Chapter 41 Camilla
I wake up in my own bed and everything feels different.
The morning light filters through the curtains the same way it has for days. The villa is silent except for birds outside and the distant sound of water from the lake. Everything looks exactly as it did yesterday.
But I'm not the same person who woke up in this bed yesterday morning.
I can still feel him. Not just physically—though there's a tenderness between my legs that's a constant reminder—but deeper. The ghost of his hands on my skin. The memory of his eyes locked on mine. The sound of his voice saying "this is you choosing" while he helped me take back what was stolen.
I sit up slowly, my body protesting slightly. When I picture hands on my body now, they're not Kozlov's. They're Renato's. Careful, reverent, waiting for permission at every step.
It worked.
But now I have to face him. Have to pretend that nothing happened, that we didn't cross that line, that I didn't give him something I've never given anyone.
I shower carefully, dress in simple jeans and a t-shirt, and spend the morning avoiding the main floor. Not ready to pretend over coffee and casual conversation.
By afternoon, I'm restless enough to venture to the window.
That's when I see him.
In the pool.
I freeze, watching him cut through the water with powerful strokes. Lap after lap, his form perfect, his movement fluid and controlled.
He's using the pool. The pool he told me he never used before I arrived.
I watch him reach the far end, execute a perfect turn, and push off again. Whatever is happening between us didn't just affect me. It affected him enough that he's breaking his own patterns, using spaces he's ignored.
I should leave him alone. Should give him this space to process.
But I find myself changing into my swimsuit anyway.
He doesn't notice me at first. He's too focused on his laps, on whatever thoughts are driving him through the water. I stand at the edge of the pool for a moment, just watching.
Then I dive in.
The water closes over my head, cool and clean, washing away some of the tension I've been carrying. When I surface, he's stopped at the far end, treading water, watching me with those dark eyes that see too much.
We stare at each other across the length of the pool. The silence stretches, loaded with everything we're not saying.
Then I start swimming.
Not toward him. Not away from him. Just parallel, cutting through the water in my own rhythm. Finding my own meditation in the physical movement.
After a few laps, I'm aware of him moving again too. We swim like that for a while. Separate but together, sharing the space without acknowledging what it means.
Eventually, I stop at the shallow end, catching my breath. He's treading water in the deep end, maintaining that careful distance we've established.
"You're swimming," I say, stating the obvious because I don't know how else to acknowledge what I saw.
"Seemed like a waste not to use it. You were right about that."
"I didn't think you listened to me about wasted amenities."
"I listen to everything you say." He swims a bit closer, but not too close. Still maintaining the space between us. "Even the small things."
Especially the small things, his expression says.
I float on my back, staring up at the sky. "It's a good pool. You should use it more."
"Maybe I will."
The simple agreement feels like more than it is. Like he's saying he'll keep changing, keep trying to be someone different than who he was.
"You're a strong swimmer," he observes after a moment.
"My mother insisted on lessons. Said it was a necessary life skill." I right myself, treading water. "She was big on necessary life skills."
"Sounds like she and my mother would have gotten along."
"Maybe. Though I doubt they would have moved in the same circles." I swim to the edge, resting my arms on the stone. "Your mother cleaned houses. Mine hosted charity galas in them."
"Different worlds."
"Yes." I watch him float nearby, his body relaxed in the water in a way it rarely is on land. "But here we are anyway."
"Here we are," he agrees quietly.
The silence that follows isn't uncomfortable. It's... real. Two people existing in the same space, aware of each other, not pretending quite as hard as we were before.
We swim for a while longer, the only sounds the splash of water and the occasional bird call from the gardens. It's peaceful in a way I didn't expect. Safe, even.
After a while, my muscles start to ache pleasantly and I pull myself out of the pool. He stays in the water, watching me wrap a towel around myself.
"Camilla?" His voice is soft, uncertain.
I pause, looking back at him. "Yes?"
"Would you like to take a drive tomorrow? Through the mountains, maybe. Just the two of us."
A simple invitation. Nothing loaded, nothing heavy. Just an offer to spend time together in daylight, away from the villa and all its memories.
"I'd like that," I say, surprising myself with how much I mean it.
Relief flashes across his face. "Me too. We can leave after breakfast."
"Okay."
I head inside, my heart doing something weird. He's asking me on what amounts to a date. A real, normal thing that normal people do.
As I shower and dress, I think about him swimming laps in that pool. About how he's changing his patterns, using spaces he's ignored, finding new ways to exist in this villa that's been his fortress for years.
He's not the same man who kidnapped me from that cathedral.
And I'm not the same woman who was taken.
And I don't know if that's healing or just a different kind of damage.
But tonight, I'll go to him anyway.
And tomorrow, we'll drive through the mountains and pretend we're normal people having a normal day together.
We're not fooling anyone, especially not ourselves.
But for now, we'll keep pretending. Because the alternative—acknowledging what's really happening between us—is more terrifying than any violence we've survived.
More terrifying because it's real.
And real things can actually hurt you.