CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE: THE KISS

The Palazzo Reale had been transformed into a glittering wonderland for the diplomatic gala, its baroque halls filled with Milan's elite and international dignitaries. Crystal chandeliers cast golden light over silk gowns and perfectly tailored tuxedos, while waiters glided between guests carrying champagne and delicate hors d'oeuvres.

Natalia stood near the grand staircase, a vision in deep emerald silk that hugged her curves and made her honey-brown eyes shimmer like liquid gold. She'd chosen the dress deliberately—it was the exact shade of green that Alina had worn to their first charity gala together, the night they'd met. A test, perhaps, or a torment. She wasn't sure which.

"You look stunning tonight," came a familiar voice behind her.

She turned to find Rafael approaching, devastatingly handsome in a midnight blue tuxedo that emphasized his broad shoulders and the sharp line of his jaw. His dark hair was perfectly styled, but she noticed the way his fingers kept running through it—a nervous habit she remembered from their past life together.

"Thank you," she said, accepting the champagne flute he offered. "You clean up rather well yourself."

"I try." His smile was polished, diplomatic, but his eyes held a different story. They moved over her face, her hair, the curve of her throat where her pulse beat visibly against her skin. "That color suits you."

"Does it?" She took a sip of champagne, watching him over the rim of her glass. "Or does it remind you of someone?"

The question hung between them like a challenge. Rafael's expression flickered—confusion, recognition, something that might have been pain.

"Everything reminds me of someone these days," he said quietly. "The question is whether that's intentional."

Before she could respond, Mayor Benedetti approached with a small entourage of officials and their spouses. "Mr. Moretti, Ms. De Luca! How wonderful to see you both here tonight."

The next hour passed in a blur of introductions and diplomatic small talk. Natalia played her role perfectly—charming, intelligent, just mysterious enough to be intriguing. She watched Rafael work the room with practiced ease, noting how he commanded attention without seeming to try, how other men deferred to him while women found excuses to touch his arm or lean closer when he spoke.

But throughout the evening, she felt his attention on her like a physical touch. When she laughed at Ambassador Chen's story about his grandson, Rafael's eyes found hers across the room. When she discussed architectural preservation with a group of cultural ministers, he appeared at her elbow with a fresh champagne flute before she'd even realized her glass was empty.

"You're watching me," she said during a brief moment when they found themselves alone near the buffet table.

"I'm watching everyone," Rafael replied, but his tone suggested otherwise. "It's a professional habit."

"Is it professional the way you've been watching me?" She turned to face him fully, her voice dropping to a whisper. "Because it feels like something else entirely."

Rafael's jaw tightened, and for a moment she thought he might deny it. Instead, he set down his champagne glass and gestured toward the garden doors. "Walk with me."

The palazzo's gardens were illuminated by soft lighting that created pools of gold among the manicured hedges and classical statuary. The sounds of the party faded as they walked deeper into the maze of pathways, their footsteps echoing on the stone walkways.

"You want to know why I've been watching you?" Rafael said when they reached a secluded alcove overlooking the fountain. "Because you're an enigma. You appear in my life with perfect timing, perfect credentials, perfect solutions to every problem I face. It's either the most incredible coincidence in history, or something else entirely."

"And what do you think it is?" Natalia asked, her heart racing despite her calm tone.

"I think you're manipulating me," Rafael said bluntly. "I think you've studied me, learned my weaknesses, and designed yourself to exploit them. The question is why."

The accusation should have made her angry. Instead, she felt almost relieved. This was familiar territory—the chess game of accusation and denial, the careful dance of revealing just enough truth to make the lie believable.

"That's quite an accusation," she said, moving closer to him. "What makes you think I'm capable of such elaborate deception?"

"Because you're too good at reading people," Rafael replied, his voice rough. "Too good at anticipating what they want to hear. Too good at making them trust you."

"Maybe I'm just naturally observant."

"Maybe." Rafael stepped closer, and she could smell his cologne, could see the flecks of silver in his blue eyes. "Or maybe you're something else entirely. Something dangerous."

"Dangerous how?" Her voice was barely above a whisper now.

"Because you make me feel things I thought I'd buried with her." The admission seemed to surprise him as much as it did her. "Because when I look at you, I see echoes of someone I loved. Someone who destroyed me."

