’t bluffing.
And court meant exposure.
And exposure meant Auguste. And Charles. And the engagement. And the press.
He had no quiet way out.
Laurent was completely, spectacularly trapped.