The smell of sizzling bacon and maple syrup filled the sun-drenched breakfast nook, a sharp contrast to the heavy, charged atmosphere of the master suite only an hour prior. Roman sat at the head of the table, looking every bit the formidable patriarch in a crisp charcoal shirt, though the way his eyes lingered on Violet- who sat across from him in a borrowed, oversized cashmere sweater, was anything but professional.
"Sia?" Roman asked, lifting his coffee cup. "Short, melodic, punchy. Fits the stage persona."
Violet popped a piece of fruit into her mouth and shook her head with a playful grin. "Nope. Sounds like I should be swinging from a chandelier. Next."
"Serena?"
"Too peaceful," she countered. "I'm a lot more trouble than a Serena."
Adam, sitting in his booster seat with a face partially smeared with pancake syrup, looked back and forth between them like he was watching a tennis match. His small brow furrowed in genuine confusion. "Daddy, why are you calling Violet the wrong names? Did you forget? It's V-I-O-L-E-T. Like the flower!"
Roman chuckled, the sound deep and warm. He reached over and ruffled Adam's hair. "We're playing a game, Ace. You see, Violet has a secret superhero name. A real name that she keeps hidden away like a treasure, and I'm trying to win the prize by guessing it."
Adam's eyes went wide. A secret name? That was the coolest thing he'd heard all week. "Can I guess too? Is it... Supergirl?"
Violet laughed, a bright, genuine sound that seemed to chase the morning shadows away. "I wish! But no, not Supergirl."
"Is it... S-S-Snakes?" Adam hissed, giggling at his own silliness.
"Getting colder, bunny," Violet teased.
For the next twenty minutes, the breakfast table was a flurry of 'S' names. Adam went through every cartoon character and animal he could think of- Star, SpongeBob, while Roman stayed in the realm of the sophisticated, throwing out Sloane, Sutton, and Simone.
Each time, Violet simply tilted her head, a maddeningly beautiful smirk on her face, and offered a firm "No."
Finally, Adam slumped back against his chair, defeated. "This is too hard. Give us a hint, Violet! A big, giant one!"
Violet glanced at Roman, who was watching her with an intensity that made her skin tingle. He looked like he was ready to bribe a government official just to get a peek at her birth certificate.
"Alright, alright," Violet said, leaning forward and resting her chin in her hands. "Here is your big hint. You've actually said the word today. Or at least, a version of it. It's spelled differently when I use it as my name, but the word is the same." She paused, her eyes shimmering. "And, it's even in a few of the jazz songs I sing at the club. In fact, I sang it last night during my final set."
Roman's mind immediately began to reel. He replayed the lyrics of her songs- those soulful, aching melodies about heartbreak and moonlight. He thought back to every word spoken at the table. Stay. Star. Sun. Song.
"Sonya?" Roman tried, grasping at straws.
"No."
"Sunny?"
"Cute, but no."
After another ten minutes of increasingly desperate guesses, Roman threw up his hands in mock surrender, though his eyes promised he wasn't truly giving up. "Fine. We're stumped. For now. But don't think I won't be analyzing every lyric sheet in the Gilded Lily's library."
"I'll be waiting," Violet winked, helping Adam down from his chair.
Later that afternoon, the lightheartedness of breakfast evaporated. Roman sat in his office, the door locked, the only sound the hum of the high-end computer towers beneath his desk. On the large central monitor, the security footage from the Gilded Lily was playing- the footage Violet had risked herself to get from Silas.
He had already cleared the Vane lawsuit. His lawyers had seen the footage of the alleyway, where Ryder Vane clearly initiated the physical altercation. The case was as good as dead. But Roman wasn't watching the alleyway anymore. He had accessed the internal backstage cameras.
The blue-white glow of the triple-monitor setup in Roman's office was the only light in the room, casting long, sharp shadows across his face. He sat perfectly still, a glass of untouched scotch sweating on a coaster beside him. On the central screen, the footage from the Gilded Lily's backstage hallway was playing at half-speed.
