It was awkward, like wearing clothes that didn’t fit.

The air was warm and pleasant; handshakes from in-laws with smiling faces, future daughters-in-law bowing graciously. Everything about it felt foreign to me, clashing with my own understanding of how things should be.

*‘Is this… what’s considered normal?’*

I looked down blankly at my hand, which had just shaken hands with Baron Artine. Maybe this atmosphere was perfectly normal. This could be the kind of unremarkable, conventional situation that I’d simply never experienced—a reality both my wife and I had missed out on.

Back when I was still only an heir, …