The way her breath stuttered.
The way her hand trembled before she forced it still.
And then—
A smaller shift.
A softening.
A brief, fragile flicker of something she would die before admitting.
Relief.
Relief that I hated Seraphina.
That I didn’t want the woman waiting at my altar.
That knowledge was a shot of pure electricity straight to my veins.
“Put the hatred aside,” I said softly, too softly. “Marry me. It’s the only way to keep you and your son safe. And the only way to keep me out of her hands.”
She crossed her arms—an attempt at a shield—but her voice was steady.
“I want safety for my son more than anything. And the safest place is far from you—back in Greece. You think I’d marry you? The man who abducted us? The man who’d cage us for life with no way out? I would sooner walk into the sea.”
“Fine,” I said immediately. “Three months.”
She blinked. Once. Twice.
“You wear my ring for three months,” I said. “After that, you can divorce me. Clean. Legal. You walk away with enough money to disappear forever if that’s what you want.”
She studied me—slow, calculating, deeply suspicious.
“I want it in writing,” she said.
“Done.”
“And no sex.”
A dark laugh slid out of me, quiet and molten.
“I can’t promise no sex,” I said truthfully. “But I can promise—on my blood—that there will be no sex without your explicit consent. Every single time. For all three months.”
Her eyes narrowed. Testing me. Weighing me.
“Any other conditions?” I asked. “Name them. They’ll be in the contract.”
She stared at me for such a long time I felt the world tighten around us.
“After three months... you’ll actually let me go?” she whispered, fear and hope warring in her tone.
The softness in her voice—the hope buried beneath the words—stabbed straight through my ribs.
She knew the truth.
She knew contracts meant nothing against a man like me.
She knew I could tear up the paper, burn it, chain her to this place with nothing but my will.
