Chapter 3

“You don’t get to have us both.”

Nico didn’t answer immediately. His eyes remained fixed on mine, dark and impossible to read, while the silence between us became heavier. I expected anger, another command, or one of those cold explanations he used whenever he wanted everyone to accept his decisions without question. Instead, he placed his whiskey glass on the table and began walking toward me.

I stepped backwards instinctively. He continued moving until the edge of the table pressed against my lower back and there was nowhere else for me to go. He didn’t trap me with his hands, yet his presence alone made the room feel smaller. The faint scent of his cologne surrounded me, mixed with whiskey and something dangerously familiar. I hated that my body still remembered him. It remembered how safe I had once felt in his arms, even when my heart knew there was nothing safe about him anymore.

Nico raised one hand and slowly brushed his knuckles against my wet cheek. The tenderness of the gesture hurt more than cruelty would have.

“Don’t touch me,” I whispered.

His hand became still. For one stretched second, his fingers remained close to my skin. Then he lowered them and took half a step back. He had listened, but the rigid line of his jaw revealed how much restraint it had required.

“You’re crying because of me,” he said.

A broken laugh escaped me. “Did you only just realise that?”

“I knew you would be hurt.”

“Hurt?” I stared at him in disbelief. “You knew I would stand beside the altar and watch you marry my cousin, and hurt is the best word you can find?”

“The wedding had to happen.”

“You keep saying that as if it changes what you did.” My voice rose despite my effort to control it. “You let me believe I mattered to you while you planned an entire marriage behind my back. You watched me help Bianca with her dress. You knew I would stand there today, and you still didn’t have the courage to tell me yourself.”

“I was trying to protect you.”

“From what? The truth?”

“From this world.”

I shook my head as fresh tears filled my eyes. “Stop pretending any of this was for me. You wanted the alliance, you wanted the power, and you wanted Bianca’s family standing behind yours. You made your decision because it gave you everything you needed.”

Nico moved closer again, but this time he kept his hands at his sides. “Not everything.”

My heart betrayed me by beating faster. “Don’t.”

“You think I wanted to stand beside her?”

“You said ‘I do.’”

“I said what I needed to say.”

“And then you kissed her.”

Something sharp flashed across his face. “Do you think I enjoyed it?”

“I don’t know what you enjoy anymore. I don’t know you anymore.”

His control seemed to fracture for the first time. Nico turned away, dragging a hand over his jaw before facing me again. “You know me better than anyone.”

“No. I knew the man you pretended to be when we were alone.”

“I never pretended with you.”

“Then tell me what I am to you now.” I opened my hands helplessly. “Your bride is downstairs waiting for you while I’m hidden inside a locked room. Tell me what that makes me.”

Nico’s gaze hardened. “You are mine.”

“I am not anyone’s possession.”

“You were mine long before Bianca’s father offered me this alliance.”

“And now I’m nothing.”

“You are the only thing in this room that matters to me.”

His words found the weakest part of me, the foolish part that had spent the entire day wishing he would say something exactly like that. I closed my eyes because looking at him made it harder to remember why I needed to leave.

“You cannot say things like that anymore,” I whispered.

“Why?”

“Because you’re married.”

“That marriage changes my responsibilities. It does not change what I feel for you.”

I opened my eyes and found him watching me with an intensity that made breathing difficult. Nico had always been controlled, even in private. Every touch had been deliberate, every emotion carefully guarded. But now something restless and almost desperate moved beneath his composure.

He took another step. I should have moved away, but I didn’t.

His gaze dropped to my lips. “Tell me you don’t want me to kiss you.”

I swallowed. “You shouldn’t.”

“That isn’t what I asked.”

“This is wrong.”

“I know.”

“Bianca is downstairs.”

“I know that too.”

“Then go back to her.”

Nico didn’t move. “Tell me you don’t want me.”

The answer should have been easy. After everything he had done, I should have been able to look him in the eyes and tell him that whatever existed between us had died at the altar. But I couldn’t force the lie past my lips.

