Chapter 11 Rose
ROSE
Ispend most of the next day in the gardens, avoiding the part of me that is screaming about last night's almost-kiss.
It replays anyway.
I remember the way the room went quiet. The way his hand lingered on the page a fraction longer than necessary. The way I knew—knew—that if I leaned forward, he wouldn’t have stopped me.
Which is exactly the problem.
I tell myself it was just proximity. The cozy atmosphere.
The adrenaline leftover from fear and gratitude and too many late nights reading.
I tell myself this is what happens when you’re isolated with a man who looks like him and listens the way he does.
My brain produces a dozen reasonable explanations, lines them up neatly, and none of them stick.
Because reasonable explanations don’t make my pulse jump when I think about the sound of his voice saying my name.
So I do what I always do when my thoughts get dangerous. I relocate them.
On plants.
Today, the gardens are as glorious as always. Every path is trimmed, every hedge shaped with care, nothing left to chance.
I move through them slowly, breathing in green and damp earth and sunlight, letting my shoulders drop in a way they haven’t in a long time. If the house feels like a quiet museum, the gardens feel alive.
Lara is already out there when I arrive, crouched near a bed of new growth, blond pixie hair sticking out in every direction, wide grin firmly in place. She lights up when she sees me, like I’m not a guest but part of the routine now.
She straightens and waves me over, already talking.
“See these?” she asks, gesturing at a row of roses. “They finally took. I had to adjust the soil mix—more drainage, less nitrogen. They were sulking.”
I lean in, smiling. “Drama queens.”
“The worst,” she agrees cheerfully. “These ones still need time. And don’t even get me started on the aphids. I won that war, but it got bloody.”
We drift from bed to bed, talking pruning angles, soil balance, how much sun is too much before leaves start to scorch. The conversation flows easily, like it always does when two nerds realize they share the same incredibly specific obsession. In our case, anything green and leafy.
She ducks into the greenhouse and comes back with a small rosebud, deep red and just beginning to open. "This one broke. It's such a pity." Then her eyes light up. "Hey, can I?"
Without waiting for a reply, she tucks the bud into my hair, just behind my ear.
Her face breaks into a grin. “It suits you.”
I laugh despite myself, fingers brushing the petals. “You’re going to get me in trouble.”
“With who?” she asks. "A single bud won't be missed. These roses are basically all going to the west wing anyway."
“The west wing?”
Lara pulls that face people make when they realize they've said too much. “Yeah, no biggie. Anyway, I should get back to work,” she says too quickly. “Mulch waits for no one.”
She bustles off before I can press, leaving me standing there with the rosebud in my hair and a knot forming low in my stomach.
Flowers going to the west wing.
Why would the west wing need flowers?
The thought sticks with me longer than it should. I tell myself it’s nothing. That people are entitled to privacy. That I promised not to go there and I intend to keep that promise.
Still, as I wander the paths alone afterward, my gaze drifts back toward the house.
Toward the part of it that stays closed.
And for the first time since I arrived, curiosity edges dangerously close to worry.
My brain, unhelpful as always, immediately supplies worst-case scenarios. A modern Bertha-in-the-attic situation, minus the gothic romance and plus a very real crime podcast vibe.
I picture pale faces, barred windows, the kind of horror that doesn’t need imagination so much as silence to survive.
I stop walking.
No. That’s absurd. That’s fear talking, feeding on isolation and too much time to think.
Matteo may be many things, but he’s not that.
He’s careful. Controlled. Kind, in his own way.
Whatever rumors trail him through the restaurant, whatever criminal world he moves in, human trafficking is not something I could ever shrug off.
I said I wouldn’t judge.
I would judge that.
I force myself to breathe and let the image dissolve. It can’t be that. It isn’t that. The idea feels wrong in my bones, like trying to force a plant to grow in soil it will never tolerate.
Matteo is good. He saved me. Whatever else he is, he is no monster.
But another thought slips in, quieter and somehow worse.
What if it’s not women? What if it’s just one woman?
A girlfriend. A wife. He could have that, couldn't he? I’ve seen it happen in the movies, and even in books.
Someone he keeps locked up for her own safety and with her consent, for whom he feels strongly enough to bar anyone else from her quarters.
Someone he would stand close to in the library late at night.
Someone he might actually kiss.
