Chapter 74: Final Word

Leonor…

I feel lighter throughout the whole performance. But the moment it ends, guilt floods back in.

I leave the theater box without waiting for Damien. He follows me, turns me around to face him, it’s just the two of us in that corridor with centuries-old wallpaper and chandelier claws like something out of another era.

Damien takes my hand and leads me to the end of the hallway. He opens a door, and we step onto a balcony, beautiful, well kept, preserved with antique furniture and what must be the original stone floor.

I can finally breathe again.

I close my eyes, and he hugs me. His big hands touch my face softly before he kisses me again, in that calm way he has lately. I accept it, but it feels wrong. My Damien isn’t like this.

I pull him closer, closer still. The blazer he put over me slips to the ground. My nails drag across the fabric of his shirt, over the bare skin at the back of his neck. He grips me rougher, and that’s when I recognize his kiss, urgent, hungry. It fits the twisted thing we’ve become together. We devour each other with lips and hands, two irrational animals.

I break away to breathe.

I’m like the white swan from the ballet, the one who falls into the villain’s trap.

My problem is, I should have been the black swan. Maybe then I’d have a chance.

But a chance with whom?

There’s no prince in my story. No one’s coming to rescue me, no kiss of true love to break any curse.

The one who kisses me is the source of the poison, the one who curses me, and I drink every drop of it, thirsty for more.

“It’s time to take me home, Damien. I don’t want anyone panicking because I disappeared in the middle of the night.”

My hand slides over his chest, tracing every muscle. Beneath all that perfect, ridiculous strength, I feel his heartbeat. Its rhythm lies to me — tells me it beats for me.

Even Damien’s heart knows how to deceive me. I can’t imagine being more lost than I already am, at least until he finds another way to make me fall deeper.

“Stop worrying, my love. You’re with me, you’re safe. I’m responsible for your safety, remember?” he says, his thumb brushing my cheek, his other hand still firm at my waist.

I’m so tired of this wretched situation. Just tired. I only want to mourn in peace, without another drama about who holds custody of me tonight.

It doesn’t even feel like adulthood. It feels like turning eighteen took ten years off my life. I don’t just need my mother now, apparently, I need my father and a babysitter named Damien.

“But this time you don’t have Leonora’s permission to be with me. What will your godmother think when she finds out you snuck out with me in the middle of the night? You think she’ll still trust you?”

His face doesn’t flinch. He’s too certain of everything around him, too convinced he controls it all.

I’m tired of that, of surrendering, of losing control near him. Worse, of giving him the power to control me through these cursed feelings.

“Not even your mother can stand between us, Nor, no matter how much I respect her. I’ve waited too long for you. It’s time for you to be mine.”

I finish stepping back until my spine hits the wall. A sad smile crosses my face.

A story like ours could never end well. It began wrong, built on ownership and lies. I was a fool to think it could be different. A complete and total fool.

“You don’t have that kind of power, Damien. Either I stay and marry your father, my best friend’s probable murderer, or I run and spend the rest of my life moving from country to country with my mother. There’s no version of this where we end up together.”

He takes a few steps toward me, then stops. The bastard looks beautiful in the moonlight, just as he does anywhere else. His green eyes gleam, and I hate that it’s fleeting.

“Leonor, of course we’ll be together. We belong to each other,” he says, and I almost believe him.

“You don’t get the final word, Damien. What we have can’t work. Are you going to be my secret lover forever? What then, run away and marry me? Give up your mafia empire for my sake? I know you won’t. So make it easy for both of us and just leave me alone.”

He shoves his hands in his pockets, and the silence stretches with the wind between us. His hair, the same hair I just ruined with my hands, blows across his forehead, and I fight the urge to throw myself at him again.

“I’ll find a way to have the final word, Leonor. Wait and see,” he says.

Hearing that hurts, layered on top of grief. It’s like losing one more person I love.

Why, universe? Why do you keep taking?

Whoever’s writing my life must be some cosmic entity with a sadistic sense of humor.

The drive home is silent. He leaves me just as he took me, unnoticed, in the dark.

I lie down and, at last, I sleep.

I don’t cry anymore, but I dream.

In my dream, it’s Damien waiting for me at the altar, but I never reach him. The guests multiply endlessly, and the red carpet exhausts my feet in wedding shoes that pinch.

I wake up startled to find Leonora by my side, trying to calm me down. She’s already opening my wardrobe, muttering about something suitable for me to wear.

I avoid the mirror and head straight to the shower, wishing I could stay submerged all day, maybe then my problems would wash away.

Soon I’m called to get ready.

My fiancé came to have breakfast with me.

I take a deep breath before stepping out of the water.

It’s a new day, and I have to face the preparations for my wedding.