Whatever they’re discussing, it’s not pleasant.
I intercept her near the bar when she finally extracts herself from the conversation. “Dance with me,” I say, not making it a request.
She hesitates for just a moment before nodding, allowing me to lead her onto the dance floor where several other couples are swaying to the soft jazz quartet.
The moment my arms go around her, muscle memory kicks in. The way she fits against me, the subtle scent of blackberry and vanilla that still makes my thoughts scattered, the warmth of her skin through silk that feels like coming home.
Except tonight, she holds herself like glass—beautiful but fragile, as if the wrong touch might shatter something irreparable.
“Talk to me,” I say quietly, my breath stirring the hair at her temple. “Whatever’s going on, whatever you’ve learned—we can work through it.”
“Can we?” She tilts her head back to look at me, and for the first time all evening, I see past the perfect facade. Her gray eyes are shadowed with something that looks like grief. “Are you sure about that, Rafa Rosso?”
The use of my full name is deliberate, formal, creating distance where there used to be intimacy.
“Try me.”
“Even if what I’ve learned changes everything? Even if it means questioning loyalties you’ve never had to question before?”
“My loyalties have been questionable for years,” I reply honestly. “The only thing that’s changed recently is finding something—someone—worth being loyal to.”
Her step falters almost imperceptibly. “You can’t mean that.”
“Why not?”
“Because you don’t know me. Not really.” Her voice is soft but cutting. “You know the version of me I’ve shown you, butyou don’t know who I really am underneath all the carefully constructed lies.”
“Then show me.”
“What if you don’t like what you see?”
“What if I do?”
We turn in slow circles on the dance floor, surrounded by other couples who have no idea they’re witnessing what feels like a goodbye disguised as a waltz.
“You’re hiding something,” I observe, studying her face for tells. “Something big. Something that’s making you pull away from everything we’ve built this far.”
“We haven’t built anything,” she says with devastating certainty. “We’ve been playing roles, Rosso. Fulfilling expectations. Following scripts written by other people.”
“That’s not true and you know it.”
“Is it?” Her smile is sharp enough to cut. “Tell me honestly—if our families weren’t forcing us together, if there was no missing money to investigate, no Durov threatening us—would any of this exist?”
The question echoes Luca's question, the doubt he planted that’s been growing like poison in my thoughts. Because the honest answer is complicated, layered with attraction and respect and something deeper that I don’t have words for yet.
“I think that we would have found each other eventually. Maybe under different circumstances, but...”
“But you’re not sure.”
“Are you?”
She looks away, her gaze fixed on something over my shoulder. “I used to be sure about a lot of things. Family loyalty. The importance of survival over sentiment. The necessity of keeping personal feelings separate from strategic objectives.”
“And now?”
“Now I’m not sure about anything.” Her eyes meet mine again, and I see vulnerability there that takes my breath away. “Especially not about us.”
The song ends, but neither of us moves to leave the dance floor. We stand in the middle of the ballroom, surrounded by the gentle chaos of people transitioning to new partners or returning to their conversations, locked in a moment that feels infinite and ephemeral.
