Maybe—just maybe—that silent resistance was exactly what was driving him crazy.
I stepped away slowly, breaking the dangerous closeness like it was a wire I couldn’t afford to touch. I walked toward the hallway, feeling the heat of his stare on my back.
I didn’t have to look behind me to know he followed.
Firm steps. Slow steps.
Infuriatingly calm.
I stopped at my bedroom door and felt him approach again. I breathed in, then threw him a look over my shoulder, sharp as glass.
“Are you going to keep following me?”
Enrico’s eyes stayed locked on mine—arrogant, unshaken, absolutely certain of his power.
“Until you learn to obey simple instructions.”
I yanked the door open and stepped inside, expecting him to stay in the hallway.
He didn’t.
The soft creak of wood under his feet warned me before I even turned.
“This house has twelve bedrooms, Enrico,” I said, voice low with anger. “Are you sure you want to die in this one?”
He closed the door behind him slowly.
The soft click sounded like a warning.
The bedside lamp cast our shadows across the wall—his larger, darker, more imposing than it had any right to be.
“Dying in here would be poetic,” he said quietly, moving closer. “Considering this is where you decided to forget we have an arrangement.”
I raised an eyebrow, crossing my arms with a calm I didn’t actually feel.
“An arrangement?” I asked. “I thought it was just a threat dressed up like a proposal.”
Enrico’s mouth curved into a half-smile that never reached his eyes—a smile I remembered far too well.
“Proposals come with flowers, Valentina,” he said. “What I gave you was an order.” He stopped close enough that I could feel the change in air. “Did you really think you could challenge me and then sleep peacefully afterward?”
I held his gaze, refusing to move.
“I sleep peacefully because you no longer have the power to take my sleep from me.”
Lie.
My hands were cold. My pulse was too fast. My fingers trembled slightly at my sides.
Enrico noticed instantly.
He took two steps.
Only two—but the space around us turned hotter, denser, electrified with tension.
“You really think this is going to work?” he asked quietly, tilting his chin toward the room, the hallway, the minimal distance between us. “Living here. Pretending all this hatred between us is stable.”
I didn’t retreat.
