“Everything about you makes me uncomfortable. In case you hadn’t noticed.”
My heart twisted. “Good. Then we match.”
We sat there in a small, warm silence.
“I got Veil.”
My head snapped up. “Youwhat.”
A muscle jumped in his jaw. “The app. I let Luca teach me. You can send flowers to the grave of my pride later.”
My brain tripped over itself trying to reconcileVinceandVeilin the same sentence.
“You hate Veil.”
“I do. I hate the drones. I hate the feeds. I hate people thinking they can talk about you like you’re a public toy.” His fingers curled against his glass. “But I hated being blind to it more.”
My heart suddenly was beating a lot faster.
“You learned Veil for me.”
“Don’t make it sound romantic. It was an act of war.”
“Against who? The comments section?”
“Yes. Have you seen them?”
I winced. “Sometimes. When I’m feeling brave or stupid.”
“Don’t. It’s bad for your blood pressure.”
“You looked at them.”
“I wanted to know what they were saying about my girl. I wanted to know how much damage Luca had been shielding me from.”
The wordsmy girlstill hit like a brand.
“So? What did you think.”
“I thought I wanted to erase six hundred thousand people from existence.” His mouth twisted. “And then I remembered Luca yelled at me about destabilising digital ecosystems or whatever. But I also thought you looked beautiful. Every time. I could see the parts of you the comments didn’t understand.”
My hands tightened on my napkin. “Parts like… what.”
He leaned in, elbows on the table, eyes locked on mine. “How your left shoulder sits higher when you’ve had a stressful call with your mother. The shape of your mouth when you’re pretending not to be scared.” His voice darkened. “The days you look like you’ve been crying before you sit in front of a camera.”
Emotion punched up under my ribs fast and sharp.
“And,” he added, softer, “the nights you wear a dress I know you didn’t pick for them.”
I swallowed. “For who, then?”
His gaze dropped briefly to my neckline, then back to my face. “For me. For Daddy.”
Heat flooded my cheeks.
“I told you not to watch the stream. You respected that.”
“I did. That night. After that, I realised not watching didn’t stop other people watching. So I chose the lesser evil.”
