6. Nova
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Nova
Week Three
The dreams always start the same way.
Heels on pavement. Click. Click. Click.
That expensive rhythm that announced her presence like a funeral march, that sound I learned to fear more than raised voices, more than slammed doors, more than any of the obvious warnings that normal people get before violence finds them.
Vivienne never slammed doors. Vivienne never raised her voice.
Vivienne just… clicked. Closer and closer, that steady metronome of Louboutin on marble, until she was right behind you and it was already too late.
Click. Click. Click.
Then the perfume.
Chanel No. 5, cloying and sweet, filling my lungs like poison gas. I smell it even now, even in the dream, even though I know I’m dreaming - that part of my brain still works, still screams wake up, wake up, this isn’t real - but knowing doesn’t help. Knowing never helps.
The perfume gets stronger. Closer.
And then her voice.
“Did you really think you could leave?”
I try to run, but my legs won’t move. Try to scream, but my throat is frozen. I’m back in the alley, I realize - the cold pavement beneath me, the darkness pressing in, the distant sound of traffic that might as well be a thousand miles away.
“Did you think anyone would help you?”
Her face appears above me. Beautiful. Terrible. That smile I learned to dread more than her fists, because the smile meant she was enjoying herself.
“You’re nothing, Nova. You were always nothing.”
Her hand closes around my wrist. The same wrist, always the same wrist, her favorite place to leave her marks. I feel the bones grind together. Feel the skin give way under her nails. Feel-
“And no one is coming to save you.”
I wake screaming.
The sound tears out of my throat before I’m fully conscious, raw and animal, the kind of scream that comes from somewhere deeper than thought. I’m tangled in the sheets, sweat-soaked, my heart slamming against my ribs so hard it feels like it’s trying to escape.
The room is dark.
No no no-
I can’t see. I can’t breathe. The darkness is pressing in on me from all sides, and I don’t know where I am, don’t know if I’m in the alley or the mansion or back in Vivienne’s house with its marble floors and crystal chandeliers and beautiful, beautiful prisons-
Click. Click. Click.
I hear it. I hear it, somewhere in the darkness, those heels on stone, and I’m scrambling backward on the bed, my back hitting the headboard, a sob tearing loose from my chest-
“Nova.”
The voice cuts through the panic like a blade.
Low. Steady. Familiar.
Luca.
I can’t see him. The darkness is too thick, or my eyes haven’t adjusted, or I’m still trapped in the nightmare and this is just another trick, another way to hurt me-
“Nova. Look at me.”
A light flickers on. Just a candle, just a single small flame on the bedside table, but it’s enough. Enough to see the room around me: the velvet drapes, the dying fire, the four-poster bed I’ve slept in for three weeks. Enough to see the figure in my doorway.
Luca.
He’s wearing loose dark pants and nothing else.
His chest is bare in the candlelight, all hard planes and shadowed valleys, and I should not be noticing that, should not be cataloging the dark hair that dusts his pectorals and trails down his stomach, should not be following that trail with my eyes to where it disappears beneath his waistband-
Stop it. You’re having a panic attack. This is not the time.
“She was here,” I gasp. “I heard her. The heels-”
“That was me.” He steps into the room, and I see it now - his feet are bare, but there’s a table by the door, and on it a set of keys, and he must have knocked them when he came in, metal on wood, and my broken brain turned it into-
Into her.
“I’m sorry.” I’m shaking. I can’t stop shaking. “I’m sorry, I thought - I heard-”
“Don’t apologize.”
He’s closer now. Close enough that I can see the concern in his dark eyes, the tension in his jaw. Close enough that I can smell him - sandalwood and smoke and something warm underneath that makes me want to lean in and breathe deep.
“Can I sit?”
I nod, not trusting my voice.
He lowers himself onto the edge of the bed, keeping a careful distance between us. The mattress dips under his weight. The candlelight flickers across his skin, turning him golden and shadowed by turns.
“Tell me what you need,” he says quietly.
You, I think, and the thought is so loud I’m terrified I said it out loud. I need you. I need to not be alone. I need to feel something other than this fear that’s eating me alive.
“I can’t-” My voice breaks. “I can’t be alone. Not tonight.”
He doesn’t respond right away. I watch the candlelight play across his features, watch him process my words, watch him make some kind of decision behind those dark, unreadable eyes.
“Come with me,” he says.
He stands. Holds out his hand.
I stare at it - those scarred knuckles, those long fingers, that hand I’ve been dreaming about for weeks - and I think about all the reasons this is a terrible idea.
