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Chapter 19 – Matteo’s Warning
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2025-06-23 17:25:19Camila had invited Matteo to the estate for a late-afternoon strategy session. Something to do with donor placement and the Foundation’s upcoming portfolio. Elise hadn’t been asked to join.
She didn’t ask why.
But when she passed the library and heard Matteo’s voice — low, deliberate — she didn’t stop.
She just walked away.
—
By dusk, the library was supposed to be empty.
It wasn’t.
She stepped inside without hesitation.
The room smelled of old leather and cedar polish. Low light pooled across the rug, softening the carved furniture into suggestion. A decanter glinted like a forgotten temptation.
Matteo was still there.
She felt him before she saw him — not as sound, but pressure. The air thickened. Space shifted.
He stepped into view between the central shelves, holding a slim leather folder, unopened.
“Interesting ring,” he said.
“It wasn’t yours to comment on,” Elise replied.
He moved forward. “That’s never stopped you from wearing things meant for someone else.”
“Cassian offered it.”
“And you accepted.”
“I accept what’s useful.”
Matteo didn’t sit. He paced the perimeter, slow and soundless. At the bar cart, he poured a measured stream of dark liquor into a crystal tumbler — sharp, restrained, surgical. He didn’t drink.
Just held it — like a weapon that hadn’t chosen its moment yet.
“You’ve grown efficient,” he said.
“You’ve grown confident,” she answered.
“Confident?” His brow arched. “Or careless?”
“You’re still talking to me.”
He turned fully. His stance didn’t shift, but the air did.
“The gallery errand. The parcel. Rafe. I expected a louder reaction.”
“You weren’t the audience.”
“You didn’t lose.”
“I didn’t need to win. I needed clarity.”
He studied her — not her dress, not her posture, but her calibration. Her edges. Her openings. He studied her like blueprints: for weakness, for structure, for the places something sharp could be inserted and hidden.
“You’re playing Cassian,” he said.
“And he’s letting me.”
“He doesn’t understand what he’s stepping into.”
“He never did.”
“But he thinks the ring means something.”
“It does.”
He tilted his head, waiting.
Elise met his gaze, sharp and cold.
“Just not what he wants it to be.”
Then Matteo stepped in — slow, silent, close. Closer than he had any right to be. He reached for her left hand and took it like it already belonged to him. Not gently. Not roughly. Just… purposefully.
He tilted it back, exposing her palm, his thumb dragging across the inside of her ring finger — a soft, absent pressure that left heat in its wake. When he circled the stone, it wasn’t possessive.
It was proprietary.
“It doesn’t belong there,” he murmured. “Not on that hand. Not from him.”
The pressure lingered, not hard. But precise. Testing. Measuring what she’d allow.
Elise didn’t flinch.
But her pulse didn’t stay neutral either.
She leaned slightly closer — not yielding, but daring. Her voice dropped to something sharp.
“Then take it off.”
His expression didn’t change.
But the line of his jaw shifted, tight.
He didn’t.
Instead, he stepped back.
Not retreat.
Recalibration.
“You’ve always been more valuable than you realize,” he said. “Especially when you’re not mine.”
Her eyes held his.
“I’m not yours,” she said. “And I never will be.”
—
Later that evening, Elise stood at her window, one hand resting on the sill. The garden stretched beneath her in deepening shadow. She hadn’t removed the ring.
Not yet.
She opened the journal.
He doesn’t like to share.
Not from pride.
From possession.
Cassian.
The Foundation.
The city.
Even me.
Especially me.
His touch lingered like a question he didn’t dare speak.
But I heard it.
And I answered.
She closed the book.
She didn’t hide it.
The thought didn’t need protection.
It had already hardened into steel.
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