Together

Together
~ Camilla

I woke slowly, the light of morning spilling soft and gold through the blinds. The bed felt empty beside me, and for a fleeting second, panic fluttered in my chest. Where was he? Stephano, my heart said it before my brain could catch up, where was he?

I sat up, my bare feet brushing against the cold wood floor, and noticed his shirt lying across the chair by the dresser. Without thinking, I picked it up and slipped it on. The fabric swallowed me, the scent of him still faintly clinging to it a smell that made my stomach twist in ways I couldn’t name. I breathed it in, letting it anchor me, and sank onto the edge of the bed.

Last night. Oh, last night.

The memory hit me in a wave. It wasn’t like before. It was not like the sharp, brutal, wild moments he usually had with me, the kind that left me dizzy, shaken, sometimes ashamed. Last night… last night, it had been different. He had looked at me like I was the only thing in the world that mattered. He had told me he loved me. Stephano Maddens. The man who had humiliated me, terrified me, driven me to the edge and back more times than I could count… had said those three impossible, breathtaking words.

I pressed the shirt against my face, inhaling him again. Love. Love. I whispered it to myself, almost laughing at the absurdity, almost crying at the thought of it. He loved me. He was in love with me. My fingers traced the fabric over my chest, imagining his hands instead. Imagining him, soft. Gentle. Tender. That had been the most shocking part. Not just the words, but the way he had said them. The way he had looked at me afterward, waiting, vulnerable. No mask, no bravado, just… him. And me.

I couldn’t stop the thoughts that swarmed me like bees:

Could I… actually have this baby with him? Could we really… be happy?

I'd always thought of happiness with him as impossible. Dangerous. Unpredictable. Last night had shifted something inside me. He had touched me in ways that weren’t just about desire, they were about care. He had made love to me. He had made love to me.

I bit my lip and sank further into the chair, resting my forehead against my knees. My mind kept replaying the moments: the careful way he had moved, the way he had held me as though I were made of glass and stars. The way he had whispered my name, like it was sacred. Like it was the only word he needed to know in the world.

This is hope, I realized. This is… maybe the start of something that isn’t terrifying.

I could see him in my mind’s eye, soft, slow, searching. Not the Stephano who had haunted my nights and made my mornings ache with confusion, but the one who had bared his heart to me, the one who had told me he wanted to try, to be different with me.

And that thought, God, that thought, made my stomach flutter. Made me dizzy in the best possible way.

I whispered to myself, shaky and uncertain: “I can do this. We can do this. Maybe we can…” My words trailed off because I wasn’t entirely sure if my own heart would keep up with my hope.

A soft laugh escaped me, and I shook my head. “Stephano Maddens, how are you doing this to me?” I muttered. 

My mind wandered to the future, to the little life growing inside me. To mornings like this, where I could picture him making coffee, wearing nothing but his casual clothes, maybe pulling me into his arms just because he could. To quiet nights where we’d sit together, maybe reading, maybe talking, maybe just existing in the same space without the world burning behind our eyes.

I laughed again, breathless and incredulous. “This is insane,” I whispered to the empty room. 

I closed my eyes and let myself sink into the feeling. Let myself imagine the soft mornings ahead. And for the first time in a long time, I let myself hope. Really hope.

I motioned to the stairwell.

The stairs felt longer than they had any right to be. Every step was a flutter of nerves, every breath a quiet reminder that last night had happened, really happened. And it hadn’t been like before. Not like Italy. Not like any of the moments when the sex had been good, wild, intoxicating, consuming, but still felt like two people fighting for the upper hand.

Last night had been…

God.

Last night had been personal.

He had held me after with a kind of trembling protectiveness, like he wasn’t sure if he deserved to. And he had told me he loved me. The memory almost made me miss a step.

When I reached the bottom floor, I heard soft sounds coming from the kitchen, quiet clinks.

There he was.

Stephano stood by the stove in nothing but low-slung sweatpants, broad shoulders bare, the morning light stroking over every sculpted plane of him. He had a spatula in one hand, a pan in the other, and his hair, his perfect hair, was a little mussed, like he’d run his hands through it one too many times. Probably thinking. Probably about last night.

Heat pooled low in my stomach so fast it startled me. He hadn’t heard me yet. He looked strangely and absolutely devastating at the same time.

And for a moment, I just stood there like an idiot, hugging his shirt around me, feeling my heart try to crawl out of my chest.

Finally, with a breath I barely managed to pull in, I stepped forward.

“Hi…”

He froze and urned. And the smile that broke across his face was, God, like something out of an entirely different universe than the one we used to live in.

“Good morning, beautiful.”

The words wrapped around me like warm hands. Before I could form anything resembling a coherent response, he strode over, slid an arm under my knees and another around my waist, and lifted me as though I weighed nothing.

I squeaked, because apparently that’s who I was now, and he chuckled low in his chest as he set me on the counter, gentle as if I were carrying porcelain wings.

My legs dangled at the edge, and I stared at him with a smile too big for my face, too bright to hide.

His eyes flicked over me, my hair, his shirt draping down my thighs, my bare legs, my flushed face, and something warm flickered there.

He reached for my hand, threading his fingers through mine. And then he grinned. Like an actual teenage boy who’d just kissed the girl he’d secretly loved forever. It was disarming and unbelievably soft. It was so un-Stephano that it made my chest tighten.

“I liked last night,” he said simply.

His thumb brushed over my knuckles.

“And I happen to like you too.”

A breath left him, like he was finally releasing something he’d held in for years.

“And I want you, and last night, to happen again, Camilla.”

I just stared, processing his words, letting the words sink into the spaces inside me that had never been allowed anything gentle.

Want you. Want last night again. Want this.

Something in me cracked open, softly, quietly and dangerously. For the first time in forever, it wasn’t fear that pushed me forward. It wasn’t desperation or lust, or confusion.

It was choice.

My hands lifted before I consciously decided anything. I leaned in and pressed my lips to his. His breath caught, just for a second. As if he hadn’t expected me to make the first move.

His free hand came up, cupping my cheek with a careful reverence that made my heart feel too big for my ribs. He kissed me back,pulling me closer by the waist, as if trying to memorize the moment.

I pulled back just enough to look at him, really look at him. His eyes, those maddening, impossible eyes, were warm, soft, and unguarded in a way I had never thought I’d see. My chest tightened. My stomach fluttered. Every nerve ending in my body seemed to hum with electricity. And in that suspended moment, I realized something I hadn’t allowed myself to admit before.

“I…” I began, I spoke, “…I’m willing. I’m willing to give us a go.”

His lips parted, like he was catching his own breath, and his hands lingered on my waist as if afraid I might vanish.

“I’m… I’m willing to give this a chance,” I said again, louder now, letting the words sink in, letting them settle over both of us like sunlight spilling across the kitchen floor. “You. Me. Last night. Everything. I’m willing to try.”

He smiled then. His thumb brushed lightly over the back of my hand, over the knuckle of my index finger, over the tender skin at the edge of my palm, like he was memorizing me all over again.

“I liked last night,” he whispered, voice low, almost reverent, “and I happen to like you… you.. and our baby.”

My chest swelled. My eyes pricked. My hands found his face without thought, tracing the line of his jaw, the curve of his ear.

“I want last night to happen again too,” he added, the way he said it this time, it was full of care, full of meaning. Full of us.

I didn’t hesitate. I leaned up, pressing my lips to his in a soft kiss. His arms tightened around me as he sealedevery promise he’d just made. And the world faded around us. It was just him and me. Him and I. And for the first time ever, I believed in us and in the life we could build together.