Chapter 15

Matteo’s POV

The problem wasn’t that I remembered her. It was that I couldn’t stop.

I’d dealt with blood on my hands, betrayals at my table, and men who smiled while plotting my death. I’d trained myself to compartmentalize, including desire. One night meant one night. That had always been the rule. Clean. Contained and forgotten by morning.

Zara hadn’t followed the rule.

She shouldn’t have been anything more than a blur, dim lights, heat, impulse. Instead, she lingered. In the pauses between meetings. In the quiet moments before sleep. In the brief second before I answered questions that mattered.

It pissed me off.

I sat in my study, files spread neatly across the desk, my attention fixed on none of them. The numbers swam uselessly. I’d reread the same paragraph three times without absorbing a word.

Her face surfaced again. Not the way she’d looked beneath the lights but afterward. Awake. Quiet. Watching me like she was memorizing something she didn’t intend to keep.

I shut the folder harder than necessary.

“This is ridiculous,” I muttered.

A knock sounded at the door. Marco, my driver and most trusted staff member, stepped in without waiting for permission, tablet in hand, posture relaxed in the way only long familiarity allowed.

“You asked for the preliminary sweep,” he said. “Nothing flagged.”

I looked up sharply. “Already?”

“You sounded impatient.”

I scoffed. “I don’t get impatient.”

Marco raised a brow but wisely didn’t comment. He handed me the tablet anyway. And her name stares right back at me.

Zara James.

Age. Education. Travel history.

All Clean. Too clean for what I expected. I scrolled faster, irritation tightening my jaw. No scandals. No messy attachments. No social trail worth noting. She existed like someone who didn’t need witnesses.

“Any affiliations?” I asked.

“No.”

“Financial ties?”

“Normal.”

I exhaled sharply, pushing back in my chair. “No boyfriends? Ex?”

Marco paused, fingers hovering over the screen. Then he glanced up at me.

“Just an ex, and a bad breakup history” he said carefully. “Nothing else other than that. Nothing notable in the past either asides that.”

The answer was wrong. A bad breakup history.

It shouldn’t have mattered. It didn’t change anything. And yet a strange, sharp irritation flickered through me, almost too immediate and unwelcome.

I leaned forward, forearms on the desk. “You’re telling me she’s never been involved with anyone asides her ex.”

“I’m telling you there’s no record of anything significant.”

I stared at the tablet as it had personally offended me.

“No complications,” Marco added. “No baggage.”

I laughed once, humorless. “That’s what you think.”

He hesitated. “Is there a reason you want this level of detail, Sir?”

Yes.

No.

I stood abruptly, crossing to the window. The grounds below me were immaculate, trimmed hedges, and measured symmetry. Yet the weight of what was in my head superceded them all

“She’s staying here,” I said flatly.

“As per your parents’ request,” he added.

I clenched my jaw. That was another irritation altogether.

My father’s voice echoed uninvited in my head. Family looks after its own. As if blood diluted responsibility. As if opening my home to her was some harmless gesture of sentiment.

Her mother on her end had been worse. She’s young. She needs stability. As though I were a neutral space. As though my house wasn’t saturated with violence disguised as order.

“She shouldn’t be here,” I said.

“But she is,” he said.

I turned back to Marco, irritation sharp enough to cut. “Because of some ridiculous sibling bond they refuse to let go of. Nostalgia doesn’t belong in my house.”

Marco watched me carefully. “You could have simply refused Sir.”

I held his gaze for a moment. “No. I couldn’t.”

Not without consequences that mattered more than my comfort. Knowing too well that now I was stuck with her. And that realization settled like a weight.

“She’s been avoiding you lately though,” Marco said after a moment.

And I didn’t answer.

“She changes routes. Schedules. Keeps distance.”

“I noticed.”

“And?” he said.

“And nothing.”

Except that it bothered me. More than it should have.

I dismissed Marco with a flick of my hand and returned to my desk, but the work remained untouched. My thoughts drifted, unwanted, persistent towards her.

The way she moved through the house quietly on arrival, like she didn’t want to be seen. The way she didn’t look at me unless she had to. No fear, no flirtation. Just distance.

It was infuriating.

People usually reacted to me in one of two ways, submission or calculation. Zara did neither. She acted like proximity to me was an inconvenience rather than an opportunity.

I didn’t know what unsettled me more: that she didn’t want anything from me or that I wanted something from her.

I closed my eyes briefly. One night. That was all it had been. Then why did it feel like unfinished business?

I rose and left the study, walking the halls without a destination until I found myself pausing outside the kitchen. Zara stood at the counter, back to me, hair pulled up loosely, sleeves rolled just enough to expose her wrists.

Which felt ordinary and yet my attention locked onto her with the same inevitability as a drawn blade.

She sensed me before I spoke. Her shoulders stiffened, subtly, like a warning.

“Staring from a distance won't do you good. If you must know,” she said without turning.

In such a neutral and controlled manner and I hated that too.

“Morning,” I replied and silence stretched.

She finished whatever she was doing, wiped her hands, and turned to leave. Without even turning to look at me. Not even a single glance.

I spoke before I could stop myself trying to break the awkwardness between us.

“You’re settling in.”

It wasn’t a question.

She paused. “I am.”

“Good,” I said. She nodded once and continued past me, not meeting my eyes. Something in my chest tightened, from watching her walk away.

This wasn't an attraction. This was irritation. Disruption. Loss of rhythm. And it pissed me off that she’d caused it without trying.

I returned to my study and stared again at her file.

“No boyfriends. Just an ex and a bad breakup history,” I muttered.