Chapter 11

Asher was waiting on the edge of the bed, sheet now around his waist, head tilted back. When the bathroom door opened, he didn’t look over. He just said, “Well, that was fun.”

Luca stepped out slowly, shirt half on, hair wet, expression shuttered.

“I think she knows.”

“Of course she knows,” Asher said flatly. “She’s a Hartwell. They invented suspicion.”

Luca sat down beside him, not touching, not speaking.

Asher finally looked over. “You want to leave?”

Luca nodded once. “I should.”

He stood, but Asher caught his wrist, just gently. “Don’t lie about why.”

Luca paused. Swallowed hard.

Then he pulled away.

“I’m not,” he said softly. “I’m just doing what I always do. Surviving.”

Meanwhile, in the private drawing room on the east wing, Hannah perched on the edge of a chaise with her phone in hand, still scrolling through the brunch photos like she was studying a battlefield.

Vivian Hartwell stood by the window, back straight, lips pressed into a thin, unreadable line.

“You’re sure?” she asked, sipping from a crystal glass.

Hannah nodded, eyes still on the screen. “The room smelled like sex and rebellion.”

Vivian turned, raising a perfectly sculpted brow. “And you didn’t take a photo?”

“I’m reckless, Aunt Viv, not suicidal,” Hannah replied. “Besides, I don’t need proof. I just need the right words in the right ears.”

Vivian moved to the chair opposite her niece. “Luca Virelli is smart. Groomed. But he’s still just a man. He’ll slip.”

“I think he already did,” Hannah murmured, grinning. “And fell face first into your least favorite Hartwell.”

Vivian’s eyes narrowed.

“We let it fester a little longer,” she said. “And then we set it loose. Timing is everything.”

.............................

The weekend was over. By the time the cars were packed and the estate staff were hauling designer luggage down the Hartwell lake house steps, the air had changed.

It wasn’t just the ending of a weekend. It was the beginning of something no one dared name.

Serena stood by the SUV, sunglasses on, coat draped over her shoulders like armor.

Luca approached, jaw set, eyes rimmed red from lack of sleep. The lake wind tugged gently at his open collar. He hadn’t looked at Asher once all morning.

“Luca,” Serena said coolly, not even glancing at him.

He nodded once. “Ready.”

“Good. You have a fitting tomorrow,” she said. “For the engagement party suit. The grey one Paolo liked.”

“I remember.”

She tilted her head, studying him through the shield of her dark lenses. “You look tired.”

“Didn’t sleep much.”

She gave a small, sharp smile. “Noisy neighbors?”

His jaw flexed. He said nothing.

“I just think it’s interesting,” she went on, voice light, almost airy, “how someone who’s supposed to be the face of tradition and prestige would forget to lock a bedroom door.”

Luca’s breath hitched. Subtle. But she saw it.

Her smile widened. “Don’t worry. I didn’t say anything. Daddy wouldn’t understand. And Paolo? Well… he’s still old school enough to think private school and yacht club make a man untouchable.”

Luca turned toward her, slowly. “What do you want?”

“Oh,” she said innocently, “I don’t want anything. You and I are in this together, remember? We keep the house of cards upright.”

She stepped closer, brushing a speck of lint from his shoulder. Her voice dropped, syrupy and soft.

“Just… act the part. Smile. Toast. Make it believable. And keep your hands off my brother.”

Luca’s throat tightened. “It was a mistake.”

“Of course it was,” she said sweetly. “One you don’t get to repeat.”

The drive back to the city felt longer than it should have.

Luca sat in the backseat of his father’s Maybach, staring out the window, watching trees blur into steel and skyline.

His mind felt like static fragments of last night replaying in loops he couldn’t stop.

Asher’s voice. The feel of his skin. The way their mouths found each other like they’d been waiting.

You kissed me like you wanted everything.

Luca closed his eyes.

It meant nothing.

It had to mean nothing.

He reached his penthouse just after sunset.

The silence inside was immediate. Cold.

His assistant had stocked the bar, refilled the espresso pods, even set out the branded welcome package for his fiancée, a small box of curated gifts, hand picked for photo ops.

The engagement date was two days away.

Luca walked past it all, straight into the bathroom, and turned on the faucet.

He splashed his face again.

Still couldn’t breathe right.

He gripped the edge of the sink.

“This doesn’t define you,” he said out loud.

The mirror gave no answer. Just the hollow eyed man staring back.

“You’re not like him.”

He wasn’t gay.

He couldn’t be.

It had been a moment. A mistake. A loss of control, the kind of indulgence men were allowed before being leashed by duty. Everyone slipped, didn’t they?

He hadn’t felt anything.

That wasn’t what it was.

He didn’t want Asher. Not really.

Luca pushed away from the counter and paced the length of the living room. One hand in his hair. The other fisting the hem of his shirt.

He wasn’t spiraling. He was clarifying.

This was survival.

Across town, Asher Hartwell dropped his duffel bag on the floor of his apartment and stood in the dark for a long time.

He hadn’t said goodbye.

He hadn’t needed to.

The look on Luca’s face that morning had been clear: a shut door, a line in the sand, a don’t follow me.

So Asher didn’t.

But it stung.

He kicked off his boots and collapsed onto the couch, arms flung over the back, eyes trained on the ceiling.

He’d promised himself not to get pulled in. Not again. Not after what happened last time, years ago, a different man, a different war, but the same outcome.

He was always someone’s mistake.

He thought Luca might be different.

He thought wrong.

Back at the Virelli penthouse, Luca stood on his balcony, looking down at the city that had made him, the empire he was supposed to lead, the press waiting to idolize him, the boardrooms that would eat him alive if they smelled anything human beneath the surface.

He pulled out his phone.

Scrolled through his photos.

Stopped on one.

A blurry shot from the bar that night. Asher, smirking, holding a glass, lights behind him like stars.

Luca stared at it for a long time.

Then deleted it.