Signed, Sealed, Ours - Update!! (Hinny regency AU)
Chapter - 2 (Strangers in Fine Robes)
Snippet: "I don't pretend anything." Her voice was sharp as broken glass. "I'm not the one wearing expensive robes and pretending to be something I'm not."
Harry's jaw tightened. "And what exactly am I pretending to be?"
"A gentleman." She said it like the word was an insult. "Someone who cares about anything beyond his own comfort. Someone who might actually have a thought in his head that isn't about gold or status or — "
"You don't know anything about me." Harry's voice was rising, and he could feel the heat in his cheeks, the familiar burn of anger that he usually kept under control. "You've known me for thirty seconds. You've spoken to me for thirty seconds. And you've already decided that I'm just another rich, entitled heir who doesn't care about anything except himself."
"Have I been wrong?"
The question hung between them, sharp and mocking.
Harry opened his mouth. Closed it. He wanted to say yes, wanted to tell her that she was wrong about everything, that he hated this arrangement as much as she did, that he'd spent his entire life being judged for things he couldn't control — his name, his gold, his scar, his mother's blood.
But the words wouldn't come. Because she'd already decided who he was, and nothing he said was going to change her mind.
"You're right," he said finally, and his voice was cold. "I'm exactly what you think I am. A rich, arrogant brute who doesn't care about anything except my own comfort. And you're exactly what I think you are — a bitter, entitled princess who thinks her blood makes her better than everyone else, even when she's got nothing else to her name."
She flinched. He saw it — the smallest wince, the briefest crack in her armor — and he felt something twist in his chest that might have been guilt.
But he didn't take it back. He didn't apologize.
They stared at each other, and the silence stretched between them like something alive.
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