CHAPTER SIX: THE HEAT BETWEEN WALLS

The limo door slammed behind me with a finality that made my skin crawl. I didn’t look back not at the velvet curtain we’d hidden behind, not at Lucien. My heels clicked against the marble as I stepped into Blackwood Estate like a woman walking straight into her own beautifully furnished prison.

My lips still burned from that kiss. No, not a kiss—a collision. It was violent. Demanding. Desperate. And I had kissed him back.

I wanted to scream at myself.

Behind me, his footsteps echoed through the grand entrance like the ticking of a bomb. Slow. Steady. Dangerous.

The silence between us was suffocating. We walked through the endless hallways like strangers again. Except now my body remembered his touch. My skin ached with it.

I stopped at the foot of the stairs and whirled to face him.

“What the hell was that?” I asked, voice sharp and breathless.

He didn’t flinch. Just tilted his head slightly like he was analyzing me. “A kiss.”

“That was not just a kiss.” I hated how my voice broke on the word. “That was…”

My fingers clenched into fists. I didn’t want to name it. Because naming it would mean admitting how it made me feel.

Lucien stepped forward, every inch of him composed, terrifying in his calm. “You kissed me back.”

God, I hated him. I hated that he was right.

“This doesn’t change anything,” I said, forcing my spine straight.

He studied me with those glacier eyes. “It changes everything. You want to hate me, Ivy, but not enough to stop wanting me.”

His words lit a fire in my chest. I turned on my heel and marched upstairs without another word. I could feel him watching me all the way up.

The door to my bedroom slammed shut behind me, and I pressed my back against it like it could hold back the chaos unraveling inside me.

I stood under the shower until the water turned cold. Tried to scrub away the memory of his mouth. Tried to unfeel the way he’d made me forget everything except the sound of his breathing against mine.

But his presence haunted the room. The house. My head.

When I finally climbed into bed, exhaustion pulled me under like a wave.

Then I heard it.

A soft click.

My eyes snapped open.

The door. I had locked it. I was sure I had locked it. But now it stood open by an inch.

I sat up, heart pounding. “Hello?” My voice was barely a whisper.

Nothing.

I slipped out of bed, wrapping my robe tightly around me. The hallway beyond was dark and silent, but something pulled me forward—curiosity, or fear dressed up as courage.

I followed a flicker of movement down the corridor. Past the library. Past the silent grand staircase. Into a wing I hadn’t explored yet.

At the end of the hall, a door stood ajar.

I pushed it open and stepped inside.

It was a bedroom, but not like mine. This one felt… forgotten. Untouched. There was a thick layer of dust across the desk, the dresser, the photo frames.

I approached slowly. One of the photos caught my eye—a woman with Lucien’s eyes. And beside her, a little boy. His smile was full of life.

Lucien.

Before the shadows settled into his bones.

My fingers brushed the frame.

“Don’t touch that.”

I jumped.

Lucien stood in the doorway, shirt open at the collar, sleeves rolled to his elbows. His eyes were colder than I’d ever seen them—but not with anger.

With pain.

“I heard something,” I stammered. “The door was open. I didn’t mean to”

“This room is off limits.”

“I’m sorry. Is that your mother?” I asked quietly.

He said nothing for a long time. Then, “Yes.”

“And the boy?”

He walked past me, picked up the photo, his fingers trembling ever so slightly. “She died when I was ten. Because of my father.”

His voice broke at the edges.

I didn’t move. I didn’t breathe.

He set the photo down and walked out without another word.

Leaving the door wide open behind him.

Morning came too quickly. I found Lucien in the garden, dressed in black, standing by a fountain like he was trying to rewrite the past in the rippling water.

“Why did you agree to this marriage?” I asked from behind him.

He didn’t turn. “Because I needed Sinclair Tech. Because appearances matter in this world.”

I stepped closer. “And me? What am I to you?”

He turned then. His gaze cut into me like glass. “You’re a complication. A weapon. A threat.”

His words landed like slaps, but I didn’t look away. “And what are you?”

He didn’t hesitate. “A man who doesn’t lose.”

There it was—the truth. Naked and cold.

“Is that all I am to you?” I whispered. “A move on a chessboard?”

“It was,” he said. “Until you kissed me back.”

He stepped closer. Close enough that his breath grazed my skin.

“You make me forget why I built these walls,” he said softly.

“Then let them fall.”

He stared at me like I’d just torn something open inside him.

“If I let them fall, Ivy,” he whispered, “you won’t survive what’s behind them.”

And then he left.