Chapter 23
Cece
The elevator doors slid shut with a soft metallic whisper, sealing us into the small space that suddenly felt electric with unspoken promises.
My body still hummed from our night at the club—from his hands on me, from the rawness of what we'd shared.
The memory of him losing control, of that perfect mask finally cracking open to reveal the hunger beneath, played on repeat in my mind.
Pressing my thighs together, I was grateful for the wall I could lean against as my knees threatened to betray me all over again.
"You're quiet," Rafe observed, his voice a low rumble that seemed to vibrate through the confined space and into my bones.
Mouth suddenly dry, I attempted to swallow. "Just thinking."
"About?"
My eyes met his in the mirrored wall of the elevator, and heat rushed to my face. "You know what about."
A hint of that dimple appeared as his lips twitched. "Tell me anyway."
Man, how could he be so composed? Just an hour ago he'd been shaking above me, coming undone in the most spectacular way. Now he stood there in his perfectly tailored clothes, looking for all the world like a man who hadn't just fucked my tits in a private room at an exclusive sex club.
"I'm thinking about how quickly you put yourself back together," I admitted as I turned to face him.
"How easy it is for you to slip back into Rafael de Luca, controlled businessman, when I'm still.
.." I gestured vaguely at myself, unable to articulate the jumble of sensations still coursing through me.
His eyes darkened as they traveled down my body, lingering in places that made my skin prickle with awareness. "Trust me," he said, voice dropping lower, "there's nothing easy about it."
The elevator dinged, announcing our arrival at the penthouse, and I nearly jumped. Rafe placed his palm against the small of my back as the doors opened, guiding me forward down the hallway toward our door.
When we entered, the familiar space felt different somehow, as if our experiences tonight had altered the very air around us.
The penthouse stretched before us—vast, elegant, and suddenly too quiet.
I wasn't ready for the night to end, wasn't ready to retreat to our bedroom and process everything that had happened between us.
The thought of lying in that big bed, separated by our usual wall of pillows after everything we'd shared, felt wrong somehow.
"Play something for me," I blurted out before I could overthink it.
Rafe paused in the middle of removing his jacket, shoulders tensing slightly. "Now?"
"Yes." I stepped closer. "Please. I want to hear you play."
For a moment, I thought he would refuse. His jaw tightened, that muscle jumping beneath his skin in what I was recognizing as a tell that he was wrestling with something internally.
But then he leaned forward and pressed a kiss to the tip of my nose, a gesture so unexpectedly tender it stole my breath. "Come on, then," he said, taking my hand in his.
His hand was warm around mine, his thumb occasionally brushing against my knuckles as we walked. It was such a simple touch, nothing compared to the intimacies we'd already shared, yet it sent shivers racing up my arm.
The music room was bathed in city light streaming through the floor-to-ceiling windows. The grand piano dominated the center, its polished surface gleaming in the low light like a black mirror.
Rafe released my hand to lift the keyboard cover, his movements reverent in a way that revealed how much this instrument meant to him. He settled onto the bench and patted the space beside him, a silent invitation I couldn't refuse.
I slid in beside him, acutely aware of how our thighs pressed together, how his shoulder brushed mine when he shifted to position his hands over the keys.
"Any requests?" he asked, fingers hovering over the ivory.
"Surprise me."
A mischievous glint appeared in his eyes, and before I could prepare myself, his fingers bounced across the keys in a jarringly familiar tune—"Chopsticks," played with exaggerated flourishes that made me snort with laughter.
"Really?" I smacked his shoulder in mock offense. "That's what you're giving me? I ask for a private performance and I get a song most eight-year-olds can play?"
"You said 'surprise me,'" he pointed out, still butchering the childish melody with dramatic hand movements. "Consider yourself surprised."
I rolled my eyes and made a show of standing up. "I'm going to bed. Clearly, this was a waste of—"
His hand shot out and caught my wrist, tugging me back down with just enough force to make me land against him. "Don't go," he said, his fingers lingering on my skin a moment longer before releasing me. "I'll be serious now. Promise."
He flexed his fingers, closed his eyes for a brief moment as if centering himself, and then his hands descended on the keys. The difference was immediate and startling. The playful atmosphere evaporated as the first notes rang out—deep, resonant, and filled emotion.
I sat transfixed as his fingers moved across the keys with practiced precision, coaxing a hauntingly beautiful melody from the instrument. Gone was the teasing man from moments ago, replaced by someone lost in the music and transported to a place I couldn't follow.
His face transformed as he played. The carefully constructed mask he wore for the world slipped away, revealing something raw underneath.
His brow furrowed in concentration, his lips parted slightly while his body swayed with the rhythm as if the music flowed directly from his soul through his fingertips.
The piece shifted from melancholy to something more complex—a battle between darkness and light, between restraint and abandon.
His hands moved with increasing intensity, sometimes gentle, sometimes forceful, drawing sounds from the piano I hadn't known were possible.
I found myself holding my breath during the crescendos as my heart raced in time with the quickening tempo.
When the final notes faded, the silence that followed felt almost physical, as if the air itself was still vibrating with echoes of what had just occurred. I realized my cheeks were wet, tears I hadn't been aware of fell freely down my face.
