10. Nova
— ? —
Nova
The Next Week
I wake alone.
For a moment, panic seizes me - the old fear, the trained response to waking up without warmth beside me. But then I smell coffee, and hear movement in the next room, and remember.
Last night.
Luca.
Everything.
I stretch, wincing slightly at the soreness between my thighs. A pleasant soreness. The kind of ache that comes from being thoroughly, devastatingly claimed.
I love you, he said.
I love you too, I answered.
And I meant it. God help me, I meant every word.
The door opens.
Luca walks in carrying a tray: espresso, croissants, fresh fruit. He’s shirtless, wearing only dark sleep pants that hang low on his hips, and the sight of him makes my breath catch.
Mine, I think. He’s mine now.
“Good morning.” He sets the tray on the bedside table. “How do you feel?”
“Like I’ve been hit by a truck.” I smile up at him. “In the best possible way.”
His lips twitch. “Hungry?”
“Starving.”
He hands me a cup of espresso, and I take a sip while he settles on the bed beside me. His hand finds my thigh through the sheet, stroking absently, like he can’t bear to not be touching me.
“We need to talk,” he says.
My stomach drops. “That’s never a good start to a conversation.”
“It’s not bad. Just-” He pauses. “Complicated.”
I set down my coffee. “Tell me.”
“The case against my mother is almost ready. Another week, maybe two, and we’ll have everything we need.” His jaw tightens. “But she knows about us now. Her investigator found the mansion. Found you.”
The cold fear I thought I’d left behind comes creeping back. “She knows I’m here?”
“She knows. And she’s already moving.” He stops. Takes a breath. “Marta says she means to draw us out somewhere public, somewhere we won’t be able to refuse to go. I don’t have the whole shape of it yet. But it’s coming.”
“What do we do?”
“We stay the course. The case is almost ready, we just need to hold out a little longer.” His hand tightens on my thigh. “But I need you to stay inside the walls. Don’t leave the grounds. Don’t go anywhere without security. Can you do that?”
“Yes.”
“Promise me.”
“I promise.”
He nods. Some of the tension leaves his shoulders. “Good. Now eat your breakfast.”
***
The week passes in a strange kind of limbo.
During the days, I paint. The canvas in the sitting room is becoming something real now - a landscape, I think, though not any landscape I’ve ever seen. Something from my imagination. Something dark and beautiful and mine.
During the nights, I’m his.
He takes me in every room of the mansion - against walls, on tables, in the chapel where he never used to go. He’s insatiable, like he’s making up for three years of wanting, and I match him hunger for hunger.
We don’t talk about what’s coming. About Vivienne. About the case. We exist in a bubble, a stolen pocket of happiness, and neither of us wants to burst it.
But bubbles always burst.
***
It happens on a Thursday.
I’m in the sitting room, painting, when I hear it, a commotion at the front gates. Raised voices. The crunch of tires on gravel.
I set down my brush. Walk to the window.
And my heart stops.
There’s a car at the gates. A silver Mercedes I recognize, a car I’ve ridden in a hundred times, a car that belongs to-
Dante.
He’s standing outside the driver’s door, arguing with Luca’s security. Even from here, I can see the agitation in his posture, the wild gestures of his hands. He’s saying something - shouting it, maybe - but I can’t make out the words through the glass.
The sitting room door opens.
“You saw.” Luca’s voice is flat.
“Yes.” I turn to face him. “What is he doing here?”
“Begging, apparently.” His lip curls. “The security team says he’s been asking to see you. Says it’s urgent. Says-” He stops. Something dark moves behind his eyes.
“Says what?”
“Says he made a mistake. Says he wants you back.”
The words land like a blow. For a moment, I can’t breathe.
“Did you-” I have to clear my throat. “Did you let him in?”
“Not yet. That’s your decision.” Luca crosses the room, stops in front of me.
His hands find my arms, holding me steady.
“If you want to see him, I won’t stop you.
If you want me to send him away, I’ll do that too.
But Nova-” His grip tightens. “Whatever you decide, know that he can’t have you back. Not ever. You’re mine now.”
I should be offended by the possessiveness. Should bristle at being claimed like property.
Instead, I feel… safe.
“I want to see him,” I say. “I have things I need to say.”
Something flickers in Luca’s expression - doubt, maybe, or jealousy. But he nods.
“I’ll have them bring him to the study. But I’m staying.”
“Luca-”
“I’m staying.” His voice leaves no room for argument. “He doesn’t get to be alone with you. Not after everything he did.”
I could fight him on it. Could insist on privacy, on handling this myself.
