The Devil at the Balcony Door

I had no idea how my feet carried me upstairs. Honestly.

One second, I was still in the back corridor of the villa, clutching a bottle of Barolo like a woman who had just lost her fiancé and received alcohol as legal compensation.

The next, I was climbing the curved stone staircase toward the east wing, passing portraits of Bandini ancestors who all looked like they had once ordered poor people off their lawns.

I wanted to laugh at that.

The sounds of the party drifted up from below. Music. Laughter. Glasses. The names of important families being called in warm, expensive voices. Everyone else was still living in the same night. I was the only one who had been dragged somewhere else, somewhere cold and foggy and filled with Lorenzo’s words circling like flies over rotten fruit.

“Sad, really.”

“She’s too dependent.”

“She’ll walk down the aisle, look at me, cry, and everyone will call it romantic.”

My hand tightened around the banister.

I used to think pain came like a knife. Sharp, quick, obvious. It didn’t. Pain came like fog. It slipped through a tiny opening, slowly, and then suddenly the entire world had no shape.

I reached the private terrace upstairs, a wide balcony overlooking the lake. The glass door stood slightly open. Outside, the night air slapped my face gently. Lake Como stretched dark below, reflecting the villa lights like jewelry dropped into the water.

So beautiful.

So fucking rude.

I walked to the stone railing and set the bottle of Barolo beside me. The wind lifted the ends of my hair. My dress shifted around my calves, too soft for a night that had just become so ugly.

I stared at the lake and tried to organize my thoughts.

Lorenzo kissed Camilla.

That was a fact.

Lorenzo lied in his message.

Another fact.

Lorenzo used my fear, the thing I had trusted him most to hold gently, as proof that I would never have enough backbone to leave.

The ugliest fact of all.

I had cried in his car. I had sat in the passenger seat with trembling hands, too embarrassed to admit I had seen my stalker again across the street from campus. Lorenzo hadn’t asked questions in a bored voice.

He locked the car doors, took off his jacket, draped it over my shoulders, and said, “You’re safe with me.”

I believed him.

I was twenty, scared, exhausted, and he looked like an answer the mother nature had sent in Italian shoes.

Now I wanted to go back to that time and shake the girl sitting in his car. I wanted to tell her, “sweetheart, not every man who closes a door is protecting you. Some of them are just making sure you learn the sound of the lock.”

The glass door behind me creaked softly.

I didn’t turn around. “Leave me alone, Lorenzo.”

“Not him.” The voice was low, and far too easy to recognize for a man I had only met a few hours ago.

I closed my eyes for a moment and look at him.

Zachary Bandini stepped onto the terrace like he owned a majority share of the night air. His shoes barely made a sound against the stone floor. I caught his reflection in the glass, tall, dark, unhurried. He stopped beside me, then set a glass of whiskey on the railing.

“I didn’t ask for it,” I said.

“I didn’t ask for my brother to be an idiot. This night is full of surprises.”

I looked at the glass. The amber liquid caught the light from the room behind us, gleaming like a sin with a very good lawyer.

“I have wine.”

“You’re hugging it, not drinking it.”

“Barolo and I are bonding.”

“Whiskey is faster.”

I turned toward him. Zach wasn’t smiling, but there was a calmness in his face that made me want to push him off the balcony because he didn’t look nearly shaken enough.

I took the glass because my hand needed something to do besides form a fist. “You’re not surprised at all.”

His eyes moved to my face. “I’m surprised he did it at our family villa the night before his wedding. That’s stupid even by his standards.”

I let out one short, humorless laugh. “So you knew.”

“Knew what?”

“About Camilla.”

“No.”

“But you knew he was an asshole.”

Zach lifted one shoulder. “Anyone with a brother knows some degree of his assholery.”

“Incredible. Apparently it runs in the family.”

The corner of his mouth moved. “You’re angry.”

“Wow. Brilliant analysis, Harvard.”

