[BL]Reborn as the Empire's Most Desired Omega
Chapter 171: Combat by brunch

Chapter 171: Chapter 171: Combat by brunch

The knock on the office door was not polite.

It was decisive.

Three sharp taps, like the prelude to a royal execution. Windstone glanced up from his tablet with the resigned air of a man who had already calculated every possible escape route and found none.

"That," he said gravely, "would be Her Grace Cressida."

Lucas went very still.

Trevor leaned back in his chair with the loose, relaxed posture of a man who had zero intention of saving his husband.

"No," Lucas whispered, eyes wide. "It’s too early. She wasn’t supposed to arrive until tomorrow."

Windstone didn’t blink. "Apparently, brunch is the new tomorrow."

The door swung open with imperial force, revealing Grand Duchess Cressida Fitzgeralt in full glory, head held high, white hair gleaming like frost under cut crystal light, heels clicking with intent, and a coat the exact shade of dried blood. She did not enter so much as claim territory.

"Darling," she announced, eyes raking over Lucas with the precision of a general inspecting troops. "You’re wrinkled."

Lucas instinctively stood. "I... I was working."

"And I’m here to rescue you from administrative decay." She marched in like she was the Empire and frankly, she often acted like she’d built it.

"Good morning, Grandmother," Trevor said, infuriatingly mild.

Cressida spared him a brief look, then turned her attention back to Lucas. "You are scheduled for brunch. With me. Now. I’ve brought the car, the driver, and three outfits. Pick one. You have four minutes."

Lucas blinked. "I haven’t had time to mentally prepare."

"You’re not facing a firing squad," she replied. "You’re having poached eggs."

Trevor snorted into his tea.

"I have meetings," Lucas protested. "I’m behind on paperwork, and Windstone said I had a call with the western trade delegates—"

"I rescheduled them," Windstone said, tone carefully neutral. "Per Her Grace’s command."

Lucas turned on him with betrayal in his eyes. "Et tu, Windstone?"

"Survival, Your Grace."

Cressida looped her arm through his with unsettling elegance. "You will wear something structured, smile like you mean it, and eat pastries without flinching. This is basic duchess conditioning."

Trevor lounged further into his chair. "Is this brunch... ceremonial?"

Cressida looked over her shoulder with a razor-sharp smile. "This is war. Against irrelevance. If the Emperor wants tea, then I intend to present him with a duchess who could negotiate a treaty and critique his fashion sense in the same breath."

"Then why should I be the one suffering because of this?" Lucas asked with genuine despair. He barely got out of his heat, still sore and wanting nothing more than to sit somewhere cool and sunny to ignore unimportant mail.

Cressida didn’t even pause. "Because you married into ambition, darling. Not leisure."

Lucas stumbled slightly as she pulled him down the corridor with all the delicacy of a diplomatic bulldozer. "I didn’t marry ambition. I married Trevor."

"Exactly," she said crisply. "And he is ambition. He just wraps it in sarcasm and expensive knitwear."

Lucas groaned, still trying not to limp too obviously. "I’m still sore. I just got out of heat. My entire lower half feels like it’s under embargo. Why am I being paraded like a prized peacock when I should be horizontal, in shade, and mildly sedated?"

"Because," Cressida said, entirely unsympathetic, "you are not a peacock. You are a phoenix. And no one wants to see a phoenix napping under a fig tree."

Lucas blinked. "That was... strangely poetic. And also incorrect."

"I don’t do correct," she sniffed. "I do presentations. And today you will be presented. With grace, wit, and thighs that do not tremble when descending marble steps."

"My thighs are not trembling," Lucas hissed. NovelFire

"They will if you argue with me before the car."

They turned the corner into the side vestibule, where a gleaming black vehicle waited with two staff members standing by the open doors. Beside it, perched like a judgmental hawk in silk, stood a stylist holding three neatly folded outfits in tones ranging from diplomatic grey to heir presumptive gold.

Lucas looked at them, then back at Cressida.

She didn’t even blink. "Pick one."

"I want to go home," Lucas whispered, like a man begging for clemency.

"And you will," she said, with the confidence of someone who knew exactly how far she could push. "But not until every noble matron in this district remembers why your name belongs on state stationery."

Lucas looked at the outfits again. One had gloves. One had a cravat. The last had both.

He closed his eyes. "Olive green one, but no gloves."

Cressida clicked her tongue but nodded once, grudging approval in its rarest form. "Acceptable. Bare hands it is. Let them see you’re still human beneath the title."

The stylist moved with military precision, already unfolding the olive-green ensemble like it was a holy vestment. Windstone, who had apparently followed like a dignified shadow, stepped forward and offered Lucas a small garment bag. "Undershirt, fresh scent pads, and a silk handkerchief. Just in case the brunch includes spontaneous weeping or political sabotage."

"Both seem likely," Lucas muttered, accepting the bag with the air of a condemned man handed his uniform.

Cressida motioned briskly to the car. "You have eight minutes to change. In the vehicle. We’re behind schedule, and I refuse to be seated after Lady Morelli. Her second husband thinks she invented toast."

Lucas narrowed his eyes. "I thought we were avoiding toast discourse."

"We’re avoiding your toast discourse," Cressida corrected. "Lady Morelli is an entirely separate tragedy."

Lucas climbed into the back seat with careful precision, muttering about aristocratic trauma and linen-related injuries. The stylist followed, closing the door behind them with a whisper-soft click that somehow still sounded like a life decision locking in place.

Trevor appeared just in time to lean against the passenger-side window, smirking faintly. "I’ll have Windstone run a bath when you get back. And an alibi."

Lucas glared through the glass. "If I disappear, I want it listed as ’death by brunch.’"

Trevor grinned. "Only if I get to give the eulogy."

"You’ll be the cause of death," Lucas snapped, before the car pulled away with smooth, silent elegance.

Cressida settled beside him like a queen assuming her throne, folding a silk scarf with deadly precision.

"Now," she said. "Let’s rehearse your answers. No politics, no promises, and if someone asks about the Emperor, you smile like you’ve already met him and survived."

Lucas leaned back, resigned, one eye twitching. "You know, for a brunch, this feels aggressively like combat."

Cressida didn’t look up. "Good. Then you’re learning."