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Chapter 3
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2026-08-07 16:53:51Dinner moved slowly, the low hum of conversation between Victoria and Leonardo fading into background noise as my mind wandered somewhere far from the table.
The staff moved quietly around us, refilling glasses, clearing small plates. I sat with my fork resting untouched against my plate, nodding occasionally whenever Victoria’s voice rose in my direction, though I couldn’t have repeated a single word that had been said.
One moment I was staring at my plate, and the next I felt Leonardo’s hands finding my waist, pulling me close, his voice low against my ear as he whispered something only I could hear.
I answered him softly, breathlessly, the word slipping out before I could stop it. Yes, Daddy.
My lips curved without my permission. My teeth caught my bottom lip. My fingers traced idle circles against my thigh beneath the table, lost entirely in the fantasy playing behind my eyes.
The rest of the room had gone quiet and distant, folded away somewhere I couldn’t reach, while the version of Leonardo in my mind held me like I was something worth holding onto.
“Amelia.”
Victoria’s voice cracked across the table like a whip.
I flinched hard, blinking back into the room, my face flooding with heat as I registered where I was, the dining table, the crystal glasses, Leonardo’s gaze flicking toward me with faint, unreadable curiosity. My heart slammed against my ribs.
I hadn’t realized how far I’d drifted, hadn’t realized what my face must have looked like while I was gone.
“Get up,” Victoria said, her voice tight and controlled in a way that was somehow more frightening than shouting. “Now.”
I rose on unsteady legs and followed my mother out of the dining room, down the hall, until Victoria rounded on me the moment we were out of sight.
“What,” Victoria hissed, “was that?”
“What do you mean?” My voice came out smaller than I wanted it to.
“Don’t play stupid with me.” Victoria’s eyes were narrow, furious, cutting straight through me. “I saw you. Smiling at him like that. Biting your lip. Rubbing your thighs together at my dinner table like some desperate little—” She stopped herself, jaw tightening, and took a breath before continuing, quieter now, more dangerous for it. “You were flirting with my husband. In front of me.”
“I wasn’t,” I started, but the lie died in my throat. There was no version of this where I could explain the truth without making everything worse.
“I don’t care what you were doing in that head of yours,” Victoria snapped. “I care about what it looked like. Do you understand what’s at stake here? I need this marriage intact for three years, and I will not have you jeopardizing it because you can’t control yourself for one dinner.”
I said nothing, staring at the floor, letting the words wash over me the way I’d trained myself to do for years. I had learned long ago that silence was safer than defense, that anything I said would only be twisted and handed back to me later.
Victoria stepped closer, lowering her voice to something colder, sharper. “I won’t warn you again. Next time, I won’t just talk to you about it.” She let the threat hang there, unfinished, familiar enough that I didn’t need her to finish it. “Go to your room. I’ll make your excuses to Leonardo.”
I turned without another word and walked back down the hall, my legs carrying me faster than I meant them to, until I reached my room and shut the door behind me.
I fell onto the bed and exhaled deeply, staring up at the ceiling, my heart still racing from more than just fear.
How did that happen?
I pressed my palms against my eyes, replaying the moment, the way I’d drifted so completely into the fantasy that I’d forgotten where I was, forgotten who was watching.
It frightened me a little, how easily I’d lost myself. I’d meant to be careful, patient and Quiet, the way I’d promised Maya I would be. And instead I’d nearly given myself away in the first few hours, in front of the one person who could ruin everything with a single phone call.
I just love him so much, I thought, and the admission startled me even as I thought it. Not liked. Not wanted. Loved already, impossibly, after only a handshake and a few careful hours in the same house. It made no sense, and yet it felt more real than anything else I’d felt in years.
I sat up slowly and reached for the small notebook I kept tucked in my bag, the same bag that still carried the folded canvas beneath my clothes. I opened it to a blank page and began to write, my handwriting small and deliberate.
Day One.
I stared at the words for a moment, then kept writing not a diary exactly, but something close to it. A record. A countdown.
If I was going to survive under Victoria’s rule while trying to win a man who didn’t yet know he was being pursued, I needed to be smarter than I’d been tonight.
No more daydreaming at dinner tables. No more careless smiles that Victoria could catch and twist into a weapon.
From now on, everything had to be deliberate. Every glance, every soft word, every quiet moment near Leonardo would need to be planned, timed, controlled.
I wrote a few more lines beneath the date, small reminders to myself, rules I intended to follow no matter how hard it had already proven to be.
I closed the notebook and set it on the nightstand, then lay back against the pillows, letting my eyes drift shut.
