Chapter 15 Violet
VIOLET
The courtyard door is unlocked.
I discover this by accident, pacing the halls after dinner like a ghost who forgot where she’s haunting. My fingers trail along the stone wall, a restorer’s habit, checking for damage, and they catch on the iron handle of a door I’ve passed a hundred times.
It gives.
For a moment I just stand there, heart hammering, waiting for alarms. Guards. Elio materializing from thin air to remind me that every inch of freedom here is borrowed.
Nothing happens.
I push the door open and step through.
The courtyard is small. Enclosed on all sides by ancient walls draped in jasmine, the white blooms glowing faintly in the moonlight. A fountain burbles in the center, water catching starlight as it falls. And overhead there are stars.
I haven’t seen stars without glass between us since before the café. Before everything.
My legs carry me to the fountain’s edge before I make a conscious decision to move. I sink onto the cool stone, pull my knees to my chest, and press my forehead against them.
Breathe.
But breathing doesn’t help. Nothing helps. Because every time I close my eyes, I see his face in the gallery. The raw wound of his confession. His mother murdered when he was twelve. His father… What kind of father murders his child’s mother for trying to leave?
What kind of child grows up in the shadow of that violence and becomes—
Becomes Elio.
The tears come before I can stop them. Hot and silent, soaking into the thin fabric of my red silk dress.
I cry for the boy who found his mother’s body.
For the man so broken he doesn’t believe love exists.
For myself, because I’m starting to understand him, and understanding is so much worse than hating.
You can call him a monster and mean it, I think, shoulders shaking. But monsters are made, not born. Someone built those walls. Someone taught him that love is just biology dressed up as poetry.
I wipe my face with the back of my hand, but the tears keep coming.
I’ve cried more in the past two weeks than in the entire five years before.
Captivity strips everything away. All the armor I’ve spent my life constructing, the sarcasm, the deflection, the refusal to need anyone, it’s all crumbling like water-damaged stone.
Load-bearing walls failing, my brain supplies. Structural integrity compromised.
The sound of footsteps on stone startles me. I scrub at my face, but there’s no hiding the evidence. My eyes will be red and swollen. Anyone looking at me will know I’ve been crying.
Elio doesn’t announce himself. He just sits beside me on the fountain’s edge, close enough that I can feel his heat, far enough that we’re not quite touching.
For a long moment, neither of us speaks. The silence isn’t heavy. Isn’t charged with the usual tension that crackles between us. It’s almost... peaceful. Almost companionable.
Like two people who’ve exhausted themselves fighting and called a temporary truce.
I should leave. Should stand up and walk back inside and put as much distance between us as this gilded cage allows.
I don’t move.
“Are you all right?” His voice is soft. Genuine concern underneath the formal diction. It catches me off guard, this version of him. The one who plays heartbreaking piano and stares at his mother’s painting with grief written across his face.
“I’m fine.”
“Your eyes are red.”
Of course they are. Nothing gets past you.
“Since when do you care?”
A pause. The fountain fills the silence with its gentle trickling.
“Since always.”
I turn to look at him, needing to see his face.
Mistake. Huge mistake. Because he’s close, too close, and the moonlight catches his face, softening all those sharp edges I’ve pretended not to notice these past weeks. The scar through his eyebrow. The strong line of his jaw. The curve of his mouth that I dream about even when I don’t want to.
My pulse quickens. Heat pools low in my stomach, traitorous and familiar.
Stop it. He’s a monster. He kidnapped you. He—
But the mantra doesn’t work anymore. Not when I can see the hollow of his throat, the dark hair curling at his collar, the way his hands rest on his thighs. Capable hands. Dangerous hands. Hands that washed my hair when I was too weak to do it myself.
Neither of us moves.
The air between us thickens. Charged with something I’m terrified to acknowledge.
I should pull away. Stand up. Go back inside where it’s safe.
Safe. As if anywhere in this place is safe. As if I’m not already drowning.
His eyes drop to my mouth.
Everything stops.
Then he leans in. Slowly. Giving me time to pull away, to say no, to do any of the things a smart person would do when their kidnapper moves to kiss them.
I don’t move.
His mouth brushes mine. Soft. Testing. A question more than a claim.
I freeze. Heart slamming. Mind screaming what are you doing? What are you DOING—
Then my body takes over.
I kiss him back.
My mouth opens under his, and his tongue slides against mine, and oh god, he tastes like wine, and smoke, and want, and the sharp edge of danger. His hand cups my jaw, tilts my head for deeper access, and I make a sound. Small. Helpless. Wanting.
