جميع فصول : الفصل -الفصل 130

 Luca had never been afraid of beautiful things. His entire life had been built around them — the rare, the exquisite, the impossible. He had grown up surrounded by art that belonged in museums, wine older than most countries, and jewellery that had passed through the hands of kings. Beauty was familiar to him, almost predictable. He knew how to recognise it, how to acquire it, how to appreciate it without letting it touch him too deeply. But this was different. This was Sienna. And nothing about her — or what she meant to him — felt familiar or predictable or safe. He stood alone in the private showroom of the jeweller his family had used for generations, a quiet, cathedral‑like space tucked behind an unmarked door in the heart of Milan. The room was dimly lit, the air cool and still, the silence broken only by the soft hum of the temp

Luca had imagined this moment a hundred different ways, but none of those imagined versions felt anything like the quiet, steady certainty that carried him through the streets of Florence now. The city glowed under the soft gold of late afternoon, the light catching on terracotta rooftops and rippling across the Arno like a whispered promise. He walked with his hands in his pockets, the small suede ring box resting against his chest with every step, its presence both grounding and electrifying.After he had whisked her away to Florence again, he had told Sienna they were going out for a walk before dinner, nothing more. She hadn’t questioned it. She rarely questioned him when he spoke in that low, deliberate tone that meant he was holding something close. She simply slipped her hand into his and followed him out of the hotel, her trust so effortless it made his breath catch.They walked in comfortable silence, the kind that had grown between them over

Sienna and Luca had only been back in the penthouse for ten minutes when it began. Emilia didn’t knock. She never knocked. She burst through the penthouse door with the force of a small hurricane, her hair wild from the wind, mascara smudged from crying, and two bottles of champagne clutched triumphantly in her hands like trophies she had fought a war to obtain. “I’M HERE!” she announced, breathless and radiant with joy. “WHERE IS SHE? WHERE IS MY NEW SISTER?” Sienna barely had time to laugh before Emilia launched herself across the room and wrapped her in a hug so tight it knocked the breath out of her. The champagne bottles clinked dangerously close to Sienna’s head. “Emilia—” Luca warned. “Don’t you dare,” she snapped. “I am hugging your fiancée. This is sacred.” 

The drive to the coast felt different this time. Not lighter, not heavier — simply fuller, as though the air itself carried the weight of everything they had survived to reach this point. Sienna watched the landscape shift outside the window, the rolling hills giving way to the glittering stretch of the Mediterranean, the sunlight catching on the water in a way that made her chest tighten.Luca drove with one hand on the wheel and the other resting on her thigh, his thumb tracing slow, absent‑minded circles against her skin. He wasn’t talking much, but he didn’t need to. There was a quiet between them now that felt earned, a kind of peace that came only after choosing each other again and again.“You’re thinking,” she murmured.He glanced at her, the corner of his mouth lifting. “Dangerous, I know.”She smiled. “What about?”“You,” he said simply.

 They returned to Monaco just after sunset, the sky painted in streaks of violet and gold, the city glowing beneath them like a constellation brought to earth. Sienna leaned her forehead against the cool window of the car, watching the familiar skyline rise into view. It felt different now — not because the city had changed, but because she had. Luca parked in the underground garage of the penthouse building, the engine humming to a stop. For a moment neither of them moved. The quiet between them was warm, full, threaded with everything they had lived through in the past few days. He reached over, brushing his fingers along her jaw. “You’re tired.” “A little,” she admitted. “Come upstairs,” he murmured. “Rest.”