47. Pietro
Pietro
It’s been six days–six days of borrowed time.
We’ve stayed in a seaside villa hidden beneath a bluff. The kind you only find if you’ve done questionable favors for men who don’t keep receipts. Ivy creeps up the weathered stone walls, whispering secrets of summers long past.
The scent of sea salt and rosemary lingers, and every window frames a postcard view of the Mediterranean. There’s a hammock on the terrace. A fireplace that crackles like it knows we need warmth.
It’s quiet.
Which is the most dangerous thing of all.
Because in the silence, I remember who I was before her.
And I realize I don’t want to go back.
She’s in the next room, wrapped in my shirt, hair loose, pacing with her phone to her ear. Her voice is brisk, powerful, annoyed.
“No, Beatrice, I don’t care if he wants to headline Paris. His cologne smells like jet fuel. I’m not putting him on camera—he’d ignite.”
She pauses.
Then softer, “No, I’m not dead. Just… unplugged.”
She catches me watching.
Raises a brow. “Do you mind?”
“Not at all,” I say. “It’s kind of hot. Scary, but hot.”
Valaria turns away from me with a grin.
She ends the call, tosses the phone on a table, and sinks onto the couch across from me.
“I swear,” she mutters, “if one more influencer demands a humanitarian award because they donated a single coat, I will light the algorithm on fire.”
“Need backup?”
“You’re not allowed near my clients. You’d terrify them.”
“Fair.”
She sighs, then closes her eyes for a moment. The sun cuts across her skin like a spotlight. Golden. Glorious.
I shift.
There’s something I’ve been holding onto. Something Luca said before his coronation. Pietro, you disobeyed your directive. Hands off, remember? He grinned. Slapped me on the back.
“Val,” I say.
She opens one eye. “If you’re about to suggest skinny-dipping again, the answer is still no.”
“It’s not that. Though... maybe later.”
She groans. “What is it?”
“I wasn’t supposed to care. I was supposed to keep my hands off,” I say. “But then you laughed. And yelled. And pushed me. And kissed me like you wanted to erase every line between right and wrong.”
“You think that’s what I was doing?” she says, soft and sharp. “Erasing lines?”
“No,” I say. “I think you were drawing new ones. Ones I wanted to live inside.”
A silence falls between us.
And then—she moves to sit beside me, leans her head against my shoulder.
“I want to keep you forever. I don’t ever want to lose you.”
“You won’t,” I say. “Not unless you push me away. And even then, I’ll probably just stand outside your window like an idiot until you throw something at me.”
She snorts. “I’d start with stilettos.”
I smile. “I’ll wear armor.”
We sit there, in the quiet.
No fireworks. No final battle.
Just the feeling that maybe—just maybe—this was the real fight all along.
And for the first time in my life, I don’t care who wins.
As long as it’s us.
“Val, I’ve been thinking,” I whisper.