Chapter 10
MAGNUS KNEW SOMEONE was watching the water before he ever saw her.
The pool stretched beneath the glass wall that opened toward the gardens, the early light turning the surface into shifting silver.
Magnus cut through it in long, regulated strokes, each movement deliberate, each breath measured.
Swimming always cleared the noise from his head.
Contracts, threats, rival families, leverage and betrayal all sank beneath the rhythm of muscle and water.
But the sense of another presence tugged at his attention.
He reached the far edge, turned, and pushed off again. Halfway across the pool he lifted his head.
Elia stood at the edge.
She’d changed nothing about herself. Bare feet.
One of the borrowed shirts the housekeeper had brought her the night before in place of a nightgown.
The thin fabric hung loosely over her body, brushing the tops of her thighs.
Her dark hair fell around her shoulders in a silken spill that made her look younger and more vulnerable than she ever allowed anyone to see.
She wasn’t moving. She watched the water as though she wasn’t certain she had permission to approach it.
Magnus slowed, then reached the side where she stood. “You should swim.”
She blinked, startled that he’d spoken at all. “I don’t have a suit,” she replied. Her voice carried that same careful composure he had come to recognize. Polite. Cautious. Always prepared to withdraw if she crossed some invisible boundary.
Magnus rested his forearms on the edge of the pool and looked up at her. “Then come in as you are.”
She studied him, clearly trying to determine whether the invitation was real.
When she finally moved, the shift held a trace of stubborn resolve.
Elia stepped down the ladder into the water.
The moment the fabric touched the pool it darkened and clung to her body.
The shirt molded to the curve of her breasts and the narrow line of her waist before drifting loose again at her hips.
Magnus didn’t look away.
Elia waded deeper until the water reached her waist. A small sigh escaped her as she sank into the water. “It’s warmer than I expected.”
“It should be,” Magnus replied. “Otherwise no one would use it this time of year.”
He pushed away from the wall and swam past her, forcing himself to focus on the rhythm of his strokes instead of the awareness that had tightened deep in his body the moment she stepped into the water.
She turned as he moved around her, treading water with an easy grace that suggested the pool wasn’t unfamiliar territory to her.
For a moment she simply watched him cut through the water again, her gaze following the clean efficiency of his strokes as though she were studying something she hadn’t expected to admire.
“Do you swim every morning?” she asked.
Magnus reached the wall and braced one arm along the edge before answering. “Most mornings.”
Her brows lifted slightly. “Even when you’re negotiating with rival families?”
The question carried a hint of disbelief, and Magnus found himself unexpectedly amused by it. He pushed back from the wall and glided beneath the surface again, letting the water close over his head before rising a few feet away from her. For a brief moment he studied her without speaking.
Elia floated easily in the water, dark hair drifting around her shoulders, the thin shirt she wore clinging in shifting lines that made it difficult to remember the conversation was supposed to remain civilized.
Swimming had always been a discipline for him. A way to burn off anger, to sharpen thought, to impose order when negotiations or family politics threatened to grind patience into dust. Yet now the calm rhythm he relied on had been disrupted by the presence of the woman watching him.
Magnus allowed himself the smallest hint of a smile as he brushed the water from his face. “Especially then,” he said.
Elia tilted her head slightly, studying him as though she were trying to determine whether that answer was meant as humor or warning. Then she drifted into the deeper section of the pool. Her movements were cautious at first, but after a few strokes her confidence returned.
She swam well.
Magnus watched without appearing to watch. Elia moved with clean, efficient lines that spoke of years of practice. She crossed the length of the pool and turned smoothly, dark hair spreading briefly across the surface before sliding behind her again.
“You didn’t tell me you were a swimmer,” he said when she reached the wall near him.
“I didn’t think it mattered.”
“Everything matters,” Magnus replied.
She rested her hands on the edge and lifted her face toward him, her shoulders rising from the water. The movement pressed the damp fabric of the shirt more closely against her skin, outlining the curves Magnus had been trying not to study since she stepped into the pool.
