MasukChapter 96: What Louisa SaidSera's phone rang. She saw Louisa's name on the screen and answered without thinking."I met your Roman today," Louisa said."He's not my." Sera started. Her grip tightened on the phone."Your Roman," Louisa cut in."Louisa." Sera closed her eyes. She leaned back against the couch. The single lamp still burned from the night before. Her heart beat hard in her chest."I engineered a seat next to him," Louisa said."You what?" Sera's eyes stayed shut. The words landed like a stone in her stomach. She pictured it. Louisa slid into the chair on purpose. Louisa is asking questions. The luncheon noise around them. Her throat felt tight.Louisa did not pause. She described the conversation. Every part. The way Roman had sat there and answered without charm. No smooth excuses. He had told her about the text Sera sent that he never answered. He had named the Thursday dinners he cancelled one by one. He had described the laugh at Varro's that Sera gave her friends b
Louisa sat down next to Roman at the charity luncheon. She had chosen the seat on purpose. The chair scraped lightly on the floor as she pulled it in. She set her small purse on the table and turned to face him straight on. The white tablecloth brushed her lap. A half-empty glass of water sat between them.Roman glanced over. He did not know who she was for thirty seconds. He saw an older woman with steady eyes and a calm face. Her posture was straight. Her hands rested in her lap. Then it clicked. Sera’s aunt. The one who had been there through everything. The one who loved Sera like a daughter.“I’m Louisa,” she said. “Sera’s aunt. I’m going to ask you questions and I’d like honest answers.”“All right,” Roman said. His voice stayed even. He put his fork down. The plate in front of him had gone cold. He did not care. His stomach tightened a little, but he kept his face still.“Why did it take you this long?” Louisa asked. She did not look away.Roman did not deflect. He answered hon
"I think you missed a spot," I said, the words slipping out before I could check the impulse.Roman stopped dead. He didn’t turn around immediately; he just let my voice settle in the air between us in the hotel lobby. When he finally pivoted, his dark eyes were hooded and unreadable. He looked at me,really looked at me.and the marble floor felt like it was shifting beneath my heels."Sera," he said. The way he said my name was like a low vibration, a hum that started in my chest and ended in my fingertips. "I didn't think you frequented the Peninsula for mid-morning meetings.""Things change," I said, clutching my tablet a little tighter. "I have a board member who likes the ambience. You?""Acquisition. It’s a bloodbath." He checked his watch silver, heavy, and perfect. "I have exactly ten minutes before I have to go back in there and finish them.""I have fifteen," I said.We didn't debate it. We didn't even ask. We just moved toward the coffee bar in the corner, a silent agreement
Sera stepped into the estate. The door closed softly behind her. Rosa had left a light on in the hall. Sera turned off the extra ones but left one burning. The single glow felt right in the quiet. She walked to the living room and sat on the couch. She did not reach for a book. She did not open her laptop. She did not check her phone. She just sat. The evening played in her head. Roman standing by the table. The three seconds they looked at each other. The wine on her tongue. The way he had spoken every hard truth across the small table. She sat with all of it. The good parts. The sharp parts. The way his eyes had stayed on hers the whole time. She thought about what he said. The specific things. The text she had sent that night he never answered. The Thursday dinners he had cancelled one by one until they stopped existing. The laugh at Varro’s that had come easier with her friends than it ever did with him. He had named every single piece without excuse. No smooth words. No blame.
The elevator doors hiss shut, sealing me into a silence that used to be a physical weight. For years, this penthouse was just a cold, glass box.a marble tomb where I paced like a ghost haunting my own life. Every corner of it used to scream that I was alone.Tonight, the silence is different.I walk into my study, and my leather soles silent against the mahogany floor. I don’t bother with the lights. The city skyline does the work for me, bleeding neon blues and jagged whites across the desk where my life is laid out in spreadsheets and contracts.I see the notebook. The leather-bound record of every move she made, every mistake I committed, and every desperate plan I had to claw her back into my world. My hand hovers over the cover, but I don’t touch it. I don’t need to. The man who needed that notebook died somewhere between the appetizer and the dessert tonight.I sink into my chair, the leather creaking under my weight. I just sit there. I let the evening breathe. Every second of
Chapter 91: SaturdayRoman stood by the table. He had come early on purpose. There was no phone in his hand. He just waited, eyes fixed on the door. His chest felt tight in a way he had not felt in years. This dinner was theirs alone. No Aldric. No company. Just them.The door opened. Sera walked in. She saw him right away. He stood there, tall and still.She looked at him. He looked at her. Three seconds passed in silence. Her heart pounded hard. Something twisted in her chest."You look." Roman said. The words stuck. He stopped himself. She waited, hands at her sides. He took a breath and chose different ones. "I'm glad you came.""So am I," Sera said. Her voice came out quiet but real. A small warmth moved through her even as her nerves jumped.They sat across from each other. The table was small, made for just this. The waiter poured red wine into their glasses. They hardly noticed him. This was their time.Roman picked up his glass but did not drink yet. "We should talk. Really t
Isabella went to bed at eleven thirty.Roman said he would follow soon. He went to his study instead, removed his jacket, and sat in the chair he had been sitting in most nights since the divorce when there was something he could not set down. He left most of the lights off. Just the desk lamp, its
Sera had been reading for twenty minutes when her phone lit up.Unknown number. She looked at it for one second. Then she set it face-up on the cushion beside her and went back to her page.She knew.She couldn't have explained how. The number was unsaved, clean, nothing her phone recognized. But s
Sera arrived at seven with Dante and knew within ninety seconds that Roman was not yet in the room.She knew the way she had always known things about him, before the information reached her brain. The room felt like a room that had not yet changed. She greeted the hospital director at the entrance
The Montague dining room held ten comfortably and twenty when it needed to.Tonight it held seven. Rosa had set the good china without being asked, the candles in the silver holders that only came out for family, the specific red that Savio reserved for evenings that were not business. These detail







