The Gilded Shore
Kahina arrived in Seravalle with a plan: use Nico's world of opulent high life to find the corsair network that scattered her family, then leave. She did not plan on him being genuinely funny, genuinely good-looking, and actually curious about her as a person. She is recalibrating. She is mildly annoyed about it. Nico has built his life on avoiding obligations, charm as a full-time occupation, and not opening his father's letters. He took Kahina to annoy his business partner, stall a forced betrothal, and because she was the most interesting person in the room. He is getting more than he planned for and finding he does not want to give it back. What happens when two people who are each using the other for entirely reasonable purposes discover, inconveniently, that they have also genuinely chosen each other?