Somewhere down the hall, I could hear the low murmur of Victoria’s voice, smoothing things over with Leonardo, spinning some easy explanation for her daughter’s sudden disappearance from the table.
I wondered, briefly, what excuse my mother had chosen. And then I wondered something else entirely, something that made my chest tighten with a mixture of guilt and quiet thrill.
I wondered if Leonardo had noticed. Really noticed. Not just the interruption, not just Victoria’s tight smile as she’d led me away, but the moment before that. The bitten lip. The far-off look in my eyes that hadn’t belonged to an innocent daydream.
And for reasons I didn’t fully understand, that thought didn’t frighten me at all.
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Leonardo’s POV“Speak,” I said.“Sir, I was running my usual review of the east corridor this afternoon.” He cleared his throat. “I almost skipped it. At 2:53, someone enters Miss Amelia’s room. The door was open. She had just stepped out with her friend. The person stays inside for about three minutes, then leaves. Quickly. Looking at the floor.”Three minutes. Long enough to cross a room, put down a piece of paper, and walk out again.“Who?”“One of the household staff, sir.” A hesitation. “I didn’t want to name her over the phone.”“Name her.”“Helena. From housekeeping. She joined the team last spring.”I s
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Leonardo’s POVShe stepped inside, and I closed the door behind her.The click sounded louder than it should have. I stayed where I was, one hand still on the handle, and made myself look at her properly. She wasn’t flushed the way she’d been in the painting room. She was pale. Her fingers were curled around a small square of paper, and the knuckles had gone white.That was not the face of a girl who had come to tell me something sweet.I nodded once, slowly, the way I do when I’m reading a room. I opened my mouth to ask her to sit.“Someone left this in my room.”She said it before I could speak. She held the paper out to me with a hand that would not stay still, and I took it.It had been folded and unfolded so many times that the creases had gone soft. I carried it to the lamp. The handwriting was small and slanted and careful. Whoever wrote it had taken their time.I know where you slept last night. I
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Leonardo’s POVI looked at her.I’ll tell you in your room.She had leaned toward me when she said it, her voice so low I almost had to read it from her lips. It was something she did not want to say here.“I hope there’s no issue,” I said, keeping my voice level.She didn’t answer right away. She bent a little closer over the table, as if the walls themselves might lean in to listen.“I’ll tell you everything,” she said softly. “In your room. After dinner.”Everything.The word settled in my chest and refused to move.I had a hundred questions, and every one of them was on my tongue. What was it? Why not here? Why not now? I swallowed all of them. Not with the staff standing
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Amelia’s POVA horn blared somewhere outside.My eyes snapped open. For a second I didn’t know where I was. The room was dim, the lamp was low, and my neck ached from the way I’d slumped against the headboard. Something crinkled in my hand.The note.It was still there, folded and creased, my fingers wrapped around it so tightly it had gone soft at the edges. I had fallen asleep holding it. I had fallen asleep waiting for Leonardo.The horn sounded again, and I was off the bed before I could think. I ran to the window and pulled the curtain aside. Headlights swept across the compound, and the black car rolled through the gate, slow and steady.He was back.My heart did something stupid. It jumped, then stumbled, then started racing for no reason I could name.Calm down. Calm down, Amelia.I rushed to the mirror. My hair was flattened on one side. I smoothed it down and tugged at my top. I turned left, then right, then
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Amelia’s POVI couldn’t stay still.I paced from the window to the bed, from the bed to the door, then back to the window. My bare feet slapped softly against the floor, the only sound in the room besides my own breathing. It was too loud. Everything felt too loud.Who could have put that note on my bed?My eyes kept drifting to it, that small folded piece of paper, innocent-looking, like it hadn’t just tilted my whole world. I turned away. Looked back. Turned away again.Should I call Maya? Tell her everything?No. She just left. She was sitting right here, on this very bed, laughing about something silly, not even an hour ago. Could she have…No.Maya would never do that to me. Never.I pressed my palm to my forehead and shut my eyes. The thought wouldn’t leave, though. It crawled back in, quiet and cold.Someone in the house.It had to be. Nobody else could have walked into my room without being stopped. No
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Amelia’s POV“Something like what?” I asked, sitting up a little straighter, the warmth from a moment ago giving way to something more cautious.“Since you have come this far with him within a few days of Victoria’s absence, you need to be careful when she is around.” She said it slowly, deliberately, like she was choosing her words with more care than usual.“I know, but then Leonardo will not allow her to hurt me.” I said, though even as the words left my mouth I could hear how much I wanted them to be true more than I actually believed them.“Still, be extra careful. Play your game very well.” She said, holding my gaze for a second longer than necessary before leaning back, her tone shifting lighter again, the way it alway&z
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