“It’s nice,” she said, still looking around.
“It’s better with you in it.”
Sometimes I think this room is why I can never sleep. I built it bigger than I needed, filled it with cold colors and expensive things, but none of it matters without someone to share it with. The silence here isn’t peaceful—it echoes, sharp and hollow, reminding me of every night I’ve spent staring at the ceiling, wanting to fill this space with more than my own footsteps. I have everything I’m supposed to want, but the emptiness lingers in my bones.
She looked up at me, her dark eyes searching mine. “Do you bring women here often?”
“Never.”
It was the truth. This room was private, almost sacred. I’d never wanted anyone in this space before. The women I’d been with, all casual and distant, stayed in guest rooms or hotels but never here.
Zara was the first, and she would be the last.
She didn’t say anything. Just tucked her face back into my chest and exhaled.
I wanted to live in this moment, listening to her breathing, watching the rise and fall of her ribcage, and memorizing the way her fingers curled into my skin because I didn’t know when it would end. When she would realize the man that I was and decide to run like she should have the first day she met me.
She fell asleep faster than I expected.
I stayed there, holding her, watching the moonlight trace lines across her face.
I didn’t deserve her.
But I was going to fight to keep her, anyway.
I waited until her breathing was deep and steady, until I was sure she was fully asleep. Then, carefully, moving as slowly as I could, I slipped out from beneath her.
She stirred, murmuring something I couldn’t make out, then settled back into the pillow.
I stood over the bed for a long moment, watching her. Her hair fanned across the dark grey pillowcase. Her lips were parted. Her hand rested where my chest had been, as if reaching for me even in sleep.
I found Carla in the kitchen, wiping down the counter. She looked up when I entered, her eyes immediately dropping to my bare chest. She didn’t comment.
“Everything alright, Enzo?”
“Perfect,” I said. “I need you to move all of her things into my room.”
She paused. “You better not be pushing that poor girl.”
“Please, Carla. Everything. Clothes, shoes, toiletries, that ratty backpack she refuses to throw away. All of it.”
Carla studied me for a moment, putting together exactly what this meant.
“And her room?” she asked.
“Turn it into a library. Or an office. Whatever she wants.”
She nodded slowly, a small smile tugging at her lips. “She does love her books. I’ll get it done. Just be good to her.”
“I will.”
“I know you will, Enzo. You’re a good man.”
I walked back to my room, my bare feet silent on the hardwood as I turned over Carla’s words. She didn’t know half of what I’ve done, but she has been around me and my family long enough to not be naïve to it.
When I made it back to the room, Zara was still asleep, still curled up in the center of my bed, still mine. I climbed back in beside her, pulling her against me, breathing her in.
She wouldn’t remember tonight. She was too exhausted; her body and mind spent from the day. Still, some deep part of her would keep the feeling. In the quiet after midnight, she might not recall my arms, but she’d wake with comfort, safe and warm, like a half-remembered dream.
