Chapter 10 #2
Yet. The single word lingered in Magnus’s mind longer than the rest of her answer.
Not yet. That meant she expected to gain that experience.
It meant she still imagined a future where she would finish what had been interrupted.
Law school. A career. A life that belonged to her rather than to the Donatis.
Magnus found that detail unexpectedly significant.
Most people brought into Severin territory arrived with fear, bargaining, or understated resentment. Elia sat across from him studying a contract with the focused intensity of a woman who still believed she would someday return to the world she’d been building before Vittorio Donati destroyed it.
That kind of resolve wasn’t weakness. It was leverage.
Magnus allowed a faint hint of approval to show. “Good.”
Elia glanced up at him then, and for a brief second the focus in her expression relaxed into something more personal. The shift reminded Magnus that only minutes earlier she had been standing inches from him in the pool, close enough that he could have taken her mouth if he had allowed himself to.
The memory tightened something visceral in his body.
He ignored it.
“Is that why you asked me to look at it?” she asked.
Then she glanced back down at the contract, her brows knitting as the implications settled into place.
“No,” she added a moment later, answering herself before Magnus could speak.
“Not just to test what I remember. You already knew something was wrong with it.”
“Partly,” Magnus said. He paused, watching her closely before adding in a probing tone, “The Donati sons discussed business in front of you, didn’t they?”
Her attention returned to the contract. “They talked constantly,” she said.
“I was usually serving meals or cleaning rooms. They didn’t consider me part of the conversation unless they were talking about going after me in some fashion.
And even then, I was more of an object they were discussing than a person. ”
For a moment Magnus said nothing.
A hard, dangerous stillness settled through him as the words landed. The image rose unbidden: Elia moving unobtrusively through Donati rooms while men with too much power and too little restraint discussed her as though she were a possession, something to be traded, threatened, or discarded.
His hand tightened against the edge of the table. “They discussed you,” he said at last, his voice softer now but edged with an underlying anger, “as though you belonged to them.”
Elia seemed to recognize the shift in him immediately. The air between them had sharpened, and she lifted one shoulder in a small, almost dismissive motion as if trying to ease the tension she had just created.
“It wasn’t unusual,” she said gently. “Not there.” She glanced down at the contract again, her fingers smoothing the edge of the page as though returning them to safer ground.
“They talked about a lot of people that way. Servants. Rivals. Anyone who couldn’t answer back.
” She looked up again, offering him a faint, steady smile meant to calm rather than challenge.
“I learned a long time ago it wasn’t really about me. ”
Magnus forced the anger down and shifted the conversation before it could linger there. “What did they say when they thought you weren’t listening? About business. About the contract.”
Elia stilled. The silence stretched long enough that Magnus knew a memory had surfaced. “Sometimes they joked,” she said.
“About what?”
“About Severins.”
Magnus didn’t move. For a heartbeat the room seemed to contract around those two cautiously spoken words. A cold anger slid through him, the kind that never showed on his face but changed everything beneath the surface.
They’d sat in their own house and spoken about his family in front of her. In front of a woman they believed belonged to them. As if she were furniture. As if Severins were nothing more than a problem waiting to be cheated.
His voice dropped when he spoke again. “Go on,” he encouraged.
She traced a finger along the edge of the paper. “One of them said something about fine print. I don’t remember the exact words.”
“Try.”
Elia closed her eyes briefly.
“Tommaso was laughing,” she murmured. “He said something about leverage hidden where no one would look.”
The air shifted inside Magnus’s chest. “And Lorenzo?”
“He told Tommaso to stop talking,” she said. “But then Dario said the Severins would read it and think everything was clean.” She opened her eyes again. “I didn’t understand what they meant at the time.”
Magnus did.
The Donatis hadn’t been careless. They’d been arrogant. And arrogance made men sloppy. One other piece had become painfully clear. Vittorio hadn’t wanted Elia returned because she was his daughter. He wanted her returned because she might remember what they had buried. And she had.
More importantly, Magnus had refused her return.
That refusal had shifted the balance of the situation in ways the Donatis wouldn’t ignore.
If Elia remained here, beyond their reach, then she was no longer merely a servant who had overheard too much.
She had become a problem they couldn’t manipulate, and problems like that were rarely allowed to exist for long.
The danger surrounding her had just changed shape.
Elia watched him carefully. “Did I say something important?” she asked.
Magnus leaned forward and closed the folder with care, sealing the contract and the implications it carried inside the leather cover. The sound of it shutting seemed louder than it should have.
“You said enough,” he replied.
The intensity in his voice made her freeze. She studied him, searching his expression for some clue about what he’d concluded, what was enough, but Magnus’s face had already settled back into the stillness he wore in negotiations. Only his eyes betrayed that something had shifted.
She glanced at the folder between them and then back at him again. “Magnus… what does that mean?”
He didn’t answer immediately. Instead he rose from the chair and walked back toward the edge of the pool, the early light spilling across the water in shifting reflections.
For a moment he simply stood there, looking down at the surface as though the swirl of the water might help him order the pieces falling into place.
Elia remained seated for another heartbeat before standing as well. She followed him partway, uncertainty threading through her. “Did I make things worse?” she asked.
Magnus turned his head slightly, studying her again. She stood a few steps behind him with the towel still wrapped around her shoulders, damp hair curling around her face. Concern had replaced the earlier confidence she carried while analyzing the contract.
He understood why. The moment she realized the Donatis might want her returned because of what she had overheard, the implications had become impossible to ignore.
“No,” he said at last. “You clarified something I needed to know.”
That didn’t appear to reassure her. Her gaze drifted to the water, then back to him.
