The name sounded like a chain.The word daughter hung in the air between them like a claim he expected her to accept.She lifted her chin.“My name is Elia Lucia,” she stated firmly. “Not daughter. And you shouldhave told me.”
The first flicker of something crossed Vittorio’s face.Not regret.Irritation.
Magnus’s hand slid to her elbow.“We’re done,” he said.He turned her toward the door in an almost protectivemove.
They walked out.Elia didn’t look back.Not because she wasn’t afraid.Because she refused to give Don Vittoriothat.
THE PRIVATE DINING ROOMdoor closed after Magnus and Elia’s departure.Several minutes passed before it opened again andBianca stepped inside.She moved to the window and watched the city lights tremble in the glass.Behind her, Vittorio’s chair creaked as he shifted.
The silence in the room tasted like old money and cold decisions.
Bianca’s mouth curved.“I told you he wouldn’t give her up,” shesaid.
Vittorio’s responded abruptly. “He’s a Severin. He believes he can defy me.”
She turned.Her eyes were sharp. Deliberation without warmth.“He can,” she said. “Unless you make it impossible.”
His gaze narrowed. “You should have never given her away.”
She ignored the comment, her tone staying calm.“That girl knows too much. You can’t leave a liability in Severin hands.”
Vittorio didn’t answer immediately.
She held his stare.
He leaned back in his chair and the silence that followed was answer enough.
Across the city, Elia Severin walked out under Magnus’s protection.
And in this room, her fate had just been sealed.
Chapter 10
MAGNUS KNEW SOMEONEwas watching the water before he ever sawher.
The pool stretched beneath the glass wall that opened toward the gardens, the early light turning the surface into shifting silver. Magnus cut through it in long, regulated strokes, each movement deliberate, each breath measured. Swimming always cleared the noise from his head. Contracts, threats, rival families, leverage and betrayal all sank beneath the rhythm of muscle and water.
But the sense of another presence tugged at his attention.
He reached the far edge, turned, and pushed off again. Halfway across the pool he lifted hishead.
Elia stood at theedge.
She’d changed nothing about herself. Bare feet. One of the borrowed shirts the housekeeper had brought her the night before in place of a nightgown. The thin fabric hung loosely over her body, brushing the tops of her thighs. Her dark hair fell around her shoulders in a silken spill that made her look youngerand more vulnerable than she ever allowed anyone tosee.
She wasn’t moving. She watched the water as though she wasn’t certain she had permission to approachit.
Magnus slowed, then reached the side where she stood.“You should swim.”
She blinked, startled that he’d spoken at all.“I don’t have a suit,” she replied.Her voice carried that same careful composure he had come to recognize. Polite. Cautious. Always prepared to withdraw if she crossed some invisible boundary.
Magnus rested his forearms on the edge of the pool and looked up at her.“Then come in as you are.”
She studied him, clearly trying to determine whether the invitation was real. When she finally moved, the shift held a trace of stubborn resolve.Elia stepped down the ladder into the water.The moment the fabric touched the pool it darkened and clung to her body. The shirt molded to the curve of her breasts and the narrow line of her waist before drifting loose again at herhips.
Magnus didn’t look away.
Elia waded deeper until the water reached her waist. Asmall sigh escaped her as she sank into the water.“It’s warmer than I expected.”