Natalia's breath caught. This was the closest he'd come to admitting the truth—that he saw Alina in her, that the resemblance was more than coincidental.

"Maybe," she said carefully, "the person you loved didn't destroy you. Maybe she was destroyed by circumstances beyond her control."

"Is that what you think?" Rafael's hand came up to cup her face, his thumb tracing the line of her cheekbone. "That she was innocent?"

"I think," Natalia said, leaning into his touch despite every instinct screaming at her to pull away, "that sometimes the people we love most are the ones who pay the highest price for our choices."

"You speak as if you know something about loss."

"Don't we all?"

Rafael studied her face in the soft garden lighting, his expression intense and searching. "You're doing it again," he said quietly. "Deflecting. Turning the conversation back to philosophy instead of answering the question."

"What question?"

"Who are you really?" His other hand came up to frame her face, and she felt trapped between his palms, pinned by the intensity of his gaze. "Because you're not just Natalie De Luca, successful businesswoman from New York. You're something else. Something that makes my chest ache every time I look at you."

The confession hung between them like a live wire. Natalia knew she should pull away, should deflect with another clever response or diplomatic non-answer. Instead, she found herself leaning closer, drawn by the pain in his voice and the familiar warmth of his touch.

"Rafael," she whispered, and something in the way she said his name made his breath catch.

"You say my name like she used to," he said, his voice breaking slightly. "Like it means something to you."

"Maybe it does."

"That's impossible. You never knew her. You never knew us." But even as he said it, his thumbs were stroking across her cheekbones, and his eyes were searching her face with desperate intensity.

"Maybe I know more than you think," Natalia said, the words slipping out before she could stop them. "Maybe I know that you blamed yourself for her death. That you keep her engagement ring on a chain around your neck. That you haven't been able to sleep through the night since the night she died."

Rafael went very still. "How could you possibly know that?"

"Because I can see it in your eyes," she said, but her voice was shaking now. "Because I recognize the look of someone who's been broken by loss. Because I know what it feels like to love someone who couldn't save you."

"You're talking about yourself now," Rafael said, his voice soft but certain. "Someone broke you. Someone you loved."

"Yes," she whispered, and it was both truth and lie wrapped together. "Someone I loved let me down when I needed him most."

"What happened?"

"He believed a lie about me. He thought I had betrayed him, when all I ever wanted was to love him." Tears were burning behind her eyes now, and she couldn't tell if they were Natalia's or Alina's. "He let me die thinking he hated me."

Rafael's face went white. "What did you just say?"

The question came out strangled, desperate, and Natalia realized her mistake immediately. She'd said too much, revealed too much, let her guard down in the intimacy of the moment.

"I said he let me down," she said, trying to backtrack. "He let me down when I needed him most."

Natalie's heart beat as fast as a drum while she waited with bated breath to see if he would believe her and forget her mix up.

If she were alone, she would have facepalmed. How could she have been so stupid? 

Rafael seemed to mull over her words for a few seconds, his fingers stroking her face absent-mindedly. 

Thankfully, he didn't dwell long on it and instead took a slow step forward, bringing them closer together and crowding Natalie into a corner.

Natalie's breath seized for an entirely different reason.

They stood frozen like that, his hand on her face, her eyes locked on his. The sounds of the party faded into background noise, leaving only the thundering of her heart and the dangerous intimacy of the moment.

"You remind me of her," Rafael said, his voice rough. "The way you move, the way you think. Sometimes when you laugh, I forget she's gone."

"I'm not her," Natalia said, but her voice wavered.

"No," he agreed. "You're not. But you wear her skin, her voice, her laugh. And I don't know what to do with that."

The accusation hung between them like a challenge. Natalia felt exposed, raw, as if he could see straight through her carefully constructed facade to the truth beneath.

"You're imagining things," she said, but even she could hear the lie in her voice.

"Am I?" Rafael's other hand came up to frame her face. "Because every time I look at you, I see her. Every time you smile, every time you tilt your head just so, every time you—"

"Stop."

"I can't." His thumb brushed across her lower lip. "I've tried. God knows I've tried. But you're under my skin, Natalie. You're in my head. And I don't know if it's because you're manipulating me or because—"

"Because what?"

"Because I'm falling for you." The words came out like a confession torn from somewhere deep inside him. "And I don't know if that makes me a fool or a man finally ready to live again."

