"We're going to be okay," he says.
"How do you know?"
"Because we're already impossible." He gestures between us. "Roman gladiator and Manhattan heiress. Street performer and secret sculptor. Two people who should never have met but did anyway." His thumb traces my bottom lip. "If we can survive being impossible, we can survive your parents."
I want to believe him.
"Friday," I say. "Seven o'clock. Formal dress. They'll probably set the table with three forks and two spoons just to make you fumble."
"Then I'll make it part of the show." His grin is dangerous, delighted. "Your parents want to test me? Fine. Let's give them a performance they'll never forget."
The confidence in his voice makes something loosen in my chest. This is Draco—the gladiator who survived arenas and emperors and two millennia of impossible circumstances. A formal dinner with my controlling parents might be uncomfortable, but it won't break him.
The question is: will it break me?
"I should go," I say reluctantly. "Before they come looking for me."
"Stay a little longer." He pulls me back down beside him. "Tell me about them. Your parents. What should I actually know before Friday?"
So I tell him. About Father's obsession with the family name and maintaining standards. About Mother's need to control every detail of my life because she couldn't control the accident that killed Grace. About the way they've built their entire identity around protecting me from a world they see as fundamentally dangerous.
"They're not bad people," I finish. "They're just… scared. And their fear has been smothering me for twenty-five years."
Draco is quiet, processing. Then, "Do they know about your art? About Anima Venti?"
"They know about the workshop. About the welding." I lean back against him, tired just thinking about it. "They thought it was strange at first—totally unfeminine, Mother said—but they decided it was acceptable as long as it stayed a secret. A private hobby. Nothing that would embarrass the family."
"And Anima Venti?"
"When the sculptures got good enough to sell, they saw an opportunity. Donate them to charity auctions under a pseudonym, get tax write-offs and accolades for their generosity. The Pembroke family, such patrons of the arts." I twist to look at him. "I was fine with it. Better than fine, actually. I got to create without the pressure of the family name attached. They got to look philanthropic. Everyone won."
"Except you didn't get credit for your own work."
"Credit never mattered. Creating did.” I pause. "But lately… I don't know. Watching you perform, seeing people recognize your talent, hearing them ask for your card—it made me realize how much I've been hiding. Not just from them. From myself."
He's quiet for a long moment. "That's different from what I thought. At least they know about the art."
"They know I make sculptures and weld metal in my workshop and that my pieces are donated to charity auctions under my pseudonym—Anima Venti. They arrange the charity connections; they take the tax write-offs. But they have no idea I've been privately selling other sculptures." My voice drops. "The pretty, flowing pieces I donate to their charities? Those are the acceptable ones. A few collectors found me online and contacted me directly. I have them boxed and leave the property at the same time the charity sculptures are shipped. Those sales go straight to my private account."
I hide those profits the same way I hide the Dragon sculpture—tucked away where my parents will never think to look, protected like tiny pieces of the life I’m not supposed to want.
"My parents still think Anima Venti is nothing more than a polite hobby we dress up for philanthropy. They don’t realize the name has its own following now.”
"How much?"
"Enough that I could leave." The words come out barely above a whisper.
His arms tighten around me. "And then I showed up."
"And then you showed up." I turn in his embrace, frame his face with my hands. "And suddenly leaving doesn't feel scary anymore. It feels necessary."
"We'll figure it out," he says. "After Friday."
"After Friday," I say. "Let's just get through Friday first."
"After Friday," he agrees.
We sit together in the cottage while Lucky snores at our feet and autumn sunlight streams through the windows. Outside, the estate grounds are perfectly manicured. Inside, we're planning a revolution.
