I open the box. A delicate chain of silver, a single dark stone set in the center. It glints, catching the starlight. Inside the stone, a minuscule tracker—the kind you’d need a microscope to find. I force myself to keep my expression neutral.
“For you,” I say, and before she can answer, I take her wrist. Her skin is warm, soft, and she doesn’t pull away. Not yet.
The clasp clicks into place. My fingers linger, just for a second. I can feel her pulse, quick and erratic, just beneath the bone. A pulse I can now trace if anything goes wrong. If she disappears again.
“Why?” she says, voice low. “Why now?”
I don’t answer. Can’t. Instead, I brush my thumb over her wrist, feeling that thin line of her vein, that fragile, thrumming life beneath my touch.
She pulls away.
“Right. The contract.” Her voice goes flat. “How convenient to remember just when you need to smooth things over.”
“That’s not—”
“I’m not interested in your gifts, Konstantin. Or your games.”
“It’s not a game.”
She laughs, but there’s no humor in it. “No? Then what is it?”
I step closer, the bracelet still in my hand. “Let me at least put it on you.”
“Why? So you can disappear again tomorrow? So you can pretend this night never happened, just like the kiss?”
Despite her words, she doesn’t back away when I move into her space. Close enough now to smell her perfume—something light and floral that makes my chest ache with a feeling I don’t want to name.
“Give me your wrist,” I say, softening my voice.
For a moment, I think she’ll refuse. But then she extends her arm, her expression defiant even in compliance.
I clasp the bracelet around her slender wrist, my fingers lingering against her pulse point. Her skin is warm, soft. I’ve forgotten how small she is compared to me. How delicate she seems despite the fire inside her.
“There,” I say, my voice rougher than intended. “It suits you.”
She looks down at the bracelet, then back at me. This close, I can see the faint freckles across her nose. The exact shade of her lips—pink like the inside of a seashell.
“I’m not a doll you can dress up,” she says, but her voice has lost some of its edge. “You can’t give me crumbs and expect me to fall for you, then pull away again. I’m not your toy, Konstantin. I’m not something you can pick up and put down whenever it’s convenient.”
Her words hit harder than they should. Because they’re true.
I open my mouth, but nothing comes out. Because I don’t know. Because I can’t say what she wants to hear.
She steps closer, and it’s like she’s looking through me, right into that black, empty space where my heart should be.
“You keep acting like you don’t care. Like this is all business. But you know what I think, Konstantin? I think you don’t even know your own damn heart.”
“Bella—”
“You don’t know what you want, so you push and pull and play goddamn mind games. You can’t even admit that you’re scared.”
“I’m not scared.”
“Then what is it like? Explain it to me.”
How do I explain what I don’t understand myself? This pull toward her that defies every rule I’ve set. The need to protect her from a world she doesn’t fully comprehend yet. The war between what I want and what I need to be.
“Complicated,” I finally say.