But the truth is, I don’t want to face Dante alone. The truth is, I want Luca beside me - a reminder of what I have now, what I’ve become, how far I’ve come from the broken woman Dante left behind.
“Okay,” I say. “Let him in.”
***
Dante looks terrible.
His usually perfect hair is disheveled. His designer suit is rumpled. There are dark circles under his eyes, and he’s lost weight - his cheekbones sharper, his collar hanging loose around his neck.
He looks like a man who hasn’t slept in weeks.
Good, I think, and I’m surprised by my own viciousness. Good. I hope he’s suffering.
“Nova.” His voice cracks on my name. “Thank God. When I heard you were here, I - I had to come. I had to see you.”
I’m standing by the fireplace, Luca a solid presence at my side. The study is dim, the curtains drawn, and I’m glad for it. I don’t want Dante to see me clearly. Don’t want to give him anything.
“How did you find me?” I ask.
“Mother’s investigator.” He takes a step toward me, and Luca tenses. Dante freezes. “She’s been looking for you for weeks. When she found out you were here - with him-” His eyes dart to Luca, then away. “She’s furious, Nova. She’s planning something. That’s why I came, to warn you.”
“Warn me?”
“She’s dangerous. More dangerous than you know. And when she finds out-” He swallows. “When she finds out what you’ve been doing with my brother-”
“What I’ve been doing with your brother?” Something snaps inside me - some last thread of patience, of politeness, of the careful deference Vivienne trained into me. “Is that really what you came here to say?”
“Nova-”
“You left me.” I step toward him, and he flinches. Good. “You chose her over me. When I showed you my bruises, when I begged you to believe me, you told me I was sensitive. You told me to go to bed. You told me we could talk about it tomorrow.”
“I know.” His voice is wretched. “I know, and I’m sorry, I’m so sorry-”
“Sorry?” I laugh, and it sounds ugly even to my own ears. “You’re sorry? Dante, your mother beat me. For two years, she hurt me, and you did nothing. And now you show up at your brother’s house, the brother you haven’t spoken to in three years, to tell me you made a mistake?”
“I did make a mistake.” He’s crying now, actual tears streaming down his face. “I should have believed you. I should have protected you. I should have-”
“You should have been my husband.” My voice breaks on the word. “That’s what you should have been. But you weren’t. You were her son first, and her son always, and I was just-” I stop. Take a breath. “I was just something that got in the way.”
Silence.
Dante stands there, crying, looking at me with those red-rimmed eyes. And I feel… nothing. Not the love I used to feel. Not even the anger, anymore. Just a vast, empty space where my marriage used to be.
“Go back to her,” I say quietly. “Go back to your mother and your perfect life and your next wife - because there will be a next wife, won’t there? Someone else for her to break.”
“I’ll end it.” He takes another step toward me, and Luca moves - just a shift of his weight, a subtle threat - but Dante doesn’t stop. “Whatever you’ve heard, whoever you’ve heard about - I’ll end it. I’ll put everything back the way it was. Just come home.”
“That’s a lie.”
“It’s not-”
“It’s a lie, Dante. Because if I had ever truly mattered to you, you would have chosen me. And you didn’t.”
“I’m choosing you now.”
“It’s too late.”
“It’s not.” He’s close now, close enough to touch, and his hand reaches out toward my face. “Come back with me. We can start over. Away from Mother, away from this, this situation. We can-”
“She’s not going anywhere with you.”
Luca’s voice cuts through the room like a blade. He’s moved while I wasn’t watching - put himself between me and Dante, his body a wall of muscle and barely contained violence.
Dante’s face twists. “This is between me and my wife.”
“Ex-wife.” Luca’s voice is cold. “Or did you forget that she left you?”
“She left because of Mother. Because of circumstances. Not because she stopped loving me.”
“I did.”
Both men turn to look at me.
“I did stop loving you,” I say, and my voice is steady. “Maybe I never really loved you at all. Maybe I loved the idea of you, the prince charming who swept me away from my mundane life. But the real you?” I shake my head. “The real you let his mother break me and didn’t even notice.”
Dante’s face crumples. “Nova-”
“Go home, Dante. There’s nothing for you here.”
“But-”
“She said no.” Luca’s voice has dropped into a register I haven’t heard before - quiet, deadly, the voice of a man who is very close to doing something violent. “You can walk out of here on your own feet, or my men can carry you out. Your choice.”
For a long moment, Dante doesn’t move. His eyes dart between me and Luca, calculating, desperate.
Then his expression changes.
The desperation fades. Something harder takes its place, something that looks almost like spite.
“You think he’s different?” Dante asks me. “You think my brother is some kind of hero who’s going to save you from the big bad Castellanis?”
“Dante-”