“I didn’t know,” I say.
“I didn’t intend for you to,” he replies, his voice quiet.
“Then…why didn’t you ever go after my father directly? Why come after me?”
He finally lifts his eyes, and the answer is already there—raw, unfiltered.
“I thought you knew,” he says. “About the evil the scandal caused. The lives that were lost. When your father went on all those press conferences to defend himself and clean up his name, you were always there.” His jaw tightens. “Smiling. Nodding. Standing beside him like you believed every word he said.”
My stomach sinks, cold and heavy.
He inhales sharply, as if the confession tastes like blood. “I wanted to punish you.”
I gasp. “Dimitri….”
There’s no venom in his voice. No heat. No triumph. Only exhaustion—years of it, worn into him like an old bruise. My chest tightens painfully.
God. This whole time, I thought he hated me because he simply…hated me. But this—this is grief dressed as cruelty, sorrow sharpened into a weapon.
“I’m so sorry, Dimitri,” I whisper. And I mean it. With everything in me.
He doesn’t say anything, but something flickers in his eyes—surprise, maybe. Or disbelief. Or the faintest crack in the wall he’s spent a lifetime holding up.
I suck in a shaky breath. “I wish my family had never been like that. So brutal. So obsessed with winning. I wish…none of this had happened. That you didn’t have to lose anyone because of them. That we weren’t standing here carrying their sins.”
I reach for him again, slowly, giving him time to pull away. He doesn’t.
“I wish I could make all those wrongs right,” I whisper. “I can’t rewrite the past, but I can try. Iwilltry. At least that much.”
His throat works, and for a moment he looks like he might say something—confess something—reach for something he’s never allowed himself to want.
But instead…he moves.
It’s barely a shift at first—just a tilt of his head, a breath closer, a soft tightening of his fingers beside mine on the piano bench. And then his mouth is on mine.
Not hungry.
Not demanding.
Not the Dimitri I know.
This kiss is…a surrender.
His lips brush mine gently, like he’s afraid I’ll break. Like he’s afraid he’ll break. His hand slides up to the side of my face, thumb trembling just slightly, and something in my chest folds in on itself.
Heat blooms behind my eyes.
Tears.
Again.
Because I know, this time, we’ve just given each other a second chance.
Chapter 15 – Dimitri
I wake up to urgent, rapid knocks on the door.
For a second, I’m disoriented—caught between sleep and something softer, something I still don’t fully understand. Vivian is curled against my chest, her breath warm on my skin, her arm draped over my ribs like she trusts me without thinking. It’s been seven days since we’ve started sleeping together, and she still sleeps like she’s trying to make up for a lifetime of exhaustion. Seven days, and I still wake before her.
