Serafina
I chose the hotel intentionally—neutral territory, luxurious enough to dull the edges of conscience, discreet enough that no one would question a room paid for in cash under an untraceable name.
The suite overlooked the city skyline, but I kept the curtains drawn tight, sealing us into a world outside the reach of sunlight, morality, or truth. Every detail was controlled: the lighting dim but not blacked out, the masks placed on the bedside table, the scent diffusers set to an unfamiliar fragrance, the bedding crisp and untouched.
I told myself the control would keep me safe. In reality, I was only trying to hold together something already unraveling.
Matteo arrived with the same force he always carried—an aura that preceded him, a storm wrapped in a tailored suit. When he opened the door and stepped inside, the air shifted, thickening with something volatile and inevitable. He scanned the room, then turned to me—masked, wigged, unrecognizable—and yet his shoulders dropped with relief simply from sensing my presence.
“You came,” he said, closing the door behind him. His voice was rougher than usual, as if sleep had not touched him in days.
I adjusted the modulator at my throat and kept my tone steady. “You said it was important.”
“It is,” he replied, stepping closer. “And every time you show up, I don’t know whether to be grateful or furious.”
“Why furious?” I asked, even though I already knew.
“Because you disappear for days,” Matteo said, running a hand through his hair in frustration. “Because I look for you in every shadow and you’re never there. Because I’m starting to feel insane.”
He exhaled sharply. “Because whoever you are—whatever you are—you’re undoing me.”
My pulse stumbled. I turned away under the pretense of adjusting something on the table, anything to avoid the raw need in his eyes. Matteo followed, his voice lowering.
“Why this place?” he asked. “Why the hotel? Why not the warehouse again?”
“Because tonight I wanted control,” I said. “Not darkness.”
He let out a humorless laugh. “Control. Is that what this is for you?”
“It has to be.”
He took another step closer, closing the distance between us with a deliberate slowness that made my breath hitch. “Then explain something to me,” he said quietly. “If you need control so badly… why do you tremble every time I touch you?”
Before I could respond, his fingers brushed my arm—light, tentative, devastating. The contact burned through me, awakening memories, hunger, fear, longing—all tangled into one unbearable knot.
I pulled away. “Don’t start with that.”
Matteo’s jaw tightened. “Don’t start with what? The truth?”
“This—this isn’t about truth,” I said, stepping back until the wall met my spine. “This is about boundaries. Rules. An understanding.”
He laughed again, but this time it cracked. “Boundaries? We crossed them the night we met in that room. Don’t stand here and tell me this is nothing when your body disagrees every time you’re near me.”
“It’s complicated,” I whispered.
“No,” he said, voice hardening. “It’s simple. You feel something. I feel something. And for some reason you’re terrified to admit it.”
My breath wavered. “I never said I don’t feel anything.”
He froze, the confession hanging in the air like a blade suspended mid-fall. Slowly, he stepped toward me, bracing one hand on the wall beside my head, trapping me without touching me.
“Then say it,” he whispered. “Say that you feel this too.”
My chest tightened painfully. “I can’t.”
“Because of who you are?” he asked, eyes narrowing behind his mask. “Because of the life you’re protecting? Because you think this will ruin everything?”
“Yes,” I said, voice cracking. “Exactly because of that.”
“Then why keep coming back?” he demanded. “Why answer my messages if this is something you don’t want? Why stand here shaking in front of me as if you’re afraid I might see through the mask?”
I closed my eyes.
He softened. “Look at me.”
“No.”
“Please,” he whispered.
Against my will, I opened them.
And Matteo Brenna Verrelli—my ex-husband, my first love, my greatest wound—looked at me with a vulnerability I had never seen in him during our marriage.
“Do you know what the worst part is?” he asked quietly. “I feel… connected to you. In a way that doesn’t make sense. In a way that terrifies me.”
My heart stopped.
He touched my shoulder, fingertips tracing slow, familiar lines that ignited nerves long dormant. “I don’t know your name, but when you breathe, something inside me recognizes you. When you tremble, something in me wants to steady you. When you leave, I feel like I’ve lost something I didn’t know I was still looking for.”
My throat tightened, tears threatening behind the mask.
“And when I touched you last time,” he continued, voice trembling, “I felt something I haven’t felt in years. Something I thought was dead.”
“You…” I whispered, the modulator warping the ache in my voice into a haunted echo.
He laughed softly, bitterly. “God, even your whisper feels familiar. I know that sounds insane. I know I sound insane. But it’s true.”
He lifted his hand slowly, stopping inches from my cheek as if afraid I might vanish. “Who are you?” he murmured. “Why do I feel like my soul knows yours?”
The question cut deeper than any accusation ever could.
He leaned in slightly. “Tell me. Just tell me who you are.”
I shook my head, stepping sideways out of his reach. “I can’t. You’re asking for something I can’t give you.”
“You mean won’t give me.”
“No,” I said firmly, though the tremor in my voice betrayed me. “I mean can’t. Because if you knew… everything would shatter.”
He stared at me, breathing uneven, fists clenching at his sides. “Then at least tell me one truth,” he said quietly. “I need to know I’m not losing my mind.”
I swallowed hard. “What truth?”
He stepped closer again—not touching, but close enough that the warmth of his body reached through the mask and wig and disguise, straight into my marrow. “Do you want me?”
I froze.
The room seemed to tilt.
Matteo waited, expression raw, exposed. “Tell me,” he whispered.
My voice came out a cracked whisper. “Yes.”
The word broke us both.
He reached for me, pulling me into a fierce, desperate embrace—not tender, not careful, but hungry and wounded and overflowing with the emotions we had never learned to name. I felt myself melt against him, answering a need I shouldn’t have let surface, a need that terrified me because it was mine.
When his lips brushed the skin just above my mask, he murmured, “I knew it. I knew you felt it too.”
That was when the panic hit.
Violent. Breath-stealing. Shattering.
I pushed him away—not gently, but in a frantic, stumbling motion that made him freeze in confusion.
“What—what’s wrong?”
“I have to go,” I gasped, stumbling toward the door, desperate to flee before everything inside me spilled into the light. “This was a mistake. I shouldn’t have come.”
“Wait,” Matteo said, voice breaking as he reached out. “Don’t run from me again. Don’t leave—”
But I did.
I fled the room, fled the hotel, fled the part of myself that had answered him too willingly. By the time I reached my car, my hands shook so badly I could barely fit the key in the ignition.
I nearly told him the truth.
I nearly destroyed everything.
As I drove home, the city lights blurred through my tears.
Because Matteo was right.
Something in us recognized something it should have forgotten long ago.
And I was terrified of what that recognition meant.