The tension that had filled the room during their discussion still hung between them, thick and unresolved.
Without another word she stepped past him and descended the pool steps again.
The water closed around her as she moved deeper, as though she needed the buoyancy of it to steady herself.
For a moment he remained where he was, considering the implications of everything she had just revealed. Then he pushed away from the edge and slipped back into the pool after her.
The water encompassed them again, warm and silky, carrying the lingering tension of their conversation.
For several seconds neither of them spoke.
They simply faced one another, suspended in the buoyancy of the pool.
This time they didn’t keep their distance.
Elia moved toward him without thinking, drawn by the pull building between them.
Magnus reached out and brushed a wet strand of hair away from her cheek. Her gaze lifted to his. “You keep looking at me like that,” she said.
“Like what?”
“Like you’re trying to decide something.”
Magnus didn’t answer. He pulled her against him instead and her hands settled against his chest.
The contact sent a hard pulse of awareness through him.
The water made every line of her body impossible to ignore, the thin fabric between them clinging and drifting in ways that revealed far more than it concealed.
He knew exactly how easily he could close his arms around her and take everything she was offering.
One shift of his hands, one step closer, and the careful control he had held since bringing her here would disappear.
And she was watching him, waiting to see what he would choose. For a long moment they simply stood there, taking in the same air. Then Elia leaned up and kissed him.
Her mouth touched his, tentative at first. It didn’t stay that way.
Magnus gathered her against him, one hand sliding to the back of her neck as the contact deepened.
The thin shirt between them had become almost transparent beneath the water, leaving little to the imagination as her body pressed against his.
Elia clung to him as though the world beyond the pool had disappeared. He lifted her slightly, guiding her toward the tiled wall. The shift pressed her body more firmly against his.
Her breath trembled against his mouth. “Magnus,” she whispered. “Please...”
He knew that tone. Knew exactly where it led. He should stop. Instead he kissed her again.
The tension coiled tighter instead of easing and he experienced every small movement she made. The press of her body against his. The quick rhythm of her pulse. The way her fingers curled into his hair as if she had forgotten the world outside the pool existed.
His hand eased along her back, gathering the soaked fabric of her shirt. The thin material clung to her curves beneath the water, leaving almost nothing to the imagination. When his palm moved upward the shirt lifted with it, exposing warm skin beneath the cool surface of the pool.
Elia gasped against his mouth.
Magnus broke the kiss only long enough to look at her. The early light caught in her eyes, brilliant with want and uncertainty at the same time. Her hands tightened on his shoulders as though she might pull him back down if he moved too far away.
“Magnus…” she said again.
The sound of his name in that tone nearly unraveled the discipline he had been holding since the moment she stepped into the water.
His fingers traced the curve of her waist beneath the lifted fabric, exploring the shape of her with a patience that made her shiver.
Every reaction she gave him only fed the heat coiling through his body.
Elia’s head tipped back slightly when his mouth returned to hers.
The kiss deepened again, no longer hesitant, the tension between them finally breaking into something far more dangerous.
Her hands slid from his shoulders to his chest, her touch tentative at first and then bolder as she realized he wasn’t stopping her.
Magnus drew her tighter against him, the solid line of his body braced between her and the tiled wall of the pool.
His body pressed firmly against her through the water, the unmistakable evidence of his desire filling her with desire.
The water shifted around them with each movement, the sound filling the room while their breathing grew uneven.
Instead of pulling away, her body pressed into his, instinct guiding her closer as the tension between them sharpened into something undeniable.
Magnus felt the shift immediately. The arch of her body against his. The way she held on as though letting go would break whatever had begun between them. His hand shifted along her hip beneath the water, testing the fragile boundary between restraint and surrender.
His mouth hovered at the curve of her throat for a brief, unsteady second as he fought for control. He knew exactly where this would lead if he allowed it to continue. And for one reckless moment he almost did. Everything about the moment burned with dangerous promise.
Then a voice carried across the room. “Captain Severin.”
Magnus froze.
Elia’s eyes opened slowly.
A servant stood near the doorway holding a sealed envelope.
Magnus’s arm tightened around Elia instantly, placing himself between her and the intruder. His gaze snapped toward the doorway, sharp and cold.
“What do you want?” he demanded.
The young man bowed his head slightly. “An envelope for you, Captain.”
Magnus studied him for a beat longer, making certain there was no threat. Only then did he ease Elia back onto her feet. “Leave it,” Magnus said.
The servant placed the envelope on the small table near the door, and withdrew without another word.
Magnus turned back to Elia. “Are you all right?”
She nodded, struggling to make it true.
Satisfied she was steady on her feet, Magnus stepped out of the pool, water streaming from his body. He grabbed a towel, dried his hands briefly, then crossed to the table and picked up the envelope.
The Donati crest stared up from the wax seal. Magnus broke it open. Inside was a formal invitation. A gala hosted by the Donati family.
Elia followed him from the pool, a towel wrapped loosely around her. She peered over his shoulder. “Will you go?” she asked.
Magnus studied the elegant script on the card. Now that he understood why they wanted her back, the invitation carried a very different meaning. “No.”
Elia’s chin lifted slightly. “You should,” she replied.
He looked at her sharply. “Why?”
“Because if they’re expecting you to hide me,” she explained, “they’ll assume they’ve already won.”
Magnus studied her in silence. There was Donati blood in her. But the courage standing in front of him belonged somewhere else entirely.
Finally he folded the invitation and dropped it to the table. “Very well,” he said. “We’ll attend the gala together.”
The Donatis had revealed more than they intended.
If they couldn’t retrieve Elia, removing her would become the simplest solution.
And Magnus would make certain no one laid a hand on her again.