Roman had seen the alleyway fight a hundred times. He knew the weight of his own fists, the way Ryder's head had snapped back, the way the adrenaline had tasted like copper in his mouth. But he had never seen what happened before he arrived. He had never seen the catalyst.
His hand gripped the armrest of his chair until the leather groaned.
On the screen, the door to Violet's dressing room burst open. Out stepped Ryder Vane, looking rumpled and predatory. But he wasn't walking away; he was being hauled.
Roman watched, his breath hitching in his throat, as the small, lithe figure of Violet- draped in that devastating, blood-red silk, shoved a man twice her size toward the service exit. He saw the fire in her movements. She wasn't cowering; she was an inferno. He watched her jam her heel into Ryder's foot and use her forearm like a steel bar to drive him back.
"God, you're something else," Roman whispered, the words rasping in the hollow room.
The footage showed her face clearly as she threw the steel door open. Her eyes weren't filled with the tears of a victim; they were blazing with the fury of a woman who had finally had enough of being hunted. He saw her grab Ryder by the collar, her knuckles white, her lips moving with a silent snarl as she ejected him into the night.
A dark, vibrating anger began to coil in Roman's chest- a primal, territorial rage that Ryder had even dared to breathe the same air as her in that cramped room. He thought about the red dress, how vulnerable it had made her look from the stage, and then he saw how she had used that vulnerability as a weapon. He felt a sickening surge of regret that he hadn't hit Ryder harder, that he hadn't broken more than just his nose.
But as the clip looped, the anger was slowly overtaken by a fierce, staggering pride.
He leaned closer to the screen, his finger tracing the line of her defiant silhouette. He had spent weeks thinking of her as something to be shielded, a "songbird" in a golden cage. He had seen her as a nanny, a singer, a runaway. But the footage showed him a warrior. She had defended herself with a tactical precision that spoke of a woman who knew her worth and was willing to fight for it.
He remembered the way she had looked when he'd pulled her into his lap the day before, her back arched, her spirit so sharp it could cut. He had felt her strength then, but seeing it on screen- seeing her stand her ground against the very man who had tried to ruin her, made his heart hammer with a terrifying kind of respect.
"My girl," he murmured, the possessive claim feeling more earned than ever.
He realized then that he hadn't just saved her in that alleyway. They had been two predators descending on the same scavenger. She had already broken Ryder's spirit; Roman had just finished the job on his body.
The footage continued to the moment the door swung wide and he appeared in the frame, leaning against the SUV. He saw himself through the camera's eye- dark, lethal, and utterly consumed by her. He saw the moment her eyes met his in the flickering yellow light of the alley. Even on the grainy tape, the connection between them was a physical thing, a wire pulled taut.
Roman paused the video right at the moment she grabbed his sleeve to lead him away. Her hand, small and pale against his charcoal suit, was the only thing that had kept him from crossing a line he couldn't come back from.
"You knew," he realized, his voice a low rumble of awe. "You knew exactly how to stop me."
He leaned back, rubbing his jaw, feeling the phantom ache of the bruises on his knuckles. He felt a deep, soul-stirring satisfaction. He wasn't just protecting a fugitive; he was partnering with a survivor. He thought of the hint she'd given at breakfast- the name that was a word, spelled differently, hidden in her songs.
Song.
But she said it was spelled differently.
Songe? No.
Sonn? No.
Soul.
He looked at the woman on the screen, her red dress like a flame in the dark.
Solange.
The name hummed in his mind, fitting the rhythm of her grace and the grit of her spirit. It was French, derived from solemnis. Solemn. Sacred. Soul.
A slow, predatory smirk spread across Roman's face. He had it. He had the key to the lock. But more importantly, he had the truth of who she was. She wasn't just a singer hiding from a Prince; she was the woman who had shoved the world back when it tried to take her, and he was the man who was going to make sure the world never tried again.
He shut down the monitors, the room plunging into darkness. He didn't need the light anymore. He knew exactly where he was going.
He walked out of the office, his stride long and purposeful, heading toward the master suite where she was likely curled up with a book or sleeping beside Adam. He didn't care about the late hour. He didn't care about propriety. He needed to be near that fire.