Chapter 22 WAR IS COMING
JASMINE:
The next morning, the estate felt different before anyone said a word. There were no raised voices, no visible panic. But something in the air had shifted, like a room moments before a storm breaks.
Nikolai’s staff moved faster than usual, conversations were cut off when I passed, everything and everyone was just… off.
I was in the sitting room when I noticed Ana hovering near the doorway.
“What’s going on?” I asked.
She hesitated, just long enough to confirm my suspicion.
“She’s here.”
The word settled coldly in my chest. “Who is she?”
Ana lowered her voice. “Miss Fletcher.”
My pulse jumped. Fletcher Francesca?
“How?” I asked quietly.
Ana swallowed. “The gates don’t open without Nikolai’s approval. She knows the gate code.”
With that, I walked toward the main hall with a guard trailing at a respectful distance. My movements were still being monitored.
When I reached the foyer, I saw her. Francesca Fletcher. She stood near the base of the staircase, with a glass of red wine balanced easily between her fingers. Maybe she had poured it herself. She wasn’t overdressed. She didn’t need to be. Everything about her was intentional without looking like effort.
Matthew stood a few feet away, with his arms folded, and his expression controlled but unimpressed.
“I didn’t realise I needed an appointment to visit Niko,” Francesca was saying lightly.
Then she saw me. Her gaze slid over me slowly, not rudely, carefully. Then a slow smile curved her lips.
She moved through the hall like she was reacquainting herself with a familiar home, with her heels clicking softly against the floor as she glanced at the sculpture near the east wall.
“He moved this,” she murmured. “He only does that when he’s restless.”
I said nothing. She walked farther in, trailing her fingers lightly along the edge of a console table.
“The staff rotation changed,” she added. “He used to prefer two near the south entrance. Now there are three.”
Matthew stiffened slightly at that.
She noticed everything. She turned toward me again, stepping closer, close enough that her perfume reached me.
“You’re in my seat,” she said quietly.
I didn’t blink. “I wasn’t aware it was reserved.”
She smiled and said nothing.
At that very moment, we heard heavy footsteps echoing from behind us. Nikolai Morreti stepped into the hall. For a fraction of a second, something unspoken passed between them. Perhaps it could have been history.
“Francesca,” he said evenly.
“Nikolai,” she replied just as softly.
She stepped toward him without hesitation.
“You changed the staff rotation,” she observed casually. “Sloppy.”
“You’re trespassing,” he replied.
She tilted her head slightly. “You never minded before.”
The air tightened around us. He didn’t respond to that. He didn’t step closer either. They stood a careful distance apart, like two players who understood the rules too well to misstep.
Francesca then turned back to me.
“You should ask him why we ended,” she said lightly. “Did he ever tell you the story?”
Neither of us reacted. We both kept mute.
“Come on now, fellas. Don’t be too sour.” She teased as she drifted toward the piano in the adjoining room, fingers brushing the glossy surface before she sat.
She pressed three notes, like they were familiar to her. I didn’t recognize them, but Nikolai did. His expression didn’t change, but something in his stillness did.
“You still remember,” she said over her shoulder.
He didn’t answer.
She stood, smoothing invisible creases from her dress.
Already having enough of her silly “power play” moves, I stepped right in front of her. “What do you really want?”
She scoffed, as if disgusted by my authority. “I didn’t come to reminisce,” she continued. “There’s a charity gala next week. Manhattan. High profile.”
Her gaze was now fixed on Nikolai.
“You’ll attend.”
It wasn’t phrased as a request. Then her eyes shifted to me.
“And you should bring her.”
It felt like a subtle emphasis. “Put your issues with me aside because it’s for charity.”
She stepped closer to Nikolai one last time, her voice lowering just enough that it felt intimate without being private.
“Philanthropism matters,” she said. “You know that better than anyone.”
Then she moved past him, and walked out of the estate the same way she entered it.
Dinner that evening returned to its familiar geometry. He at one end of the table, and me at the other. The distance felt deliberate again.
I took a sip of water before speaking.
“She moved quite comfortably,” I said.
“She’s calculated,” he replied.
“She knew the security codes.”
“She built half of it.”
That settled quietly between us. What I felt inside wasn’t jealousy. It was just awareness.
I set my fork down. “Is she going to keep walking in like that? I mean I’m supposed to be your La Prescelta, but I’m caged in here like a pet but she gets to walk around anyhow she wants to?”
He took in a deep breath, unbothered. “She won’t do it twice.”
His tone was calm, dangerously calm.
I studied him for a moment, then asked, “Are we going to the gala?”
“Yes.”
I nodded once and the conversation ended there. But in the quiet of my mind, I replayed the way she walked in without asking. She didn’t need to fight for space. She simply occupied it.
And next week, under crystal chandeliers and public eyes, she intended to do the same. But the difference was that I would be standing beside him when she did, and this time, I wasn’t going to give her an opening to belittle me.