I stood in the doorway, my heart in my throat, the question hanging in the charged air between us.
"The man in the bathroom... the one who held me... was any of that real?"
He just stared at me. For a split second, I saw a war in his eyes. A flash of pain, of something raw and desperate. But it was gone in an instant, replaced by a cold, dead emptiness that chilled me to the bone.
His voice, when he finally spoke, was the flat, detached tone of a doctor giving a diagnosis.
"You were in shock, Miss Moretti," he said. "My only objective was to stabilize the situation. The physical contact was a calculated measure to prevent a full-blown panic attack."
The words hit me like a slap. Calculated. Stabilize. He was talking about that kiss—that firestorm—like it was a medical procedure.
"So it wasn't real," I whispered, the words tasting like ash in my mouth.
"The only thing that's real," he said, his voice dropping even lower, colder, "is my job to keep you alive. That's all that was. That's all it will ever be."
He didn't even have the decency to look sorry. He just looked... empty.
He started to close the door. "Get some rest," he said, dismissing me like a child.
The click of the latch echoed the sound of my heart breaking.
I returned to my room, the humiliation a hot poison in my veins. I didn't cry. Crying was a luxury I couldn't afford. The pain was too sharp. It burned away the tears and left behind a cold, hard rage.
He thought I was a fragile doll. He thought he could break me with a few clinical words. He was wrong. I was the daughter of Alessandro Moretti. And we did not break. We fought back.
Then, I went hunting.
I moved down the stairs, my steps silent. He was in the main living area, standing with his back to me, staring out at his reflection in the glass wall. A statue carved from shadows.
He heard me approach. I knew he did.
"You should be in your room," he said, his voice flat.
I stopped a few feet behind him. "I was," I said, my own voice just as quiet, but with an edge like sharpened steel. "But I don't like being lied to."
He turned then, slowly. His face was a mask of ice. "I don't know what you're talking about."
"Don't you?" I took a deliberate step closer. "You're a professional liar, Dante. But in that bathroom, for one second, you weren't lying. Your hands weren't lying. Your mouth wasn't lying."
His jaw tightened, a muscle ticking violently. "It was a mistake. One that won't be repeated."
"You keep saying that," I whispered, taking the final step until we were almost chest to chest. I had to tilt my head back to meet his furious gaze. "But words are cheap."
Before he could react, before his training could scream at him to move, I raised my hand.
I pressed my palm flat against the center of his chest. Right over his heart.
He flinched, but he didn't pull away. He was trapped.
Under my hand, I felt it.
Thump-thump. Thump-thump. Thump-thump.
It wasn't the slow, steady beat of a soldier in control. It was the frantic, panicked hammering of a man losing a war. The wild, runaway rhythm of a heart that was betraying every cold, calculated word coming out of his mouth.
I let my eyes meet his. I could feel his silent panic through my palm, a current of electricity connecting us.
"You're a good liar, Dante," I whispered, my voice cutting through the silence.
"But your heart is terrible at it."