He tilted his head slightly. His hair fell over his forehead, making him look like a man who should be banned from churches unless supervised. “You want me to lie? Fine. You look very calm. Very bridal. Very much like you don’t want to burn this house down to the foundation.”

I drank the whiskey.

Stupid.

Whiskey was not water. Whiskey went down my throat like a bad decision set on fire. I coughed once, and Zach, the asshole, looked like he was enjoying my suffering within the limits of good manners.

“It’s disgusting,” I said.

“It’s twenty-five-year-old whiskey.”

“Then it’s historically disgusting.”

He laughed softly.

The sound made something shift in my stomach, and I immediately hated whatever it was. I had no room for new reactions. Every room inside me was already occupied by humiliation, pain, and the need not to fall apart in front of another Bandini man.

I looked back at the lake. “You’re all the same.”

“We are?”

“Bandinis. Rich men. Men with expensive watches and hearts locked in safes. You destroy something, then tell someone else to clean it up before breakfast.”

“I usually clean up before bed.”

I looked at him for a little longer.

There was something infuriating about Zach because he didn’t pretend to be good. Lorenzo wore gentleness like a custom-tailored suit. Zach stood there without packaging. Sharp, damaged, beautiful in a way that felt inappropriate, and far too aware that the world often gave him permission simply because his face could make women forget their principles for three seconds. Sadly, I wasn’t in the best condition to defend mine.

“You should’ve told me,” I said.

“About my brother? About Camilla? About the fact that the man you were going to marry is a coward?” He took a sip of whiskey from his own glass. “Pick one. I can apologize more efficiently.”

I glared at him. “Don’t talk like you’re better than he is.”

“I’m not.”

“At least we agree.”

“I’m just more honest.”

“A bad boy’s favorite line.”

“A woman’s favorite line when she doesn’t want to admit she’d rather know where the knife is.”

I stepped half a pace closer without realizing it. “I don’t like bad boys.”

“Not now?”

My face felt hot with anger. Pure anger. If there was a little something else setting fire to the edges, that was none of my business, and I would not be making a note of it.

“You think this is funny?” I asked.

“No.”

“You look like you’re enjoying it.”

“I enjoy it when people stop lying.”

“I just found my fiancé kissing my bridesmaid and he’s calling my trauma a leash.”

“I heard.”

“Then why are you still standing here like we’re playing tennis?”

For the first time, his face changed. Not by much. A man like him had probably learned to keep most of his reactions somewhere people couldn’t find them. But his jaw tightened, and his eyes dropped briefly to the hand gripping my glass too hard.

“Because if I speak too gently,” he said, “you’ll break.”

I went quiet.

He set his glass on the railing. “You can still go back.”

I blinked. “What?”

“Go back to my brother.” He faced the lake, his profile cut by moonlight and the villa lights. “Wipe the lipstick from his mouth, let Camilla cry in the bathroom, then walk down the aisle tomorrow. You smile. He smiles. Everyone is relieved. Your family and mine stay rich, the pictures still look beautiful, and you can become the beautiful wife and still silent.”

I raised my hand and slapped him.

My palm burned.

Zach didn’t step back. His head turned slightly with the impact, then slowly came back to me.

For one second, I thought he would get angry.

He touched the corner of his mouth with his thumb, looked at the small smear of blood on his skin, then smiled.

“Good,” he said quietly. “At least now you’ve stopped pretending to be okay.”

The breath tore out of my chest. “Don’t talk like you know me.”

“I don’t need to know you to know you’re not ready to be a victim.”

I wanted to slap him again.

I wanted to cry.

I wanted to go downstairs, stand on a table, and announce that Lorenzo Bandini was a failed evolutionary specimen. I wanted to smash the bottle of Barolo against the marble floor. I wanted Camilla to choke on her own tears just a little, nothing fatal, only educational. I wanted Lorenzo to look at me and feel small, for once in his life.

I frowned and looked at Zach. “What’s the one thing Lorenzo hates most?” I asked.

“Losing to me.”

Oh. So that was why...

Well... now it all clicked.

