Chapter 12

**ARIA**

For a second neither of us moved.

His hand was around my wrist, tight, his body half over mine, and his eyes were open but not fully here yet. His breathing was ragged, chest heaving.

"Elise," he whispered again.

My name sat in my throat and did not come out.

I don't know why. I should have said it immediately. I am Aria. I am not her. You are dreaming and I am a girl you brought her on contract and you need to let go of my wrist right now.

But I didn't.

For one terrible second I just let him look at me like that. Like I was something he had lost and found again.

Then his eyes focused.

Really focused.

I watched it happen. The exact moment he came fully back into the room and saw me. Not her. And understood exactly where his body was and exactly how close his face was to mine.

He let go of my wrist.

But he did not move back.

We were face to face in the dark, both breathing too fast.

I could feel my heart pounding against my ribs. I wondered if he could feel it too.

I realised in an instant that this would be the best time to actually find out what was going on.

I wasn't completely sure. But I had to try.

Anything would be better than being left in the dark like this.

"Mr. Black." My voice came out barely above a whisper.

He still did not move.

"Tell me about Elise."

Something crossed his face that I had never seen on him before. Not the fury. Not the cold precision. Something underneath all of that. Something raw and unguarded that looked like pain.

He looked at the window. Like he needed somewhere to put his eyes that was not me.

"She was the only person I ever let close," he said.

I did not move. Did not breathe too loud. Did not want to break whatever fragile thing this was.

"How did you meet her?"

"She walked into a room and told me I was wrong about something." The corner of his mouth moved. Just slightly. "In front of twelve people."

"And... that impressed you?"

"She was not afraid of me," he said it simply. Like that explained everything it needed to explain. "Nobody does that."

I stayed quiet for a moment. "What happened to her?"

His jaw tightened.

"She started interfering. Getting too involved." A pause. "I told her to leave it alone."

His voice dropped. "She didn't listen."

His hand tightened slightly against the sheet between us.

"You were trying to protect her," I said.

He didn't answer.

The room felt like it had shrunk around us.

"It was not enough."

The silence that followed was the kind that has weight.

"I'm sorry," I said.

He looked back at me then. Away from the window. And the way he looked at me in that moment, not at her face on mine but at me, at the person sitting in the dark listening to him say things he had never said out loud, made something in my chest pull so hard it almost hurt.

"I look like her," I said.

"Yes."

"Is that why you took me?"

The silence stretched long enough that I stopped expecting an answer.

"I told myself it wasn't."

And then something shifted.

I felt it before it happened. Some change in the air between us, in the way his eyes dropped to my mouth for just a fraction of a second before coming back up.

He held my hand again, thumb moving slowly against my skin, slow and deliberate this time, and every single thought in my head dissolved completely.

He kissed me.

What just happened?

Did he just-

Series of questions racked themselves through my head as I melted into the kiss.

His hand slid into my hair and he kissed me like he was starving for it. It was slow at first, devastatingly slow, and then it deepened and stopped being slow entirely.

My hands found his chest without my permission and I felt him exhale against my mouth.

His forehead dropped to mine and we stayed there breathing the same air.

Then he pulled back.

Fast.

Like something had burned him.

He was off the bed and at the window before I had fully processed that he had moved. Standing with his back to me, one hand pressed flat against the glass.

I sat up slowly.

The absence of him very physical now.

The room still smelled faintly of cedarwood and rain that had blown in through the open window.

"What game are you playing, Aria?" His voice was back.

The question stung more than it should have.

What did he mean by that?

"What am I trying to do?" I asked, my voice bitter.

"I didn't ask to be brought here. I never did."

"By the end of the year you leave. You are only in this room for protection."

I stared at his back.

“Protection from who?”

He didn't answer immediately.

“The men tonight weren't just random thieves,” I said.

His shoulders stiffened.

“They came for me.”

“Yes,” he said finally.

“Why?”

His jaw tightened.

“Because someone out there is trying to drag you into something that has nothing to do with you.”

My stomach dropped.

No.

I haven't done anything wrong.

I shouldn't be dragged into any of this.

My fists clenched uselessly at my sides as I thought of what to say.

But no words formed.

I lay back down, staring at the ceiling.

He didn't get back in bed. I didn't even want him to.

But I couldn't stop my mind from reeling back to the last few minutes. The warmth of his lips. The way his fingers ran through my hair.

I just couldn't stop thinking about it.

The deal was for me to leave after a year.

One year and I walked out of here back to whatever was left of my life.

That had always been the plan.

The thought arrived simply, clearly, and with the particular violence of something you cannot unknow once you have known it.

I didn't want to leave the penthouse.

The realization made my stomach twist.

Because the truth sitting underneath it was far worse.

I wasn't sure I wanted to leave him either.

And that terrified me more than anything that had happened tonight.