Chapter 37 Thirty seven
Elena's POV
The study had left us both raw. The air between us was heavy with unspoken things. He suggested a walk in the gardens, a way to shake off the weight of ledgers and legacies. The afternoon sun was warm, dappling through the leaves.
We came to an old stone bench swing, hanging from the thick limb of an ancient oak. He sat, pulling me down beside him. The swing moved gently. He didn’t speak. He simply wrapped his arm around my shoulders, drawing me into the solid warmth of his side. My head fit perfectly against his shoulder. For a moment, it was just the creak of the chain, the scent of sun-warmed roses, and his steady heartbeat under my ear.
It was too peaceful. Too normal. A deep, instinctive panic bubbled up in my chest. This was a picture of a couple. Anyone could see.
“We shouldn’t…” I murmured, trying to sit up. “Someone could come.”
His arm tightened, holding me in place. “Let them.”
“Matteo, please.” My voice was a tense whisper. I tried to pull away, but he stood, taking my hand, his grip firm.
“Come with me.”
He didn’t head back to the house. He led me deeper into the gardens, down a path almost hidden by overgrown jasmine, to a secluded corner walled in by high, flowering hedges. A secret room of green and light. A marble fountain, long dry, stood in the center, a cherub with a silent stone trumpet.
Here, the world vanished. No windows looked down. No paths led through.
He turned to me, his usual mask of control absent. His eyes were dark, searching. “I wish all of it was gone,” he said, his voice low and fierce. “The contract. The name. The old man in his study. I wish it was just this. A garden. You and me. No drama. No debt. Just… free.”
The words were a lance through my defenses. He was giving voice to my own secret, impossible dream. It wasn’t a sly line. It was a confession of fatigue so profound it mirrored my own.
My stubborn will, my fear, it all crumbled. I stepped into him, wrapping my arms around his waist, pressing my face against his chest. He held me tightly, his chin resting on the top of my head. We just stood there, clinging to each other in the silent, green space, pretending, for one breath, that his wish was real.
Then he tilted my head back. He kissed me. It was soft, deep, a kiss of shared longing. A taste of that ‘free’ he’d described. I melted into it, my hands fisting in the back of his shirt, drinking in the fantasy.
The crunch of footsteps on gravel sliced through the silence.
They were on the main path, just beyond the hedge. Close. My body went rigid. A gasp started in my throat.
Matteo’s reaction was instant. His mouth came down on mine again, but this kiss was different: hard, consuming, a deliberate smothering of any sound I might make. It was a command for silence written in pressure and heat. I froze, my senses splitting between the approaching footsteps and the overwhelming claim of his kiss. He tasted of desperation and control.
The footsteps paused, just on the other side of the green wall. Then, slowly, they began to recede, fading into the hum of the garden.
He broke the kiss as soon as the sound vanished. We were both breathing hard.
The spell was broken. The fantasy of ‘free’ shattered by the reality of the footsteps. The danger was a cold splash over the heat he’d built. Without a word, I shoved back from his chest, my eyes wide with panic.
I turned and ran. I fled the secret garden, past the dry fountain, down the hidden path, back toward the looming, watchful house. I left him standing there alone in the green, silent space, the ghost of our kiss hanging between us and the taste of fear sharp on my tongue.
Matteo's POV
The swing was a mistake. It was too domestic. Too soft. Holding her there, feeling her relax against me, was a pleasure so acute it was a vulnerability. I saw the moment she felt it too: the peaceful danger of it. Her panic was a bird fluttering against my ribs.
When she tried to pull away, the instinct to keep her close was overwhelming. I led her to the hidden garden. My sanctuary. A place not even my father knew I came to.
Seeing her there, surrounded by green and sunlight, I meant what I said. The wish was ripped from a place deeper than strategy. I was tired. Tired of the layers, the games, the constant performance. For one stark moment, I wanted to burn it all down just to stand in the ashes with her, with no names, no past, just us.
When she hugged me, it was a gift. A silent agreement. Yes, I wish for that too.
The kiss was born from that shared ache. It was pure, unfiltered by any plan. It was the kiss of the man I might have been, with the woman I was never supposed to have.
Then the footsteps came.
Her panic was instant, a vibration through her entire frame. My kiss to silence her was instinct, but it was also a lie. I wasn’t just quieting her; I was marking her again, branding her with my touch as the world intruded, reasserting my claim in the face of the threat. The kiss was hard, possessive, a stark contrast to the tenderness of seconds before. It was the reality crashing back in.
Holding her trembling body against mine as the footsteps faded, I felt like two men: the one who dreamed of a quiet garden, and the one who would kill to protect his secret.
When she broke away, the look in her eyes wasn’t just fear of discovery. It was the horror of realizing how deep she was in, how much she wanted the dream, and how impossible it was. She saw the two men in me, and it terrified her.
She ran.
I let her go. My hand, which had reached to stop her, fell to my side. I stood alone by the dry fountain, the scent of jasmine and her perfume clinging to the air. The chemistry between us was no longer just attraction. It was a compound of longing, fear, and a shared, desperate wish that was a liability in this world of stone and watching eyes.
She had run from the danger. But she had also run from the wish. From the raw, unguarded truth of it.
I looked at the silent cherub. The sly, devious part of my mind was already calculating damage control, assessing who those footsteps might have belonged to. But the man who had made the wish just stood there, in the ruins of a perfect, stolen moment, knowing she held not just my soul, but my weakness. And she had just run from both.