The air between them crackled with tension. Natalia could feel herself trembling, her carefully maintained control slipping away piece by piece.

"This is insane," she whispered.

"Yes," Rafael agreed, his lips now inches from hers. "It is."

The kiss happened like a collision—sudden, desperate, inevitable. His mouth crashed against hers with a hunger that spoke of weeks of suppressed desire and months of loneliness. Her hands fisted in his jacket, pulling him closer even as her mind screamed at her to stop.

It was nothing like the gentle kisses she remembered from their first life together. This was raw, desperate, almost violent in its intensity. Years of grief and guilt and need poured into the connection between them, making it feel more like a battle than a caress.

Rafael's hands tangled in her hair, holding her still as he deepened the kiss. She could taste whiskey on his tongue, could feel the desperation in the way he held her. And underneath it all, she could feel something else—recognition, as if his body remembered hers even when his mind couldn't.

For a moment, she let herself fall into it. Let herself remember what it felt like to be loved by him, to be wanted with this consuming intensity. But then reality crashed back over her like a wave.

She was supposed to be destroying him, not kissing him. She was supposed to be strong, calculating, in control. Not trembling in his arms like a lovesick girl.

With a gasp, she broke away, stumbling backward until she hit the stone balustrade. Rafael stood where she'd left him, his hair disheveled, his lips swollen, his eyes dark with something that might have been wonder or terror.

"I—" she started, then stopped, her fingers flying to her lips. They felt tender, sensitive, as if they'd been branded by his touch.

"Natalie," Rafael said, his voice hoarse. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean—"

"Don't." She held up a hand, stopping him. "Don't apologize. Don't explain. Just... don't."

She turned and fled, her heels clicking against the stone path as she hurried back toward the ballroom. Behind her, she heard Rafael call her name, but she didn't stop, didn't turn around.

In the bathroom, she locked the door and leaned against it, her breathing ragged. In the mirror, she looked wild—her hair mussed, her lipstick gone, her eyes bright with unshed tears.

She pressed her fingers to her lips again, remembering the feel of his mouth on hers. The way he'd tasted, the way he'd held her like she was something precious and fragile and necessary.

*This wasn't supposed to happen,* she thought desperately. *I'm supposed to be in control.*

But as she stared at her reflection, she realized that control was an illusion. She'd been telling herself she was manipulating him, using his attraction to her for her own ends. But the truth was more complicated, more dangerous.

She was falling for him again. Despite everything—despite the pain, despite the betrayal, despite the fact that he'd let her die—she was falling in love with Rafael Moretti all over again.

And that terrified her more than anything else.

Back in the garden, Rafael remained frozen where she'd left him, his fingers pressed to his lips. The kiss had lasted maybe thirty seconds, but it had shattered something inside him that he'd thought was permanently broken.

For those brief moments, holding her in his arms, he'd felt alive for the first time in two years. Not just alive—complete. As if a missing piece of himself had suddenly clicked back into place.

But that was impossible. Alina was dead. He'd held her lifeless body in his arms, had felt her heart stop beating. Whatever he was feeling for Natalie De Luca, it wasn't love. It couldn't be.

Could it?

He picked up his abandoned whiskey glass and drained it in one swallow, welcoming the burn. Then he straightened his jacket, ran a hand through his hair, and walked back toward the ballroom.

He had a reputation to maintain, a business to run. He couldn't afford to be undone by a single kiss, no matter how earth-shattering it had felt.

But as he rejoined the party, smiling and making conversation as if nothing had happened, he couldn't shake the feeling that everything had changed. That the careful balance he'd maintained for two years had been irrevocably shattered.

And somewhere in the crowd, Natalia was doing the same thing—smiling, laughing, pretending that her world hadn't just tilted on its axis.

Neither of them noticed Isabella watching from the shadows, her expression thoughtful as she processed what she'd witnessed. The kiss had been brief, but the aftermath spoke volumes. The way they'd both fled in opposite directions, the way they were now avoiding each other so obviously—it told her everything she needed to know.

Rafael Moretti was falling for Natalie De Luca. And that made the mysterious heiress more dangerous than Isabella had initially realized.

It was time to accelerate her own plans. Before things progressed any further, she needed to discover exactly who Natalie De Luca really was—and eliminate her before she could destroy everything Isabella had worked to build.

The game was about to become much more serious.