Lorenzo had hated Zach. Every time his brother’s name came up, Lorenzo’s jaw tightened. Every one of Zach’s achievements became something to criticize. Every Zach scandal became proof that he was damaged. Every Zach victory became luck, connections, the world’s habit of rewarding the wrong man.

Zach was the mirror that always made Lorenzo look smaller.

I looked at the black tie around Zach’s neck. The knot was slightly loose, my hand still burned from the slap. My chest still hurt, but the tiny fire inside it had found oxygen.

“Aubrey.”

My name sounded heavier this time.

I liked it. I didn’t want to like it, so naturally my body had chosen tonight to become the second traitor.

He stepped closer. “Sleeping with me isn’t revenge you can erase tomorrow morning with aspirin and an elegant attitude.”

I looked into his eyes. “You’re so full of yourself.”

“I’m realistic.” He smiled. “And this isn’t about me.” His voice dropped, lower and slower. “It’s about you. You’re hurt, angry, and looking for something sharp. I’m the kind of sharp thing you shouldn’t hold.”

“Then don’t stand so close.”

“I haven’t moved.”

Shit...

I was the one who had moved closer.

I laughed at myself. “I spent two years looking for safety.” I exhaled. “I chose the man who always opened doors, always held my hand, always said the world out there couldn’t touch me as long as he was there.” I looked back at the lake, but all I could see was the wine room door, Lorenzo’s mouth, and the word sad stuck to the wall. “Turns out safety is just another word for a cage when the man holding the key enjoys the sound of you asking to be let out.”

“Aubrey.” Not flirtatious. Not smug. Just my name, with something almost careful inside it.

I couldn’t take careful.

So I turned, grabbed his tie, and pulled him down.

I kissed him.

His mouth met mine with one brief second of surprise that died quickly, then his hands came up to the stone railing on either side of me, trapping me without touching me.

That was worse.

Better.

I didn’t know. I wasn’t exactly holding a moral performance review.

He tasted like whiskey, night, and trouble, and I still pulled harder on his tie.

Zach made a low sound in the back of his throat, something that made my spine forget it had structural responsibilities.

Then he kissed me back. Slow but burning, controlled only enough to make me want to ruin that control with both hands.

I thought about Lorenzo just long enough to enjoy how much he would hate this.

Then Zach bit my lower lip gently, and the thought burned away. He pulled back first. His breath brushed my mouth.

His eyes were dark, his smile gone again. “This is a bad idea.”

I was still holding his tie. “I know.”

“You’ll regret it.”

“Maybe.” I lifted one shoulder. “But now, I want to feel something.”

“To him?”

I looked at his mouth. There was a small red mark at the corner of his lip from my slap. “No,” I said. “To me.”

Zach watched me long enough that even the wind seemed to hold its breath. Then he picked up the bottle of Barolo from the railing with one hand and the whiskey glass with the other.

“If you walk inside with me, I’m not going to be the good man who tells you to go home to your mother.”

“I didn’t ask for a good man.”

His smile appeared. “You’re asking for more than that, bride-to-be.”

I walked past him toward the glass door. “If you’re too scared, just say so.”

He laughed softly behind me. “I’m starting to understand why Lorenzo chose the stupidest possible way to lose you.”

We walked down the upstairs corridor without speaking. Below us, the party was still breathing. Inside my chest, something that used to be called a future was still burning, but my steps no longer faltered.

Strange, how my anger could become temporary bones, strong enough to carry a body that should have collapsed.

Zach stopped in front of a dark wooden door at the end of the corridor, and he opened the door.

The room beyond was dark, lit only by a tiny lamp near the window and the glow of the lake coming through the open curtains. Zach stood in the doorway and looked at me, one hand still on the knob.

“Last chance to leave, bride-to-be.”

I looked at him.

Behind me was the party. Lorenzo. Camilla. The white dress. The altar. Two families that would wake tomorrow and discover their beautiful arrangement had blood on the floor.

In front of me was Zachary Bandini.

A mistake smiling like an invitation.

I walked inside without answering.