She stood. Her chair scraped back with an audible screech against the floor, the noise sharp and violent in the hushed dining room. “You think I wanted this? I was raised to believe this would bemine.” I almost felt sorry for her. Almost. She turned and stalked out, heels clicking with precision, back stiff, hair swishing like a curtain behind her.
As I watched her go, something hot and electric bloomed in my chest. I recognized it as victory. For once,Iwas the storm someone else had to weather. And that feeling… it was real. It was raw and messy and probably petty, but it was mine.
Until it wasn’t.
Because Roman still had that smug, self-satisfied quirk to his lips. The kind of smile you’d wear after checkmating your opponent. Or after planting a flag in enemy territory.
Suddenly, I couldn’t breathe right.
That smirk. The napkin wipe. The timing. It all lined up too perfectly. What if it wasn’t aboutme? What if it never was? What if everything that had happened between us was part ofthe game? Was it just a well-timed move on a board I had never agreed to play?
My heart dropped straight into my stomach, and the food on my plate suddenly nauseated me. I couldn’t even look at the eggs, toast, or the berries swimming in syrup. My appetite had vanished.
So had the warmth.
I stared at my plate, trying not to let it show. Trying not to crumple right there in my chair, surrounded by whispers and half-sipped cocktails and the man who’d just made me feel like the only woman in the world.
The man who’d now made me feel like the stupidest woman in the world.
Was that what I was? A tool? A performance? A stunt to make Seraphina choke on her drink and storm off in defeat?
Roman took my hand under the table. I flinched. It was subtle, but I felt him pause long enough to clock it. He didn’t push or say anything, but he retracted his hand slowly, like he hadn’t just seen me retreat from him as if he’d burned me.
Good. Let him wonder. Lethimsit in the confusion for once.
Because I couldn’t tell what was real anymore. Not the smile. Not the softness. Not the way he’d said,Let me take care of you.And I couldn’t tell if the ache in my chest was heartbreak or embarrassment or the crash of coming down from something that felt too good to be true.
Probably all of it.
I sat perfectly still, breathing shallowly, hands folded in my lap so I wouldn’t remember tangling them in his hair. So I wouldn’t remember falling apart with his mouth on me. The satisfaction was gone now. I felt used. Hollow. The heat in that room had burned away the last fragile bit of dignity I had left.
And the worst part?
He was still sitting next to me, so close. And I couldn’t stop remembering how it felt when I thought I mattered to him.
Chapter 18
Roman
I drovewith one hand on the wheel and the other clenched tight in my lap, knuckles aching from the strain. The silence between us wasn’t peaceful. It was sharp-edged and brittle, like a pane of glass someone might breathe on wrong and crack straight through the middle. Every few seconds, I glanced sideways at her, hoping she’d turn her head, say something,lookat me… but Maggie just kept staring out the window like she couldn’t bear to exist in the same space as me right now.
Her arms were crossed. Jaw set. I kept hearing the words over and over, looping in my head like a curse I couldn’t shake.
You just did that to upset Seraphina, didn’t you?
She’d asked that the second we were in the car, yanking the ground out from under me and leaving me flailing. That was not what it was. Not even close. But the fact that shethoughtit was, that she could go from unraveling under my mouth to thinking she was a pawn in some pissing match with Seraphina, made me want to scream.
I clenched my jaw, kept my grip on the wheel steady, and drove.
When we got to the apartment, I killed the engine but remained in my seat, keys heavy in my hand. Maggie got outwithout a word. She didn’t wait for me. She didn’t even glance at me.
I did a few breathing exercises before I followed her up the stairs, but the weight in my chest kept getting worse with every step.
When I shut the door behind me, it was like a lock sealing around everything we weren’t saying. The apartment was dim and quiet, full of shadows and the ghost of everything that had happened. I took my boots off with more force than necessary. One clattered against the wall. I didn’t care.
Maggie walked straight toward the kitchen, putting a barrier between us. She still wasn’t looking at me.
My thoughts were a tangle of frustration and panic and the ever-louder echo of Lucien’s voice in my head.You need to claim Maggie as soon as possible. That stupid timer ticked down like a bomb I didn’t know how to defuse.