The jealousy hits me low and sharp, completely uninvited. I hate it immediately. I have no claim on him. No right to feel anything beyond gratitude and complicated attraction I didn’t ask for.
Still, the feeling coils anyway, warm and uncomfortable, sitting heavy in my gut.
I turn back toward the house, the rosebud brushing my cheek as I walk.
I tell myself I’m being ridiculous.
I don’t entirely believe it.
Trusting people doesn't come easy to me. Not after what I've seen in my previous life. And Matteo—even if he's not doing anything wrong up there, he's still the whole package. Rich, smart, funny. Hotter than sin and then some.
It would be stranger if he didn't have a woman.
The thought depresses me for the rest of the day, for reasons I don't want to examine too closely. I sit on the bed and cuddle Wasabi against his will and nap longer than socially acceptable.
Later that night, I head back to the library. I tell myself it’s for the books, for the distraction, for anything that will quiet the noise in my head.
That I definitely don't hope to see him there again.
The lights are low when I step in. Matteo is in fact, there, seated at the long table, a laptop open in front of him. His posture is intent, focused. The kind of focus that means work, not leisure. The screen throws a soft glow up across his face.
Wasabi slips ahead of me and hops onto a chair like he owns the building.
Matteo looks up at the sound.
In one smooth motion, he shuts the laptop.
“I didn’t mean to interrupt,” I tell him, suddenly aware of the silence I’ve walked into.
“You’re not,” he answers, and his gaze drifts—not to my face, not this time—but to the rosebud still tucked into my hair.
His eyes soften, just a fraction.
Heat rises up the back of my neck. “Lara put it there,” I say quickly. “In the garden.”
“And you kept it.”
"Forgot I had it."
We stay in awkward silence for a long moment. Or at least, awkward on my part. Nothing about Matteo could ever be awkward. He’s charm itself when he wants to be.
Right now, I’m not sure what he wants to be.
“Did you enjoy it?”
My eyes snap up. “What?”
“The garden.”
“Oh.” My mood lightens instantly. “Yeah. I did. You have lovely grounds here.”
“Our gardener takes great care of them.”
“Yes, Lara. We’ve met.” I wring my fingers in my lap, unsure if I should say what’s on my mind. But in the end, my self-restraint loses the battle. “She mentioned a rose delivery to the west wing.”
Just like that, Matteo’s gaze snaps up. “Did she, now?”
Too late, I realize I might be getting her into trouble.
“It was just a slip! I kind of hounded her into it, honestly,” I lie.
“I was just curious where they went, since I never see them around here.” Matteo’s eyes are hard as stone now, and I reach desperately for a joke to lighten the mood.
“Whatever lucky woman’s getting all those bouquets must be very happy. ”
It doesn’t come out as a joke. It comes out sad, and desperate, and everything I feel I am.
God, how pathetic.
As expected, Matteo doesn’t laugh. But he does something else that I did not expect.
He stands.
I move back without realizing it. Somehow we end up near the shelves, close enough that I can feel the warmth of his body even though he isn’t touching me.
“There’s no woman.” His voice is rough and warm, hot coals licked by flame.
“I… I see.” I swallow hard. And then, because I can’t shut up for the life of me, “That’s good, I guess.”
“Is it?” His hand lifts and rests against the bookcase near my head. “Good?”
This time, I bite my lip hard. Anything is better than digging this hole deeper.
But my silence doesn’t seem to satisfy him. “You should be careful,” he rumbles, “not to involve yourself too deeply with a man like me, Miss Brown.”
My breath shudders out of me.
And for once, I feel it. A hot, sharp need stinging between my ribs and down my core, the kind of sensation I’m used to repressing because there’s no point to it.
Longing.
No—greed.
Even though I’m not the kind of person who gets her wishes granted. Even though I’m a nobody and not nearly good enough.
I want this.
I want him.
“Maybe I want to,” I whisper. “Maybe I’m glad there’s no woman behind the west wing door.”
His gaze flicks to my mouth, then back to my eyes, conflict shadowing his expression.
“This isn’t a good idea,” he says, but doesn’t step away.
We hover in that space between sense and gravity, between caution and something that feels dangerously like the first spark of a wildfire.
“Then tell me to go,” I whisper.
We wait in the semi-darkness as the seconds tick by. As the silence thickens between us like hot, liquid need.
Then he grabs my jaw and pries my lips open with his.