Chapter 26
Gianni
The drive home was quiet in the best way.
Mikayla leaned into my side as the car moved through the dark, the road unspooling ahead of us like it had nowhere else to be. Her head rested against my shoulder, light but certain, like it belonged there. I didn’t shift or breathe too deeply, for risk of breaking the spell.
The convoy kept its distance. The engines hummed. The restaurant disappeared into shadow.
I thought about all the small things that had brought us here.
Not the big moments—the obvious ones—but the fragments.
The way she looked at me when she thought I wasn’t paying attention.
The sound she made when she laughed properly, surprised by the sound of her own voice.
The way she’d trusted me without ever saying the word.
I’d always believed things happened when they were meant to. Not in a romantic, stars-aligning way—more like gravity. You could fight it for a while, but eventually, everything fell where it was always going to fall.
Fate. Timing. Call it whatever you wanted.
I’d been there the day she fell.
Literally there.
The memory came back sharp and clear. The moment I’d turned and seen her flying through the air, white dress tangling around her legs, eyes wide with shock rather than fear. I hadn’t thought. I’d just moved.
I’d assumed it was coincidence. Luck.
Now, sitting here with her tucked against me, it felt like something else entirely.
She’d crossed my path in the most unlikely way possible, just as Archie Popovich had. Two collisions, equally inevitable, equally destructive—only one of them had softened something in me I didn’t realize had gone rigid.
Archie had become my enemy the moment we’d recognized each other. A mirror held at the wrong angle. Too similar. Too opposed. Mikayla, on the other hand, had slipped under my guard without ever trying.
And that was the problem.
Because she wasn’t just a woman I wanted. She was, objectively, valuable. To Archie. To the war we were locked in. To the outcome I’d been chasing for months.
She was leverage.
And somewhere between dinner and the drive home, I knew—with absolute clarity—that I could no longer give her up.
Not to him or anyone else, no matter the circumstances.
The idea of handing her over, of watching her walk back into his orbit for the sake of Provence, turned my stomach in a way nothing else had managed to. I could win territory. I could rebuild empires. I could outmaneuver Archie a dozen different ways.
But I couldn’t replace her.
So I’d somehow have to do both.
Keep her. And win Provence.
The car slowed as we pulled into the drive. The house rose out of the dark, solid and familiar, lights glowing softly like it was waiting for us. Mikayla stirred beside me, lifting her head, blinking like she’d been half-asleep.
“We’re home,” I said quietly.
Home.
She nodded, a small smile tugging at her mouth. “Home…”
I opened the door for her and followed her inside, the warmth of the house wrapping around us. The guards had thankfully made themselves scarce. The silence felt intentional, like the walls themselves knew better than to intrude.
She kicked off her shoes near the door. I watched her without trying to hide it.
“Mikayla,” I said.
She turned, brows lifting slightly, questioning.
I took her hand.
Didn’t give myself time to think about it. Just closed my fingers around hers and pulled her with me down the hallway, past rooms she’d already seen, past the familiar, toward the one place I never brought anyone.
My room.
Her fingers tightened around mine, pulse warm and alive.
When I shut the door behind us, she stood there, looking at me, coat still on, hair slightly mussed from the drive. There was no fear in her expression. Just anticipation. Awareness.
I reached up and brushed my thumb along her jaw, slow, deliberate.
“Stay with me tonight,” I said.
Her breath caught. That was all the permission I needed.
I kissed her—hungry and honest and unhurried. Her hands slid into my jacket, gripping the fabric like she needed the contact as much as I did.
When we broke apart, her forehead rested against my chest.
“Haven’t you had enough?” she murmured.
I huffed a quiet laugh. “You have no idea.”
I guided her to sit on the edge of the bed, knelt in front of her, and pressed a kiss to her knee through the fabric of her dress. The move was reverent more than it was sexual.
She threaded her fingers through my hair, grounding me.
For a moment, we stayed like that—breathing, touching, existing in the quiet certainty of what we were choosing.
I didn’t know how this would end. I didn’t know what it would cost me.
But I knew this much: I hadn’t caught her that day by accident.
And I wasn’t about to let her fall again.