He’s my ex-husband’s brother. He frightens me in ways I don’t fully understand.
I’m vulnerable and broken and in no condition to be making decisions about anything, let alone about climbing into bed with a man who looks at me like I’m something he wants to devour.
I take his hand.
His fingers close around mine - warm, solid, certain - and he pulls me gently to my feet. My legs are unsteady, still shaking from the nightmare, and I stumble.
He catches me.
Of course he catches me.
His arm comes around my waist, steadying me, and suddenly I’m pressed against his chest, my cheek against his bare skin, my hands flattened against the hard planes of his stomach. I can feel his heartbeat beneath my ear - fast, faster than I expected, like maybe he’s not as calm as he seems.
“Okay?” he murmurs.
I nod against his chest. I don’t trust myself to speak.
He keeps his arm around me as we walk. Down the corridor, past the flickering sconces, through the darkness that doesn’t seem so threatening with him beside me.
His skin is warm against my side, warm through the thin fabric of my nightgown, and I’m acutely aware of every point of contact: his hand on my hip, my shoulder against his ribs, the brush of his thigh against mine with every step.
His room is at the end of the hall.
I’ve imagined it, in those late-night moments I don’t admit to anyone. Imagined dark wood and masculine lines, maybe leather, maybe books, something that would smell like him and feel like him and-
It’s nothing like I imagined.
It’s bigger, for one thing. A massive four-poster bed dominates the space, the dark wood carved with intricate patterns I can’t make out in the low light.
The windows are tall and uncovered, letting in great shafts of moonlight that turn everything silver-blue.
There are books - shelves of them, floor to ceiling, covering an entire wall - and a fireplace with embers still glowing, and a chair by the window that looks like it’s seen decades of use.
It smells like him. Sandalwood and smoke and that warm, dark undertone I can’t name.
“The bed’s big enough,” he says, and there’s something careful in his voice, something controlled. “I can stay on my side. You won’t even know I’m there.”
I’ll know, I think. I’ll know every second.
He releases me, and I feel the loss of his warmth immediately. He moves to the far side of the bed, pulls back the covers, waits.
I should go back to my room. I should thank him for the offer and retreat to my own space and deal with my nightmares the way I’ve been dealing with them for two years - alone, in the dark, with no one to hear me scream.
I climb into his bed.
The sheets are soft - softer than mine, somehow, warmer - and they smell like him. I pull them up to my chin and lie there on my back, staring at the canopy above me, and I feel the mattress shift as he settles in beside me.
He’s not touching me.
There’s a careful distance between us - a foot, maybe, of cool sheet and empty air. He’s lying on his back too, I can tell by the way the bed dips, and we’re both just… lying here. Staring at the ceiling. Not touching.
My heart is pounding.
Not from fear, anymore. From something else. Something that makes my skin feel too tight and my blood feel too hot and my entire body vibrate with a kind of tension I haven’t felt in years.
I shared a bed with my husband for two years and slept like the dead.
A single night in his and I’m coming apart at the seams.
“You can come closer.”
His voice is low. Rough. Like the words cost him something.
“I-”
“You’re shaking.”
I am. I didn’t realize it until he said it, but I am - tiny tremors running through my body, whether from the nightmare or the cold or the unbearable awareness of him beside me, I can’t tell.
“You don’t have to. But if you need-”
I move before he finishes the sentence.
I don’t think about it. Don’t analyze it. Don’t give myself time to talk myself out of it. I just… shift. Close the distance between us. And suddenly I’m pressed against his side, my head on his shoulder, my hand on his chest.
He goes utterly still.
I can feel it - every muscle in his body locking down, his breath catching, his heartbeat slamming hard beneath my palm. He’s holding himself rigid, perfectly controlled, like he’s afraid that if he moves he’ll shatter.
“Is this okay?” I whisper.
A long pause.
“Yes.” His voice sounds strangled. “This is - yes.”
Slowly, so slowly, his arm comes around me.
It settles across my back, his hand finding the curve of my waist, and I feel the tension in him - not relaxing, exactly, but…
shifting. Recalibrating. Like he’s having to manually override every instinct telling him to do something other than just hold me.
I press my cheek to his chest.
His skin is warm. Smooth in some places, textured with hair in others. I can feel his heartbeat beneath my ear, rapid and strong, and I can feel the rise and fall of his breath, and I can feel the heat of him seeping into me, chasing away the last of the cold.