I wake alone.
The bed is massive beneath me, expensive linens tangled around my body. His scent hits me—cedar and something darker, masculine and entirely Mehmet—and last night crashes back. The presentation hall. His voice claiming me. These chambers. His arms around me through the night, holding me like I was something that mattered.
I sit up slowly, the silk of my borrowed nightclothes sliding against skin that still remembers his touch from that first night. Morning light pours through windows that overlook private gardens. Everything here costs more than my family's entire estate probably.
I should feel out of place. Should feel like an imposter wrapped in stolen luxury.
Instead, I feel safe.
The realization unsettles me more than fear would.
I slide from the bed and explore cautiously, my bare feet silent on carpets so thick they swallow sound. The chamber reveals itself in layers—military maps spread across a desk, marked with notes in precise handwriting. Weapons mounted on walls, their edges sharp enough to catch light. And books. Shelves upon shelves of books in languages I recognize and some I don't.
I trace spines reverently. Persian poetry beside Greek philosophy. Military treatises in Ottoman Turkish next to what looks like Italian manuscripts. The collection of someone who hungers for knowledge the way I always have.
My fingers pause on a volume of astronomy, pulling it free before I can stop myself. The pages fall open to careful annotations in the margins, observations about planetary movements, questions posed to no one.
"You read?" Mehmet's voice comes from the doorway, and I nearly drop the book.
He leans against the frame, already dressed in formal robes that emphasize his shoulders, his dark eyes tracking my every movement.
"I taught myself," I admit, clutching the astronomy text like a shield. "By listening through walls when Yasmin had tutors. By stealing her discarded books when she lost interest, which was always." The confession tumbles out before I can think better of it. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have touched your things without—"
"Take whatever you want." He moves into the room with that controlled grace that makes my breath catch. "Read anything here. The library is yours now."
The casual generosity steals my words.
Before I can respond, a knock sounds and servants enter—three women with their eyes carefully downcast, but I catch the difference immediately. Yesterday in the presentation hall, I was nobody. Less than nobody. Today, they move with deference that borders on fear, their gestures precise and respectful.
"Your Highness requested we attend to the lady," one says, addressing Mehmet rather than me. As if I'm too important now to speak to directly.
"Dress her appropriately," Mehmet commands, settling into a chair with his gaze fixed on me. "She's under my protection now. Treat her accordingly."
They descend on me with professional efficiency, and I stand frozen as they strip away the borrowed nightclothes. I expect judgment—have spent nineteen years receiving it—but their faces remain carefully neutral. When they begin wrapping me in silks finer than anything I've ever owned, choosing colors that actually complement my complexion instead of washing me out, I almost stop them.
This can't be for me. Can't be real.
But Mehmet watches from his chair with an intensity that makes my skin flush, and his eyes say it's very real. That I belong in these silks, in this chamber, under his possession and protection.
The servants arrange my hair with careful hands, weaving it into something elegant rather than severe. When they finally step back, I barely recognize the woman in the mirror. The same body my family taught me to hate, but dressed like something valuable. Something worth looking at without disgust.
"Leave us," Mehmet says quietly, and the servants flee with grateful speed.
I stand in the center of his chamber, wrapped in silk and uncertainty, while he studies me with that predatory focus that makes breathing difficult.
"Beautiful," he says finally, the word landing like a brand. "Come. Breakfast."
The meal is laid out on a low table by the windows—more food than I've seen in days, arranged with the kind of care that speaks of kitchens designed to impress. Mehmet settles onto cushions and gestures for me to join him. I do, my movements careful, still expecting this to shatter.
He serves me himself, placing delicacies on my plate with his own hands. The gesture feels intimate in a way that has nothing to do with bodies.
"Tell me about your life before. Not the scandal. Not what they did to you. What you actually cared about when no one was watching."
I freeze. This is where he'll mock me—
"Leyla." His voice carries gentle command. "Answer me."
"Books. Languages. I taught myself Persian by listening to Yasmin's tutor through the wall, then Arabic, then bits of Greek from a manuscript I stole from my father's study." The words gain momentum. "I wanted to understand things. To know more than the walls of my room. I wanted—" I stop.
"What did you want?"
"To matter for something other than marriage prospects. To have a mind someone valued instead of just a body they didn't."
Mehmet's expression shifts. He sets down his food deliberately, his full attention on me.
"You educated yourself. While they tried to break you down, you were building yourself up in secret. That takes more intelligence than being handed tutors ever could."
The praise hits like a physical blow. My throat closes around words I can't form.
"Your family are fools. They looked at you and saw only what they wanted to see—a burden, something to discard. They never looked deeper."
"And you did?"
"I saw a woman brave enough to choose her own destruction rather than let them choose it for her. A woman intelligent enough to know she was being lied to but cornered too thoroughly to fight back."
I don't know what to do with the way he speaks to me like I'm a person rather than a problem.
He makes a dry observation about some courtier's transparent flattery yesterday, trying to switch the subject to something that doesn’t leave me helpless. The precise dissection of political maneuvering surprises a laugh from me before I can stop it.
Mehmet goes completely still.
"Do that more often," he commands softly, his gaze locked on my face with sudden intensity. "Laugh. You were made for joy, not grief."
The words lodge somewhere behind my ribs, painful and precious in equal measure.
We finish breakfast in easier silence. When he rises, I feel the loss immediately.
"I have military councils that will consume most of the day. But before I go—" He turns back, deadly serious. "You're not to return to the lower quarters. Ever. I've had your things moved to one of the high-standing chambers. You have free access to my chambers, my library, my private gardens."
I stare at him, unable to process what he's offering. Freedom. The kind of life I didn't know existed for someone like me.
"What's mine is yours now," he says, and the possessiveness should frighten me. Instead, it feels like an anchor. "Get comfortable, Leyla. You're not going anywhere."
Then he's gone, and I'm left alone in chambers that smell like cedar and promises, surrounded by more books than I could read in a lifetime, wearing silks that actually fit, with the echo of laughter still caught in my throat.
For the first time since I can remember, I'm not afraid of what comes next.
I'm curious.