Nico’s POV
The woman I have loved for four years is walking into my bedroom in twenty minutes, and I have spent the last two hours preparing this room like a man dressing for his own execution.
I adjust the lighting for the third time, dimming the overhead fixture until only the lamps cast their warm glow across the silk sheets. She always preferred this, the soft amber instead of harsh fluorescence. I noticed it during the eighteen months she lived under this roof, the way she gravitated toward candles on the terrace, the way she turned off overhead lights in any room she occupied for more than five minutes.
The Montepulciano sits breathing on the nightstand, the exact vintage she used to drink alone on the balcony when she thought no one was watching. I was always watching. I catalogued every preference, every habit, every tell she gave without knowing she was being studied.
I lower the thermostat two degrees. She runs warm when she sleeps, always pushing blankets away, always seeking cooler air against her skin. I know this because I spent eighteen months memorizing the archaeology of a woman who belonged to my brother, and the wanting that started the night Dante brought her home has never stopped bleeding.
The green dress. The laugh she gave him in the foyer while I stood in the kitchen doorway and felt my entire chest rearrange itself around a stranger. Four years of slow hemorrhage. Four years of learning to function around the wound rather than heal it.
My thoughts turn dark, the way they always do when I allow myself to imagine what tonight might bring. Her beneath me, back arching off these sheets. Her above me, hands braced on my chest, head thrown back. The sounds she would make when I find the right angle, the right pressure. Would she gasp or moan? Would she say my name or bite her lip to keep it inside?
I have hypotheses. Tonight I will learn if any of them were correct.
But then the leash tightens, the one I keep wrapped around my own throat. I know her. I studied her for eighteen months while she belonged to Dante, and the woman who held a steak knife to my sternum will not be rushed. She will bolt if I push too hard, and the image of her walking out of this room, choosing to leave, choosing Dante, choosing anyone but me, is enough to snap the restraint back into place.
The knock comes at exactly nine o'clock.
I open the door, and the sight of her steals the breath from my lungs.
She wears a borrowed black dress that does not fit right, too tight across her chest and too loose at her waist, and the self-consciousness with which she tugs at the hem does devastating things to my composure. Her dark hair falls in waves past her shoulders, and her eyes hold the wariness of a woman walking into territory she does not trust.
"This feels like a trap," she says, stepping inside and scanning the room with sharp assessment. The candles, the wine, the deliberately lowered lighting. "The ambiance is a bit on the nose, Nico."
"It is an invitation, not a trap." I close the door behind her and lean against it, keeping my distance. "Traps do not let you leave. The door is unlocked, Arianna. You can walk out whenever you want."
"Can I?" She turns to face me, arms crossing over her chest in that defensive posture I know too well. "Because it seems like every time I try to leave this estate, another Serratore appears with another reason I should stay."
"You came here voluntarily tonight. No one dragged you to my door."
"I came because of the terms we agreed to."
"You came because you were curious." I push off the door and move toward the wine, pouring two glasses with deliberate slowness. "The terms gave you permission. Your curiosity brought you through the door."
She accepts the glass I offer but does not drink, her fingers wrapped around the stem like she needs something to hold. I notice the way her gaze drops to my throat, to the open collar of my shirt where I left the buttons undone deliberately, the tie abandoned on purpose.
She looked. She checked. The half-second glance she cannot quite control tells me everything her words refuse to admit.
"This obsession of yours is unhealthy," she says, but her voice lacks conviction. "You understand that, don't you? Watching someone for years, memorizing their preferences, orchestrating their kidnapping. None of this is normal behavior."
"I never claimed to be healthy, Arianna." I take a slow sip of wine, holding her gaze over the rim. "I claimed to want you. Those are different things."
The music shifts in the background, strings layering over piano, slower now, more intimate. I set down my glass and extend my hand toward her.
"Dance with me."
"That is not what I came here for."
"You came here because you had no choice." I keep my hand extended, patient, undemanding. "But you are still here now, and no one is making you stay. One dance. If you hate it, you can go back to glaring at me from across the room."
The silence stretches between us, heavy with everything neither of us is saying. Then her fingers slide into my palm, cool against my skin, and the contact sends a current through me that I feel in my teeth.
I pull her close. Not crushing, not demanding, just near enough that her body heat reaches me through the thin fabric of that borrowed dress. We begin to sway in the dim light, and I notice her hair smells like jasmine from the guest bathroom shampoo. The detail is small and devastating.
"Why does this feel easy?" she whispers, her cheek resting against my shoulder, her guard lowering by degrees she probably does not notice.
"Because you spent two years convincing yourself that wanting something meant it would destroy you." I turn us slowly, my hand spread wide across the small of her back. "And maybe that is not always true."
Her breath catches, and I feel the tension return to her shoulders, the resistance rebuilding itself brick by brick.
"Maybe it is," she whispers back.
I stop moving. The music continues, but we stand still in the center of my bedroom, her face tilted up toward mine, her eyes holding that mixture of fear and want that has lived in my fantasies for four years.
I tip her chin up with two fingers, forcing her to meet my gaze.
"There is one way to find out."