Chapter 27 Twenty seven
Elena's POV
The storm broke just after midnight. It wasn’t a gentle rain. It was a violence. Thunder shook the ancient stones of the wing. A brilliant fork of lightning lit my room for a second, and then everything went black. The hum of the fortress ceased, replaced by the roar of wind and water.
Darkness in this place felt different. It felt thick, complete, and alive with menace. I sat up in bed, pulling the covers to my chin, my heart hammering against my ribs. Every crash of thunder made me flinch.
A soft knock came at my door. So faint I almost missed it. “Elena?”
His voice. Matteo’s.
I clutched the sheets. “Come in.”
The door opened. He stood there, a single tall candle in his hand, its flame guttering in the draft. The golden light carved his face in sharp relief: concern, tension, and something else. He looked like a knight from an old painting, but the darkness in his eyes was entirely his own.
“The generators are on the other side of the house,” he said, stepping inside. The candlelight pushed the shadows back, creating a small, warm island in the room. “I came to check on you.”
“I’m fine,” I lied, my voice thin.
He gave me a look that saw right through it. He walked to the cold fireplace, set the candle on the mantel, and crouched. With efficient movements, he built a small pyre of kindling and logs from the basket. A match flared, and soon a real, crackling fire joined the candle’s glow. The room transformed. The threatening dark receded to the corners.
He didn’t go to a chair. He simply sat on the thick rug, his back against the side of my armchair, and looked up at me. “Come down. The floor is warm.”
It was an offer of simple, primal comfort. I slid from the bed, my bare feet touching the cool wood, then the warm wool of the rug. I sat beside him, not touching, drawing my knees up. The firelight danced over his profile.
“I hated storms as a boy,” he said quietly, his gaze fixed on the flames. The admission surprised me. He never spoke of his childhood. “This house felt like a ship in a black sea. All the power, the stone… it meant nothing. The noise was inside the walls.”
He was sharing a crack in his armor. A real one. Not a calculated move. The storm had shaken it loose. “What did you do?” I asked.
“I hid,” he said, a faint, self-deprecating smile touching his lips. “In a linen closet in the east wing. It smelled of lavender and dust. It was the only place that felt small enough to be safe.”
The image of him as a frightened boy in a closet, pierced through all my defenses. The heir, the sly predator, had once been a child hiding from the thunder. My heart ached for that boy.
Without thinking, I reached out. My hand covered his where it rested on the rug. He turned his hand over, lacing his fingers through mine. His skin was warm.
I leaned in and kissed him.
It started as a kiss of comfort. A silent I understand. A bridge across our shared loneliness.
But the moment our lips met, something shifted. The comfort ignited into something else, something desperate and hungry. The storm outside mirrored the one inside us. His free hand came up to cup the back of my head, deepening the kiss. A low sound vibrated from his chest into mine. The taste of him, the feel of his tongue stroking mine, was a different kind of lightning.
We sank back onto the rug, the fire warming one side of us. His weight settled over me, a welcome anchor in the tumultuous night. His mouth left my lips to trail hot, open-mouthed kisses down my throat. My robe had come loose. His hands pushed the soft fabric from my shoulders, baring me to the firelight and his gaze.
His mouth found my breast, his tongue laving the peak before he drew it deep into the heat of his mouth, suckling hard. A sharp cry tore from my throat, lost in a roll of thunder. Pleasure, bright and electric, shot straight to my core. My back arched off the rug, my fingers clutching his hair.
I was spinning away, lost in the sensation, in the rightness of his mouth on me. His hand slid from my ribs, over the curve of my hip, and began to move lower, beneath the waistband of my thin sleep shorts.
The touch, the intention, was like a cold splash of water.
My eyes flew open. I saw the firelight on the ceiling, heard the storm rage. And I remembered. The contract. The unseen man. The promise.
With a gasp that was half sob, my hands flew down and grabbed his wrists, stopping his progress.
“No,” I breathed, the word trembling. “Not… not while I’m promised to him.”
It was my last, fragile rule. The final border I could not cross. To give him my body fully while I still belonged, on paper, to another even a monster, felt like a sin that would poison whatever this was between us. It was the last shred of my own honor, tangled and messy as it was.
I held his wrists, my body still throbbing from his mouth, my resolve a thin, cracking shell. “Please, Matteo.”
Matteo's POV
The storm was a gift. An opportunity. When the lights died, I knew where I needed to be. The candle was a prop, but the concern was real. The thought of her alone in the dark, afraid, was intolerable.
Building the fire was a primal act. Providing warmth, safety, light. I needed to be the source of those things for her. Always.
Sitting on the floor was a deliberate lowering. I was not the Don’s son here. I was just a man in the dark, sharing space. The childhood memory slipped out totally unplanned and nothing but the unvarnished truth. I never spoke of that. But the storm, her wide eyes in the candlelight, pulled it from me. I wanted her to know that I, too, had once been scared. That the fortress had not always been mine.
Her hand covering mine was a balm. Her kiss was a revelation.
It started soft, a gesture of empathy that nearly undid me. Then it caught fire. The hunger I kept banked roared to life. The feel of her beneath me on the rug, the taste of her skin, the little sounds she made was a better shelter than any closet. The storm outside was nothing compared to the one she ignited in my blood.
Pushing the robe from her shoulders was like unwrapping the only gift I’d ever wanted. She was so beautiful in the firelight. When I took her breast into my mouth, her cry was a victory. Her body arched, offering more. My hand slid lower, driven by a need so fierce it was blinding. I was moments away from claiming what I’d wanted since the first night in the penthouse. Since the first time I saw her photograph.
Then her hands locked on my wrists. Steel in her delicate grip.
Her “no” was not a shout. It was a pained whisper. A plea.
Not while I’m promised to him.
The words were a bucket of ice water. Him. The fiction. The myth I had created. The rumor that now stood between us, more solid than stone.
I went still above her, breathing hard. Her eyes were desperate, glistening with unshed tears and unwavering resolve. This was her line. The last stand of her stubborn honor. She would give me her kisses, her gasps, her trust in the dark. But she would not give me her body while another man’s name was on the contract.
The frustration was a physical pain. The devious part of me wanted to argue, to whisper that the promise was a lie, that he didn’t exist. But I saw the truth in her eyes. This mattered to her. This last shred of principle was part of who she was. To smash it now would be to break something precious.
It would also make me the monster she feared.
I closed my eyes, resting my forehead against her shoulder, fighting for control. My body was screaming in protest.
Slowly, I nodded. I withdrew my hand from beneath her shorts. I pulled her robe back up over her shoulders, covering her. The tenderness of the action was its own kind of agony.
I rolled onto my back beside her on the rug, staring up at the ceiling, listening to the storm begin to fade. The fire crackled.
“Then I will have to un-promise you,” I said, my voice rough but calm. A vow to the dark room.
I felt her turn her head to look at me. I didn’t meet her gaze. The decision was made. The game had reached its final, inevitable point.
The sly, devious plan was gone. There was only one move left.
I had to kill my father.