Rafe's hands remained on the keys for several heartbeats before he slowly withdrew them to his lap. He didn't look at me immediately, and I had the strange sense that he was gathering himself, rebuilding those walls the music had temporarily demolished.
"That was..." I searched for words that could possibly capture what I'd just witnessed and found none adequate. "Why does it mean so much to you? The music."
Gaze fixed on some point beyond the piano, he still didn't look at me. For a moment, I thought he wouldn't answer, that this was one of those questions that crossed the invisible boundaries he maintained so carefully.
"It was the only thing that was ever just mine," he finally said, his voice so quiet I had to lean closer to hear him. "The only thing that couldn't be taken away or compared to Gabriel."
I remained silent, afraid that if I spoke, he would retreat behind his usual defenses.
"My mother's pregnancy with me wasn't planned," he continued after a long pause, the words coming out haltingly at first. "I was an accident, a mistake.
" His fingers twitched, as if unconsciously seeking the keys again.
"Gabriel was their golden child—planned, wanted, perfect in every way. And then there was me."
My heart clenched at the matter-of-fact way he spoke, as if his worth as a child had been determined before he even took his first breath.
"My mother..." He hesitated, swallowing hard. "She nearly died giving birth to me. Hemorrhaged badly. Spent weeks in the hospital recovering. I think she resented me for that, on some level. For almost taking her away from Gabriel."
"Rafe," I whispered, unable to stay silent any longer. "That wasn't your fault."
"I know that. Logically." His smile was bitter, a twisted thing that looked wrong on his beautiful face. "But logic doesn't help a four-year-old understand why his mother flinches when he tries to hug her. Why his father looks at him with disappointment instead of pride."
Fresh tears welled in my eyes as I imagined Rafe as a little boy, desperate for affection and receiving none. The loneliness of that image was almost unbearable.
"I discovered the piano at school," he continued, his voice taking on a distant quality, as if he were peering through time at a version of himself I'd never know.
"There was this ancient upright in the music room that no one ever used.
I found it during lunch one day when I was hiding from some kids who'd been giving me shit. "
His hand moved to the keys again, pressing a single note that hung in the air between us.
"It was the first time I felt like I could.
.. breathe. Like all the things I couldn't say had somewhere to go.
" The words were coming faster now, tumbling out as if a dam had broken.
"I taught myself at first. Spent every free moment in that room.
Eventually, one of the teachers noticed and arranged for proper lessons.
I was good, really good. My teacher said I had a gift. "
I could hear the pride in his voice, quickly followed by something darker as he continued.
"When I told my parents, do you know what my father said?" He didn't wait for my answer. "'Music is a hobby, not a career. De Lucas don't waste their time on frivolous pursuits.'"
His hands curled into fists in his lap, knuckles white with tension.
"After Gabriel died, I thought maybe... maybe they'd see me.
Really see me, for once. But all they saw was what they'd lost. What I could never be.
" He finally turned to face me, and the raw pain in his eyes made my breath catch.
"So I became what they wanted—the businessman, the heir, the replacement son.
I packed away the music except for moments like this, when I need to remember who I really am beneath all that bullshit. "
I couldn't hold back the sob that escaped me. I didn't care how weak or emotional I looked. The image of Rafe as a child, as a teenager, burying his passion to become someone his parents could tolerate—it broke something open inside me.
"Don't," he said softly, reaching out to wipe my tears away with his thumb. His touch was achingly gentle against my cheek. "Don't cry for me, Cecelia. It was a long time ago."
But I couldn't stop. The tenderness in his gesture only made the tears come faster and harder. Without thinking, I wrapped my arms around him. Pulling him close, I buried my face against his neck.
"I'm sorry," I whispered against his skin. "I'm so sorry, Rafe. You deserved better. You deserved to be loved for exactly who you were."
He stiffened in my embrace, his body going rigid with surprise or discomfort, I couldn't tell which. For a terrible moment, I thought I'd overstepped, crossed some boundary that would send him retreating behind those carefully constructed walls.
But then, slowly, cautiously, his arms came up to encircle my waist. His embrace was tentative at first, as if he'd forgotten how to accept comfort, how to be held without expectation. Gradually, he relaxed into it, and his chest expanded with a deep breath against mine.
We sat like that, holding each other in a way that felt more intimate than any of the physical encounters we'd shared. This wasn't about desire or release or the temporary oblivion of pleasure. This was about seeing and being seen, about the wounded parts we kept hidden from the world.
"You know what's funny?" he murmured against my hair after what felt like an eternity. "I blackmailed you into this marriage. I trapped you in this life with me. And somehow you're the one comforting me."
I pulled back just enough to look at his face, at the vulnerability still evident in his eyes. "Maybe we're both getting something we didn't expect out of this arrangement."
His gaze searched mine, looking for what, I wasn't sure. Whatever he found there seemed to satisfy him because his arms tightened around me and he pulled me closer once more.
"Maybe we are," he agreed softly, his breath warm against my temple.
And there, in the quiet of his music room, with the city lights spilling through the windows and the lingering notes of his playing still echoing in my memory, I realized something that should have terrified me: I was falling for my fake husband. Hard and fast and without a safety net in sight.