Chapter 6

Nicholas’s POV

Arielle Romano disappeared two days after my wedding.

She switched off her phone, changed her flight, and crossed an ocean without saying a word to me. By the time Leon entered my office to tell me she was gone, I already knew.

The message had arrived twelve minutes earlier.

She’s on the plane, sir.

I read it once before placing my phone facedown on the desk. Across the room, three men continued discussing the Romano alliance as though nothing had happened. Contracts, ports, territories, and numbers were spread across the table in front of them. Angelo Romano spoke confidently about the businesses our marriage had united, while his lawyers examined the documents that would place his network under Contini protection.

I heard none of it.

Arie was leaving Italy.

She had packed her belongings, moved her flight forward, and walked through an airport filled with my men without realising that every step she took had been reported to me. I knew what time she had left the Romano estate, which entrance she had used at the airport, and the number of bags she had checked in. I even knew she had bought a bottle of water before boarding and carried it onto the plane without opening it.

What I didn’t know was how she had found the courage to leave me.

My wife sat near Angelo, wearing a cream-coloured dress and the diamond ring I had placed on her finger. Bianca smiled politely whenever someone addressed her, performing the part expected of the new Mrs. Contini. She hadn’t questioned why we had slept in separate rooms after leaving the reception. Perhaps she understood exactly what kind of marriage we had entered, or perhaps she believed time would change it.

It wouldn’t.

I had given Bianca my name because the alliance required it. That was all she would receive from me.

The woman I wanted was currently flying thousands of miles away.

“Is something wrong?” Angelo asked.

Every person at the table looked toward me.

I lifted my gaze from the phone and leaned back in my chair. “No.”

It was the only answer they would receive.

Nobody in that room needed to know that Arie had disobeyed me. If word spread that a woman had walked away from Nicholas Contini, my enemies would see weakness where there was none.

Arie hadn’t escaped me.

I had allowed her to leave.

The distinction mattered.

I could have stopped her car before it reached the airport. I could have had her passport removed from the system or ordered my men to take her from the boarding gate. One telephone call would have returned her to me before the aircraft doors closed.

But dragging her back while her pain was still fresh would only make her fight harder. Arie needed time to calm down. She needed to learn that distance could not erase what existed between us.

More importantly, she needed to believe she had won.

The meeting continued for another twenty minutes. I signed the necessary papers, answered every question, and made decisions that would affect hundreds of men without allowing my expression to change. By the time the Romano representatives left, none of them suspected that my attention had been elsewhere.

Bianca remained behind.

She waited until the door closed before looking at me. “Where did Arie go?”

My fingers became still over the document in front of me.

“Why are you asking me?”

“Because my father mentioned that she moved her flight forward, and you have spent this entire meeting staring at your phone.”

“I was handling business.”

“Of course.” Her smile held no warmth. “Everything is business with you.”

“That was the purpose of this marriage.”

The words were cold, but there was no value in lying to her. Bianca knew I hadn’t married her for love. Angelo had negotiated the terms in front of her, and she had accepted each one without protest.

Yet something in her expression shifted.

“Did you know she was leaving?”

“Not until this morning.”

Bianca studied my face carefully. “She didn’t tell you?”

The question irritated me more than it should have.

“No.”

A strange understanding appeared in her eyes. It made my jaw tighten.

“What exactly happened between you and my cousin?” she asked.

“Nothing that concerns you.”

“I’m your wife.”

“You are part of an alliance.”

The colour faded slightly from her face, but she raised her chin. “And Arie?”

My gaze hardened. “Be careful, Bianca.”

“Why? Because I said her name?”

“Because you are asking questions whose answers will not improve your position.”

For the first time since the wedding, anger replaced the graceful calm she wore around our families. “You left our reception for nearly half an hour. When you returned, your shirt was creased and Arie disappeared. Do you think I didn’t notice?”

I said nothing.

Bianca’s eyes moved over my face, searching for an answer I would never give her.

“She knew,” she whispered. “Before the wedding, there was someone you refused to name. It was her.”

I stood, and the movement ended the conversation. “The car will take you back to the estate.”

“Nicholas—”

“This marriage will give you the security, status, and protection your father demanded. Do not ask me for something that was never part of our agreement.”

Her eyes shone with humiliation, but I felt no satisfaction in causing it. Bianca hadn’t created this arrangement, yet she had willingly accepted it. We were both fulfilling obligations written by other men long before either of us reached the altar.

The difference was that she had known what she was agreeing to.

Arie had known nothing.

Bianca left without another word. The door had barely closed when Leon entered through the adjoining office. His expression told me he had been waiting for the room to empty.

“You let her board the plane,” he said.

I returned to my chair. “You sound surprised.”

“I thought you would stop her.”

“So did she.”

Leon walked toward the desk. Unlike everyone else in the organisation, my brother rarely hesitated to challenge me. It was a privilege I had tolerated for years, though he had begun testing its limits.

“She asked me not to tell you where she was going,” he said.

My eyes rose slowly. “And what did you tell her?”

“That she was safe.”

“Was that before or after you gave one of my men her flight details?”

His expression changed.

I already knew the answer.

Leon hadn’t betrayed me, but he had delayed telling me long enough to give Arie a chance to leave. If my own surveillance hadn’t detected the change to her reservation, she might have reached Seattle before I knew she had boarded.

“You helped her,” I said.

“She needed to get away from you.”

The room became quiet.

“Choose your next words carefully.”