His expression changed when he saw my hesitation. The careful control disappeared from his face, replaced by a hunger so open that it frightened me. Nico wanted me. Not calmly, not sensibly, and not in any way that could remain contained behind this door.

“I should stop you,” I whispered.

“But will you?”

My fingers curled against the edge of the table. I hated myself for the answer, but I gave it to him anyway.

“No.”

That single word destroyed the last of his restraint.

Nico closed the distance between us and kissed me. There was nothing gentle about the desperation behind it, yet he gave me enough space to pull away. His hands remained at my waist, holding me firmly but waiting for my choice. For one heartbeat, I resisted. My palms pressed against his chest as every sensible part of me screamed that this was a mistake.

Then his lips moved against mine, and the fight left my body.

My fingers tightened in the fabric of his shirt. Nico pulled me closer as though he had been deprived of me for years rather than a few days. I could taste whiskey on his mouth and feel the force of everything he refused to say. Anger, possession, longing—he poured all of it into the kiss.

I kissed him back.

The admission hurt more than anything.

For those stolen seconds, I forgot the wedding downstairs. I forgot the ring on his finger and the vows he had spoken. I allowed myself to remember what it had felt like when I believed he belonged to me.

His hand moved from my waist to the side of my face, holding me with a tenderness that didn’t match the desperation of his kiss. I melted into him, caught between wanting to push him away and wanting to remain there until the rest of the world disappeared.

It felt like coming home.

It also felt like betraying myself.

Nico deepened the kiss, and the cool edge of his wedding band brushed against my cheek. The touch dragged me back to reality.

Bianca had placed that ring on his finger.

Bianca was his wife.

I broke the kiss and turned my face away, struggling to breathe. Nico remained close, his forehead nearly touching mine, but I could no longer look at him.

“This shouldn’t have happened,” I whispered.

“It should have happened hours ago.”

My eyes snapped toward his. “At your wedding?”

“Before the wedding.”

“Yet you still married her.”

Nico’s thumb brushed the corner of my mouth. This time I didn’t tell him to stop, but I hated the weakness that kept me still.

A sudden knock struck the door, and my entire body stiffened.

“Sir?” a man called from the corridor. “Everyone is waiting for you downstairs. Mrs. Contini is asking where you are.”

Mrs. Contini.

Bianca.

The title pierced straight through me.

Before I could make a sound, Nico reacted. He moved me away from the direct line of the doorway and placed his hand over my mouth. His large palm covered the lower half of my face, silencing my uneven breathing.

The metal of his wedding ring pressed against my cheek.

Nico’s attention remained fixed on the door. “Tell them I’ll be there shortly.”

“Yes, sir.”

The footsteps faded down the corridor. Nico waited several seconds before removing his hand, but the cold imprint of his ring seemed to remain on my skin.

I stared at him as the truth settled over me. A moment ago, he had kissed me as if I were the only woman he wanted. The second someone knocked, he had hidden me and silenced me. Downstairs, Bianca was Mrs. Contini. She could stand beside him beneath the chandeliers while hundreds of people celebrated their marriage.

I was the woman concealed behind a locked door.

I pushed his hand away when he tried to touch me again.

“So this is what I am now.”

His brows drew together. “Arielle—”

“A secret you have to silence whenever the real world comes looking for you.”

“That isn’t what happened.”

“It is exactly what happened.” My voice was quieter now, but the pain inside it had sharpened. “You kissed me, and then you covered my mouth because your wife was asking for you.”

“I was protecting you.”

“No. You were protecting yourself.”

Nico’s face hardened. “You don’t understand what would happen if someone found you here.”

“I understand perfectly.” I smoothed my dress with trembling hands and stepped around him. “They would discover that their perfect Don left his bride at the reception because he wanted to kiss her cousin.”

He caught my wrist before I reached the door. The wedding band was visible again, gleaming against his skin.

“Don’t walk away from me.”

I looked at his hand until he slowly released me.

“You walked away first,” I said. “You did it the moment you chose her.”

I opened the door, but before leaving, I looked back at him one last time.

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

Then I stepped into the corridor and closed the door between us.