تسجيل الدخولChapter 7 — Nikolai's POV"You're going to have to tell me what you actually want from her." Dante didn't look up from the tablet, which was becoming a habit of his I found less charming every week. "Because right now it looks like you're circling something you haven't decided how to name.""I know what I want.""Do you." He set the tablet down, finally, and gave me the look he reserved for decisions he thought I was making badly. "Because from where I'm standing, you told a married woman she owes you a debt, and then you spent three days deciding what to collect. That's not a plan. That's a man stalling."He wasn't wrong, which made it worse.I'd told myself, in the days since the banquet, that the delay was strategic that a debt left undefined had more weight than one spent too quickly, that letting her sit with the uncertainty served some purpose beyond my own inability to settle on what I actually wanted from Ofiura Voss. It was a good lie while it lasted. It stopped working some
Chapter 6 — Ofiura's POV"I don't know what that means.""You will." Nikolai straightened off the door, and just like that, the moment was over—like he'd closed a folder mid-sentence and expected me to wait for the next chapter without asking when it would come. "Go back out there. Smile. You're good at that.""That's not a compliment.""I didn't mean it as one." He opened the door and held it. "It's a fact. And right now, it's the only thing keeping tonight from falling apart."I went back out because he was right, and I hated that he was right, and I hated more that some part of me had needed to hear someone say it plainly instead of dressing it up.Damon found me within a minute, his hand landing at my back like he'd never let it drift far in the first place. "There you are. Nikolai says you two had an interesting conversation.""Business," I said, borrowing the word from Nikolai because it was the only one that fit without lying outright."He doesn't usually do business at partie
Chapter 5 — Ofiura's POV I felt him before I saw him again,that same shift in the air I'd felt when he first walked in, like the room had quietly rearranged itself around where he was standing. Damon was still deep in conversation with two men from a shipping conglomerate, gesturing with his glass, when Nikolai excused himself from whoever he'd been speaking to and crossed the floor toward us like the decision had already been made before he moved. "Ofiura." He said my name carefully, testing the shape of it. "Damon tells me you don't come to many of these." "I prefer smaller gatherings." "Do you." His eyes didn't leave mine. "What do you do, when you're not standing next to him at these things?" "I manage most of the household. Some of his correspondence, when he needs it." The words came out steadier than I felt, though my pulse was doing something I didn't have a name for."Interesting." He tilted his head slightly, like he was turning the answer over to look at another s
Chapter 4 — Nikolai's POV"I'm not going."Dante didn't look up from his tablet. "It's a courtesy invitation. You don't have to stay long.""I don't have to go at all." I signed the last of the shipment approvals and pushed the folder across the desk. "Damon's spent a year trying to buy his way into a partnership he hasn't earned. I'm not interested in watching him perform for a ballroom full of people he's bribed to be impressed.""Fine. I'll send your regrets." Dante made a note, unbothered, the way he was about most things that didn't involve numbers or security detail. He'd worked for me long enough to know when an argument was worth having and when it wasn't. This one, apparently, wasn't. He stood, gathered his own folder, and made it halfway to the door before he stopped."His Luna will be there. Ofiura."I looked up."That's her name," Dante said, watching me now with the particular patience of a man who already suspected he'd said something useful. "Word going around is the ma
Chapter 3 — Ofiura's POVMy mother's hand found my arm, a warning more than comfort. "Let's all just sit down.""There's nothing to sit down about." I didn't move. "I'm done.""You're done when I say you're done." My stepfather's voice stayed level, which somehow made it worse than shouting would have. He pulled out a chair and sat like he had all the time in the world, like this was a business meeting and not my life. "Sit."I didn't."Three years ago," he said, "I made a deal for you. Damon's family took on your sister's university fees—all of it, four years, no strings, the kind of money that doesn't come from nowhere—in exchange for a marriage that kept this family's finances afloat. You said yes to that deal, Ofiura. You stood in this kitchen and you said yes.""I was twenty-one. I didn't understand what I was agreeing to.""You understood well enough to sign the paperwork." He spread his hands like he was being reasonable. "You don't get to walk away from it now because your fee
Chapter 2 — Ofiura's POV"Why me, beautiful?""Because you're the only man in this room not trying to impress anyone."That got something out of himnot quite a laugh, but close. He studied me for a second too long, like he was deciding whether I was worth the trouble."I think you're looking for a distraction, not a drink," he said. "And I'm not someone you want to distract yourself with.""You don't know what I want.""I know you're wearing a wedding ring you keep touching like it's a burn."I hadn't realized I was doing it until he said it. I stopped."Take it off if you want," he said. "Or don't. Not my business either way."I took the glass out of his hand instead and drank what was left of it in one go. It burned going down, and I welcomed it."I can pay you," I said. "If that's what this needs to be."His eyebrows went up. "Now that's a first. Usually I'm the one paying.""Is that a no?"He looked at me for a long moment, and something in his expression shifted less amused, more