Leon rested both hands against the edge of my desk. “You married her cousin and then expected her to remain here waiting for you. What did you think she would do?”

“I expected her to speak to me before crossing an ocean.”

“She tried speaking to you at the reception. You didn’t listen.”

My hand tightened around the pen between my fingers.

Leon couldn’t know everything that had happened inside that room. He knew about Arie and me, but he didn’t know how she had kissed me back or how desperately her fingers had held my shirt. He didn’t know that for those few stolen moments, Arie had still been mine.

Then someone had knocked, and fear had replaced the longing in her eyes.

I could still hear her final words.

I wasn’t the woman you loved enough to choose, Nico. I was only the woman you wanted badly enough to hide.

She had been wrong.

There was a difference between hiding something out of shame and protecting it because the world would destroy it if given the chance. My enemies watched every person close to me. Acknowledging Arie publicly would place a target on her back.

Marriage to Bianca protected the organisation.

Keeping Arie separate protected her.

One day, she would understand that.

“Where is she staying?” I asked.

Leon’s mouth formed a hard line. “I don’t know.”

“You’re lying.”

“She found the apartment herself. She refused help from Angelo, and she didn’t give me the address.”

I watched him long enough for discomfort to enter his expression. Then I turned my phone around and placed it in front of him. A photograph of Arie’s apartment building filled the screen.

Leon stared at it.

“You already know.”

“I knew before her plane left the ground.”

“Then why are we having this conversation?”

“Because I wanted to know whether my brother would lie to me for her.”

He straightened. “I would protect her from anyone.”

“Including me?”

“If necessary.”

The pen snapped between my fingers.

Leon looked down at the broken pieces before meeting my gaze again. He did not retreat, but I saw the caution enter his face.

“No one protects Arie from me,” I said. “I am the person who protects her.”

“You’re the person she ran from.”

The words struck with more force than they should have.

Leon walked away before I dismissed him. I allowed it because stopping him would have meant admitting his accusation had affected me.

Once I was alone, I opened the reports my men had sent. Arie’s aircraft was travelling over the Atlantic. One man sat three rows behind her while another waited in Seattle. The rental agency had already provided the building’s entry codes and a copy of her lease. The company that had employed her had been investigated, along with every executive she would encounter during her first week.

She believed she was beginning a life untouched by my influence.

She had no idea that I had already examined every part of it.

I called the man following her.

“Has she noticed you?”

“No, sir.”

“Keep it that way. Do not approach her unless she is in danger.”

“Yes, sir.”

“I want a report every six hours.”

I ended the call and opened the bottom drawer of my desk. The emerald necklace lay inside a black velvet box.

I had found it that morning at the Romano estate.

Angelo had allowed me into Arie’s room after I claimed she might have taken documents connected to the alliance. Her bedroom still carried traces of her presence, though she had removed almost everything that mattered. Empty food boxes covered the desk, and the sheets remained twisted from two days spent hiding beneath them.

The sight had done something to me I refused to name.

Then I found the necklace inside her bedside drawer.

She had left it deliberately.

I remembered fastening it around her neck on her birthday. Her hair had fallen over my hands, and she had smiled when I told her she would always carry something of mine.

Apparently, she had taken those words as a challenge.

I lifted the necklace from its box and allowed the emerald to rest against my palm. She believed leaving it behind meant she had rejected my claim.

She was wrong.

Arielle could abandon my gifts, ignore my calls, and place an ocean between us. None of it changed what she was to me.

My telephone rang.

Adrian’s name appeared on the screen. He had been handling an operation abroad during the wedding, but nothing escaped his notice for long.

“I heard she left,” he said when I answered.

“News travels quickly.”

“Only when you send half the organisation searching for information about one woman.”

“I didn’t ask for your opinion.”

“No, but you’ll get it anyway. If Arie learns you followed her to America, she’ll disappear again.”

“She won’t have the opportunity.”

A brief silence followed. “Are you bringing her back?”

“Not yet.”

That answer seemed to surprise him. It surprised me too.

Every instinct demanded that I follow her immediately. I wanted to enter her new apartment, place her passport in my pocket, and remind her that she did not get to erase me simply because I had fulfilled a responsibility to my family.

But Arie would expect force.

Patience would unsettle her more.

“Let her settle,” I said. “Let her believe the decision belongs to her.”

“And then?”

My gaze returned to the necklace.

“Then I remind her that it doesn’t.”

After ending the call, I contacted the man waiting in Seattle and gave him instructions. The necklace would be delivered after Arie entered her apartment. No courier, no address label, and nothing that could be traced back to Italy.

I placed a card beside the emerald pendant and wrote the message myself.

You can cross an ocean, Arie. You still belong to me.

For several seconds, I stared at her name.

Everyone else called her Arielle. It was elegant and distant, suitable for family introductions and formal dinners. Arie belonged to the people she allowed close.

Nico and Arie.

Those names belonged to a world no one else had been permitted to enter.

She thought my marriage had destroyed that world.

She thought America would protect her from what remained.

I closed the box and handed it to one of my men.

“Make certain it is waiting outside her door tonight.”

He nodded. “And if she tries to leave again?”

I looked toward the rain falling beyond my office windows.

“She won’t.”

Arie could unpack her suitcases. She could learn unfamiliar streets, begin her new job, and fill that small apartment with pieces of the life she intended to build without me. I would give her enough distance to mistake my silence for surrender.

I could be patient.

After all, freedom was easier to take from someone once she had begun to believe it was real.