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Chapter 9 – Matteo’s Move
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2025-06-21 08:20:56Matteo D’Amaro was not the kind of man who chased.
He didn’t need to. Most people came to him — out of respect, fear, or necessity. But Elise Caro wasn’t most people.
And she had become a problem.
She was no longer just Cassian’s bride-to-be. Whispers had started circling from investors, government aides, even the press — small, speculative notes asking who exactly she was and what had changed. At dinners, Cassian looked distracted. At meetings, he deferred to no one but her. Even the enforcers had started treating her with a cautious kind of reverence, as if unsure whether she outranked them.
Matteo noticed it all.
And more importantly, he noticed her.
He waited a month after the gala.
Then, early one evening, Elise received a handwritten invitation in the most old-fashioned way possible — by a man in gloves and a tailored suit at her family’s gate.
No card. No email. Just a note pressed into her hand with her name in sharp black ink.
Dinner. No press. No politics. Come as you are.
M.D.
She didn’t reply.
She showed up.
—
The location was unexpected — not one of the D’Amaro family’s famous estates or glass towers. A quiet villa in Trastevere, tucked behind stone archways and wisteria vines.
When Elise stepped through the door, Matteo was already waiting.
No guards. No wine poured. Just him in a black shirt, sleeves rolled up, no tie. The top buttons undone, exposing the clean line of his collarbone and just a trace of something smooth and confident beneath the surface.
But then she walked in — and the air changed.
Her dress was black, liquid-soft, molded to her like silk had fallen in love with her shape. Her skin gleamed under the low villa lights, golden and bare where the dress parted along her thigh. She didn’t walk. She moved like something choreographed — back straight, eyes sharp, every step a quiet performance of control.
Matteo went still.
Not visibly. But Elise saw the way his breath slowed. How his gaze followed the sway of her hips. How one finger tensed slightly on the edge of the table.
“Elise,” he said. “I wasn’t sure you’d come.”
She stepped further inside, gaze drifting across the room.
“You don’t invite people unless you know they’ll say yes.”
Matteo smiled. “I hoped you’d understand the difference.”
The table was set for two, but not elaborately. It was intimate, intentionally stripped of performance.
He gestured to a chair. “I cooked.”
She raised a brow. “That’s either deeply charming or deeply suspicious.”
“Both,” he said. “Try it and decide.”
She sat slowly, crossing her legs beneath the table. The slit of her dress parted slightly, and she let it. His eyes flicked down — once, with precision — then returned to hers. Silent interest. No apology.
They ate in comfortable silence for a few minutes — grilled seafood, bright lemon, a side of something earthy and unfamiliar.
“Cassian’s not here,” she said finally.
“No.”
“Does he know you invited me?”
“No.”
She met his gaze. “Should he?”
“That depends. Are you here as his fiancée or something else?”
Elise smiled. It didn’t reach her eyes.
“I’m always something else.”
Matteo refilled her glass. His fingers brushed hers. Not by accident.
“That’s what makes you dangerous.”
“And that’s what makes me useful.”
He leaned back slightly, watching her with the calm intensity of a man used to getting answers without asking questions.
“You’ve changed him,” he said.
“Cassian?”
“He’s different. Restless. Possessive. Like he’s holding on to something that might already be gone.”
“Maybe he is.”
“Are you?”
She tilted her head. “Am I what?”
“Gone.”
Matteo’s tone stayed smooth. But his knuckles flexed once against the stem of his wine glass.
“I’m not sure I was ever really there,” she said.
He didn’t smile.
Instead, he studied her — not like a strategist, but like a man trying to solve something he didn’t understand yet.
“You really believe that, don’t you?”
She looked away — not nervously, but with deliberate control. “I know what it feels like to be looked at and not seen.”
That surprised him.
For a man like Matteo, surprise was rare.
“Is that what Cassian did?”
She gave a half-smile. “Isn’t that what men do when they’re given something beautiful?”
Matteo went still.
Not because she was playing him. But because she wasn’t.
There was something raw in that moment — pain lacquered with poise. It wasn’t seduction. It was a confession disguised as power.
And that unsettled him.
Not like lust. Not like Cassian’s frantic want. This was different. Elise didn’t just walk into rooms — she haunted them. She didn’t beg for attention — she erased the need for anything else.
He realised, then, that it wasn’t her beauty that made her dangerous.
It was her detachment.
A woman who wanted nothing? That was terrifying.
And addictive.
“You admire Cassian,” she said. “But you don’t trust him.”
“I trust his ambition. Not his grip.”
“And you think yours is better?”
“I know mine’s quieter.”
He stood and walked to the window, then glanced back.
“Come here.”
She didn’t move immediately.
“Matteo.”
“You’re used to being the storm,” he said. “Let me show you what happens when the fire doesn’t try to burn you. It just warms.”
There was something unnerving in his calm. It wasn’t desperation. It wasn’t obsession. It was patience.
And patience was a deeper danger.
She rose, her dress rippling like black smoke, and joined him at the window.
He didn’t touch her.
Not at first.
Just stood close enough that the hem of her dress whispered against his shirt. His breath was even. Controlled.
“You don’t have to choose a side yet.”
“I’m not here to choose.”
“But you are here.”
He turned slowly, lifting his hand to trace a line along her jaw — not possessive, just curious.
“You’ve haunted my nephew since the day you met,” he murmured. “But I think you were always meant for someone who doesn’t need to dominate you.”
“And you think that’s you?”
“I think I understand what you are better than he does.”
His hand slid behind her neck. It was warm. Intentional. Anchored.
Her pulse flickered once in her throat.
“Cassian will kill you,” she said.
“If you let him have you.”
Matteo leaned in — just close enough for lips to brush lips. Not a kiss. A question.
She didn’t stop him.
But she didn’t answer, either.
Her hand touched his chest. She felt the tension there — not rage, not hunger. Stillness. Power.
Then, just before his mouth claimed hers, she pulled back.
“I’m not yours either.”
“Not yet,” he said.
She stepped away. Slow. Steady.
Her eyes didn’t waver.
“Goodnight, Matteo.”
His mouth curved.
“Not goodbye?”
She didn’t answer.
The silence said everything.
As she left the villa, the night air cooled her skin, but her blood still hummed.
Two men. Both dangerous.
One wanted to cage her.
And Elise?
She wasn’t choosing between them.
She was using them both.
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