I wear his name like a scar.
Alessandro Rossi stole everything from me; my freedom, my future, the lie I told my father to keep him alive. He thinks I'm a tool to be used, a bride to be displayed, a Fraga to be broken. He thinks the ring on my finge...
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The sky was black and endless, stars scattered across it like a handful of diamonds.
I sank into the armchair on the porch, tucking my legs under me, trying to let the quiet of the night settle into my bones. It should've been peaceful. It almost was.
But my brain wouldn't shut up about Alessandro. The weight of his gaze earlier. The way he'd caged me in with his arms and brushed chocolate from my lip like he had every right to touch me. The heat of it still lingered, unwanted and uninvited.
I could still feel the ghost of his thumb on my mouth, and I hated how my body had reacted. How my pulse had kicked. How some traitorous part of me had wanted him to lean in and close the distance.
I reminded myself that wanting something didn't mean I'd hand myself over to it. I wasn't going to be some warm body he could claim when the mood struck and throw away when it didn't.
Margaret and Geoffrey's voices kept echoing in my head. The way they talked about him with so much affection and so much unshakable certainty that he was a good man buried under all that damage.
I couldn't make it fit. The boy who'd run away to this cabin, broken and grieving, and the man who'd kidnapped and forced me to marry him. They were the same person. They had to be. But I didn't know how to hold both versions of him in my head at once.
Part of me wanted to know which was real. The bigger part didn't care. My time here wouldn't last. Whether Alessandro turned out to be honorable or monstrous, he wasn't going to decide my path. I was already planning my escape. And when I got free, he'd be nothing but a memory I had no intention of keeping.
His voice drifted through the half-open window. He was on the phone with Andrea, the words too muffled for me to catch. Business. Always fucking business. I didn't want to know.
I closed my eyes and breathed in the cold air, trying to ground myself. The tension in my chest eased, slowly, until warmth brushed over my shoulders.
My eyes flew open. Alessandro was beside me, tucking a blanket around me with the kind of absent ease that suggested the gesture demanded no thought at all.
"Thank you," I said quietly.
He dropped into the chair next to mine and leaned back, his eyes on the sky. Silence settled between us, and for a while neither of us tried to fill it.
Eventually I let my voice break through. "It's weird how much we fear the dark and yet we can't stop staring at it because of the stars and the moon. Their light only matters because of the shadow around it." I didn't expect him to answer. I just wanted to let the thought breathe.
He let out a slow sigh. When I looked over, his guard had slipped, just a little, and for a second I forgot my own resolve.
"What happened to you?" The question came out before I could consider it. "People aren't born with shadows. At some point there had to be kindness. Love. So what changed?"
