Chapter Six

## SASHA

"Who was that?"

Antonio's voice came from behind me, low and unhurried, the way he spoke when he was still half-submerged in the warmth of the sheets. I set my phone on the nightstand and turned back to him.

"My sister."

He raised an eyebrow. "What did she want?"

"I invited her tonight." I settled beside him, tucking my feet beneath me. "You're proposing, Antonio. She has to be there."

He didn't look away from the ceiling. He didn't tighten his jaw or pull back. He just went still — the particular stillness of someone running a calculation.

"Tonight," he said.

"Tonight."

A beat of silence. Then he turned his head toward me slowly, his dark eyes moving over my face with that unhurried attention that had undone me the first time I ever sat across a table from him.

"Come here," he said.

"Antonio—"

"Come here, Sasha."

I went. I always went. That was the thing about us that I had stopped pretending to be ashamed of — I was not a woman who was managed or manoeuvred, except by him, and only because I allowed it, and only because he never once mistook the allowance for weakness.

His hand found my waist and he drew me down against him, his mouth brushing my jaw, my cheek, the corner of my lips.

"You're doing that thing," I murmured.

"What thing?"

"The thing where you try to distract me from the conversation."

He pulled back just enough to look at me, a slow smile crossing his face. "Is it working?"

"Insufferably," I said, and kissed him before he could look too pleased about it.

It was deep and unhurried, the kind of kiss that had no performance in it — no calculation, no audience. He tasted of coffee and something warmer underneath, and his hands moved across my back with a certainty that still, even now, made my breath go shallow. I pulled back after a long moment, pressing my forehead to his.

"We have to talk about tonight," I said.

"We can talk after."

"Antonio."

He sighed, but he didn't let go of me. His thumb traced a slow line along my spine and I made myself think clearly, which was harder than it should have been.

"She'll say yes," I said. "You know that."

"I know."

"And once it's done, everything moves forward the way we planned. All of it." I lifted my head and looked at him properly. "You haven't forgotten what we're building toward."

"I haven't forgotten anything." His voice was even. Not defensive — just certain. He reached up and tucked a strand of hair behind my ear, his fingers trailing along my jaw. "But I need you to hear me say something."

"Say it."

"She asked me last week if I was happy." He said it simply, without drama. "We were just eating dinner and she put her fork down and looked at me and asked. She meant it, Sasha. She wasn't performing. She actually wanted to know."

I watched him.

"She isn't what I expected," he continued. "When we started this. I expected someone I could keep at a distance without effort. She isn't like that. She pays attention. She notices things." A short pause. "She noticed last month that I seemed tired before I'd said a word about it. She made me tea and sat beside me and didn't ask questions." He shook his head slightly. "I'm not saying it changes anything."

"Then why are you saying it?"

He was quiet for a moment. "Because you're the only person I can say it to."

Something moved in my chest at that — something I didn't name and didn't examine. I reached up and turned his face toward mine.

"Listen to me," I said quietly. "She is a good woman. I will not pretend she isn't. But good women and right women are not always the same thing, and you have known from the beginning which one she is. This was never about her, Antonio. This was always about us. About what we want. What we've always wanted." I held his gaze. "Are you wavering? Tell me honestly."

"No." His answer was immediate and without hesitation. "I am not wavering. I made my choice a long time ago and I make it again every morning." His eyes dropped briefly to my mouth. "I'm just thinking out loud."

"Then think quieter," I said.

He laughed — low and genuine, the laugh he only had with me — and then he was pulling me toward him again, his mouth finding mine with an intention that hadn't been there before, something more urgent underneath it now. I kissed him back with equal measure, my fingers curling into the fabric of his shirt.

"You're impossible," I said against his lips.

"You like it," he replied.

I did. God help me, I always had.

His hands moved to my face, tilting me toward him, and for a while there was nothing but that — the warmth of him, the familiar weight, the way we fit together without effort or negotiation, as though this was the thing we were actually built for and everything else was the performance.

When we finally surfaced, the room felt quieter than before.

He lay with one arm behind his head, and I rested beside him, tracing an absent line along his collarbone while my thoughts settled back into order.

"The ring," I said eventually. "Where is it?"

"Inside jacket pocket. Left side."

"And you know what you're going to say?"

"I know what she needs to hear."

I nodded slowly. "Wait until after dinner. Let the room warm up first — let her relax, let her laugh. She should be happy when it happens. She should believe it completely."

"She will," he said. There was no cruelty in it. Just certainty. He knew Amara the way you know a room you have moved through a thousand times — every threshold, every corner, every place the light fell.

That was what he had learned her for. And he had learned her well.

"Antonio," I said after a moment.

"Mm."

"After tonight — once it's done — I need you to be consistent. No more moments like last week. No more sitting with her in comfortable silences. You give her the version of you that keeps her where she needs to be."

He turned his head toward me. "You sound almost concerned."

"I am precise," I said. "There's a difference."

He looked at me for a long moment, then reached over and tucked a strand of hair from my face. "You know," he said quietly, "sometimes I think you're the only person who has ever actually seen me."

"I know," I said.

He kissed me once more — slower this time, with a tenderness that he rationed carefully and gave almost exclusively to me — and then he was pulling back, reaching for his watch on the nightstand, beginning the mental shift from this room to the evening ahead.

I lay still and watched him and thought about Amara's voice on the phone. *I'll be there.* Easy. Unhesitating. The voice of a woman who trusted completely.

Something moved at the edge of my mind — not guilt, I had made my peace with guilt long ago — but something adjacent to it. Something that felt almost like the shadow guilt leaves behind when it's gone.

I closed my eyes.

*Don't,* I told myself.

By the time Antonio was dressed and standing at the mirror straightening his collar, I had put it away entirely. I was good at that. I had always been good at that.

"Seven o'clock," I said.

"Seven o'clock," he agreed.

He caught my eye in the mirror and held it for just a moment, and then he smiled — that private, particular smile that belonged only to this room — and turned back to his reflection.

I reached for my phone.

There was a great deal to arrange before this evening, and I intended to arrange all of it perfectly.