My fingers find his shirt. Grip the expensive fabric. Pull him closer. For ten seconds, maybe less, maybe an eternity, I’m just a woman kissing a man she wants. Heat everywhere. Want everywhere.
His other hand slides to my waist and pulls me against him, and suddenly I’m straddling his lap, feeling the hard length of him through fabric.
He wants me too.
The kiss deepens. Turns hungry. Desperate.
Then my mind catches up.
What are you doing? He’s your kidnapper. You’re kissing your kidnapper.
I shove him back.
Hard. Hard enough to break the kiss, hard enough that I scramble off his lap and land on the rough stones.
Breathing hard. Lips swollen. Eyes wide.
“Don’t.” One word is all I can manage.
I push myself to my feet, putting distance between us.
He stands too, watching me, chest rising and falling as fast as mine. His mouth curves. Not quite a smile. Something darker.
“Don’t?” He tastes the word. Considers it.
He takes a step forward. A predator advancing on his prey.
I step back.
My spine hits the courtyard wall. Rough stone against silk. When did I back up this far?
“I mean it.” My voice shakes. I hate that it shakes. “Don’t touch me.”
He keeps coming. Stops inches away. Close enough to feel his heat. Close enough to smell the citrus and wood of his cologne.
He doesn’t touch me. Just cages me against the stone with his presence.
“Your mouth says don’t.” His voice is low. Dark. His eyes drop to my lips. Still swollen from his kiss. “What does the rest of you say?”
“Fuck you.”
“That’s not an answer, tesoro.”
He steps closer. Bodies almost touching now. One hand braces against the wall beside my head. The other stays at his side, not touching but promising.
“Say stop.” His eyes hold mine. Dark and hungry and terrifyingly patient. “Say it, and I will. Just one word, Violet. Tell me you don’t want this.”
I open my mouth. The word is right there. Stop. Four letters. One syllable. I’ve been saying it for weeks.
Nothing comes out.
Because I do want this. Have been wanting it for days. Lying awake at night thinking about his hands. Dreaming about his mouth. Hating myself for every response my body has to his presence.
He reads my silence.
“That’s what I thought.”
His hand drops to my waist. The touch burns through thin fabric, searing into my skin. I can feel him, hard against my stomach through layers of fabric. Long and thick and oh god, I want to touch him.
I gasp. Try to push him away.
Weak. No strength behind it. My palms flat against his chest, feeling his heart pound as hard as mine.
“No.” I find my voice. “I don’t want this.”
All lies. My body is screaming the opposite. Nipples hard against silk. Heat pooling between my thighs.
His smile is dark. Knowing.
“Say it, tesoro.” His hand slides down, over my hip, to the hem of my dress. “Tell me you want me to stop while you’re soaking wet for me.”
“I’m not—” I struggle, and yet the word stop won’t come.
His hand slides under my dress. Up my thigh. Over bare skin. When did I stop wearing practical clothes? When did I start choosing the silk dresses he selected, the thin underwear, the—
I try to close my legs. Can’t. He’s between them now, pressed against me, his hand on my inner thigh making thought impossible.
“No.” The word comes out as a whisper. “Please.”
His fingers trail higher. So close to where I’m aching. So close to proving what a liar I am.
Then he pauses.
Hand on my inner thigh. Not moving higher.
“Last chance, Violet.” His voice is rough. Strained. “Say stop, and I’ll walk away.”
His eyes hold mine. And I see it, the genuine offer. He would stop. If I meant it. If I could make my mouth form the word with any conviction.
I can’t.
Because my body is begging. Throbbing. Wet.
Because I want his hand higher.
Because I’m so fucking tired of fighting.
He sees my surrender. Reads it in my silence, in the way I don’t push him away.
“I don’t want this.”
“Liar,” he whispers against my ear. “You need to pretend, and that’s okay. You need to lie to yourself to take what you want, what we both need.”
His fingers slide higher.
Over my panties first. Thin. Soaked through.
His groan is low and visceral. “Christ, you’re drenched.”
“Please—” But my hips betray me, tilting forward, seeking more pressure.
His laugh is dark. “Please don’t... or please do?”
His fingers slide under the fabric.
Direct contact. Skin on skin.
I gasp, head falling back against stone. So wet his fingers glide through my folds effortlessly. He explores slowly. Methodically. Learning me like he learns everything else, with patience and precision and absolute attention.
He finds my clit. Circles it once.
My whole body jerks.
“Elio—” The word tears from my throat. “Please—”
My body tells the truth. Hips rolling, seeking more pressure. Wetness coating his fingers.