"You didn't have to walk me all the way up here," I said, easing out of his hold the moment we reached the threshold of the door to my suite.
The two guards flanking the two sides of my door had already disappeared the moment they saw us approaching, giving us some semblance of privacy. I would've welcomed it under any circumstances, but tonight, I wished they would've just stayed exactly where they were.
"No, it's alright," Dario said, his tone firm, unmoving. "It's the right thing to do."
It hit me then. How impossibly quiet the hallway was. No applause. No spotlight. No crowd to blur the edges of things.
It was just him and me now. And the weight of what Grandpa had announced pressing down on the space between us like an invisible hand.
"Well then...good night, Dario," I said, reaching for the door handle. I already can't wait for this moment to end.
Then I heard him step closer.
So I turned back, just as his fingers brushed my arm. A light touch, tentative but unmistakably deliberate. A touch that felt less like question and more like the beginning of an answer I truly didn't want.
"Isolda," he said softly, too softly, almost apologetic. "I want you to know that I intend for our arrangement to be real. A true partnership. Warm and sincere."
My fingers tightened around the door handle until the metal bit into my palm. "Of course."
He exhaled a quiet, relieved sound. "Thank you."
A pause. One beat. Then another. The kind that stretched too long to be harmless.
And before I could excuse myself, before I could push down the handle and end this moment, he stepped in. Closing the last inch of space and dipped his head.
His lips pressing softly against mine. Brief and controlled. Like he wanted to make a point without pushing his luck. While I stood still, letting it happen because stopping him would've felt like shattering glass.
When he pulled back, his breath lingered between us. His dark eyes searching mine for something I didn't have to give. Still, I smiled anyway, to ease the awkward tension between us.
"I'll see you soon," he murmured, almost like a promise, before finally stepping away.
He gave me one last look over his shoulder before walking down the hall, leaving me alone with a kiss I never wanted and a future I never agreed to.
I didn't let myself stand there long.
The moment the door clicked shut behind me, I turned the lock. Once, then twice, like I'm sealing myself away from everything that had just happened. Thankfully, my suite was dim and quiet. Too spacious for the storm brewing in my chest.
I crossed the room in slow, deliberate steps, pulling off my gloves and placing them on a table somewhere. Letting the silence wrap around me like a heavy cloak, as I make my way over to the mini-bar and reached for the first bottle I could reach.
I uncorked it with shaky fingers and poured myself a glass of wine. The sound of liquid meeting glass was the only thing that didn't feel intrusive.
With the glass in hand, I crossed the window and climbed onto the windowsill, pressing my back against the cool frame. The city unfurling before me in a riot of color. Fireworks shattering open like dying stars, their reflections trembling across the rooftops. Drunken cheers drifted up from the narrow streets below, horns blaring in a chaotic, joyful chorus.
A new year. A new beginning.
At least that's what it's supposed to be.
My gaze lowered to the canal carving its way through the night like a dark vein. The water was nearly still, disturbed only by the slow, whispering ripple of passing boats. Shadows sliding beneath the moonlight as if the night itself is carrying them away.
I wondered what it would feel like to jump.
To slip through this window somehow, land on one of those boats and vanish into the dark.
To disappear into a life untouched by bloodlines and legacies. A life where no one knew the name Isolda Ricci, heiress to a kingdom I never asked to rule. To be free.
The sharp clink of glass meeting wood sliced through the quiet.
I stiffened, setting my drink down beside me before slowly turning.
The stranger, Alaric Voss was there, leaning against the doorway between my bedroom and the windowsill where I sat perched. His posture relaxed, almost lazy, even, but the tension he was trying to hide was unmistakable. An empty glass sat on the table beside him, like he had been waiting for me. Watching.
He was still in his suit. The dark fabric clinging to the lines of his body, when a firework detonated outside. The flash of light catching his green eyes, igniting them for a single heartbeat before the shadows reclaimed him once more.
For a moment, I almost wondered if the alcohol I had consumed had conjured him out of thin air.
But no, he was real. Devastatingly so.
"That was some kiss," he murmured with a slow, knowing smirk, his voice curling through the room like smoke. His gaze flicked deliberately to my mouth, then back up with a infuriating sort of amusement.
My breath hitched, but I hid it.
I didn't know how he bypassed the guards, but the fact that he was standing here, uninvited, sent my nerves sparking. I slid off the windowsill, heels clicking as I straightened to my full height.
"What the hell are you doing here?" I demanded.
His eyes dropped, lingering briefly on the stilettos still strapped to my feet. Something hungry flickered in his expression, something he thought he understood.
If only he knew that these heels weren't meant for seduction. They're weapons. I was only wearing them because I wasn't allowed to have one strapped on me.
"I guess I got curious," he said, tilting his head in that maddening way, like he was studying not just my face, but the thoughts beneath it. The way his green eyes darkened, then narrowing ever so slightly. "I don't know why, but something tells me we've met before. Maybe in a past life."
A chill ghosted down my spine.
"I don't believe in past lives," I blurted. Too quickly, too sharp. "And you do know I could easily scream, and the guards would be here in seconds, right?"
His mouth curved. Slow, unhurried and entirely unimpressed.
"I know," he murmured. "But you haven't."
He stepped closer, a breath of movement, a shifting of shadows. The heat from his body rolled toward me, subtle but unmistakable, pulling the air taut between us.
"You're standing there," he continued, his voice low enough to thread under my skin, "back against the window, wine on your lips...telling me you could scream."
His gaze dipped, not to my neckline or my legs, but to my mouth.
Then back up, sharp and knowing.
"But you won't."
I swallowed, hard, just as the corner of his mouth curved like he knew exactly what he was doing to me.
"Go on," he murmured it like a challenge, now that he was standing right in front of me. My back pressing against the cold wall by the window, caging me in. "Call for them. Scream as loud as you can, Princess."
He leaned in, slowly, deliberately. His aftershave, dark, clean and masculine, mixed with the faint smoke of his earlier cigar. The air between us snapped tight, charged, humming with something neither of us dared to name.
"Tell your guards a stranger slipped past them," he continued, his voice dangerously low and menacing. "Tell them you're frightened. Go on."
His hands lifted, fingers hovering over my jaw, close enough that I could feel the heat, radiating from his skin to mine. Not touching, but somehow intimate, nonetheless.
"Or..." His breath grazed the shell of my ear, a whisper that slid straight down my spine. "Don't."
I felt his gaze before I saw it. Heavy and consuming, pinning me where I stood.
"Admit the truth."
I forced myself to look up at him. In those dark green eyes of his. Eyes that felt ancient. Familiar. Like they had watched me like this before. In our past lives, maybe.
"That you're just as curious about this as I am."
My lips parted, ready to tell him to fuck off, shove him away, deny every flutter and ache twisting inside me—
When he crashed his mouth onto mine.