We were almost at the bedroom when a door to our left slammed open with a crash, startling me.
“Help... help me, Dmitri! Please!”
The voice was high, frantic, laced with exaggerated fear. Seraphina.
Dmitri’s entire body snapped into alert, the arm around me loosening only enough for him to pivot. In an instant, he was in front of her, dropping to one knee with precision and urgency. His hand rose, gently lifting her chin to assess the blood streaking across her temple.
I froze, my stomach knotting with a mix of fury and disbelief.
Every instinct urged me forward—to pull Seraphina from his arms, to erase her from his skin—anything to reclaim the intimacy that wasn’t mine to take. But I stayed rooted, fists clenched at my sides, jaw tight. The sight of him bending for her, hands brushing her skin with care, was a dagger I couldn’t remove.
“Where does it hurt?” he asked, calm but commanding, eyes scanning her face and neck with exacting focus.
“I—I fell from the bed,” she stammered, voice trembling, tears mingling with the blood. “I’m not used to sleeping alone. I had a nightmare and... I rolled off. It hurts so much.”
Dmitri’s jaw tightened, the hand that had held her chin now checking her arms for bruises. He pulled out his phone with precise efficiency. “Giovanni,” he barked the moment the line connected. “Seraphina’s room. Now. There’s been an incident.”
Before he could hang up, she launched herself at him, clinging desperately around his neck. Blood smeared across his chest as her small body pressed against him, her face hidden against his skin. My chest tightened painfully, jealousy flaring hotter than fear or reason.
Every instinct screamed to shove her away, to erase the sight of him comforting another woman.
I swallowed hard, forcing myself to look elsewhere, nails digging into my palms until the pain grounded me.
“I was so scared, Dmitri,” she whimpered, voice quivering with calculated vulnerability. “Forgive me for bothering you.”
He allowed the embrace for a brief heartbeat, one hand settling lightly on her back in reassurance, but there was no softness in his eyes—just measured control. Footsteps echoed down the hallway. Giovanni was approaching.
“I’m scared,” Seraphina repeated, clinging harder, her nails digging into the muscles of his shoulder. Her gaze flickedtoward me over his arm—sharp, triumphant, smug. Every glance screamed,look what I can do.
Dmitri’s voice was steel and velvet at once. “It’s all right. Giovanni will see to you.”
He disentangled himself slowly, stepping back so that his presence remained commanding but non-invasive. Seraphina stumbled slightly, unsteady, and he caught her with one arm, eyes sharp enough to remind her he was not to be toyed with.
Giovanni arrived in a rush, taking in the scene with a single, practiced glance. He didn’t panic, didn’t question. Kneeling beside her, he murmured reassurances and gently probed the cut on her temple, already taking control.
I stepped a pace back, letting him handle it, my chest still burning with indignation.
Seraphina’s trembling eased slightly under Giovanni’s scrutiny, but I could feel her eyes on me, the unspoken accusation and challenge searing across the room. Dmitri remained calm, calculating, the storm of his anger and power barely restrained as he watched Giovanni tend to her.
A hand settled on my waist—Dmitri’s—and I flinched violently, the instinctual recoil belying the longing I would never admit even to myself.
“Don’t touch me,” I snapped before I could stop myself, voice sharp as ice. Every syllable was a blade, cutting through the lingering warmth of his nearness.
His brow furrowed, that familiar flash of confusion and restrained amusement flickering in his storm-gray eyes, but I didn’t care. I spun on my heel, storming past Seraphina and Giovanni without a backward glance, and slammed the bedroom door with more force than necessary.
The sound reverberated through the room like a gunshot. I threw myself onto the bed, letting the mattress swallow me in amix of fury and exhaustion, my hands clutching the sheets until my knuckles went white.
Minutes passed. The silence in the room became unbearable, pressing in from all sides. Then—the quiet sound of the door sliding open. I didn’t move.
He stepped in, towel still knotted low around his hips, droplets of water glinting on his bare chest and shoulders. He paused at the foot of the bed, hands hanging loosely at his sides, watching me with that unreadable expression that had haunted my dreams for years.
“That wasn’t jealousy, was it?” he asked, low, careful. His voice had softened, but there was a trace of steel beneath the words—as if he were measuring me, testing my reaction.
I stayed silent, chest heaving, staring at the ornate ceiling.
The truth burned hotter than I wanted to admit. It was jealousy. Raw, consuming, and utterly ridiculous.
Jealousy at watching him cradle another woman, at seeing that flash of concern in his eyes that should have been mine. The irony of it stung. We weren’t strangers. He was the only man I had ever truly loved. The only one capable of setting my blood on fire, even after years of grief and distance. And he might never know.