Her gaze held his with steadiness. “Worrying about everything sounds exhausting.”
“It can be.”
Magnus didn’t move away from the wall. He watched the small changes in her expression instead.
The lift of her chin. The faint tightening in her throat when she realized how close he stood.
A thin line of water slipped from the ends of her hair and ran down her neck.
His attention followed it before he forced himself to drag his gaze back to her eyes, brilliant in the early morning light, struggling to decide between blue and gray.
Silence settled between them, heavy and charged.
He saw the small droplets of water clinging to her lashes and the slight parting of her lips as her breathing shifted.
The temptation to erase the remaining distance between them rose with dangerous clarity.
Magnus knew exactly how easily he could pull her into his arms and take that mouth, how quickly restraint would vanish once he did.
Not yet. Not here, and not before he understood every threat circling her.
He forced the impulse down.
For a brief second Elia’s gaze dropped to his mouth, as though she had expected him to close that distance. The realization flickered across her expression when he didn’t move. Confusion first. Then something far more dangerous. Awareness.
Her shoulders lifted above the water, her fingers tightening slightly on the edge of the pool as if she had to anchor herself against the moment.
Magnus saw the shift and knew she understood exactly what he had done. He had chosen not to touch her. That knowledge moved between them like heat. He straightened and climbed out of the pool. “Come here.”
Elia hesitated again before following him to the shallow steps.
He handed her one of the thick towels waiting on the chair beside the water. “You were studying law,” he said as he wrapped another towel around his shoulders. “Contract law.”
“Yes.”
“Then let’s see what you remember.”
He crossed the room toward the small table near the glass doors and picked up a folder waiting there. The Donati contract lay inside. When he returned, Elia had settled onto the chair beside the pool, her legs tucked beneath the towel. Damp strands of hair clung to her neck.
Magnus sat across from her and slid the document onto the table between them.
Her brows drew together slightly. “You want me to read that?”
He shook his head. “Not just read it. I want you to analyze it.”
Elia lifted the first page with careful fingers.
The change in her expression happened almost immediately.
Her posture straightened. The uncertainty that had shadowed her since arriving at Severin territory faded as her attention locked onto the text.
Long minutes passed while she studied the document.
Magnus didn’t interrupt. He watched.
Her eyes moved steadily across each clause. Occasionally she returned to an earlier line, rereading with deeper focus. Finally she lowered the page. “It’s very thorough,” she said carefully.
“Thorough isn’t always honest,” Magnus replied.
“No,” she agreed. “It isn’t.”
She shifted slightly in the chair, the towel loosening where it had been tucked around her legs.
Damp strands of dark hair clung to the curve of her throat and the hollow above her collarbone.
The thin shirt molded to her breasts, the dark points of her nipples faintly visible through the soaked fabric.
Magnus registered every detail before forcing his attention back to the contract.
Elia scanned another section. “This clause transfers port access rights,” she said, her voice quieter now that she was fully absorbed in the text. “But the ownership structure behind it is unusual.”
Magnus leaned back in his chair, studying her rather than the page. The early light filtering through the glass doors painted shifting reflections across the water behind her, and the faint scent of chlorine and warm air still clung to her skin.
“Explain.”
Elia tapped the page with one finger, completely unaware that the motion drew Magnus’s attention to the elegant line of her wrist. “The rights don’t move directly to the Severin family,” she said. “They pass through a secondary holding company first.”
“And?”
“That company could carry hidden liabilities,” she said. “Debt. Regulatory exposure. Anything someone wanted to bury.”
Magnus watched her carefully. Not just the words she spoke, but the confidence returning to her posture as she worked through the language of the contract. The uncertainty he had seen in her since bringing her to Severin territory had vanished the moment she began reading legal text.
This was where she belonged.
“You learn that in law school?” he asked.
“You learn to suspect it,” she replied. “Actually proving it takes experience. I don’t have much of that, yet.”