Chapter 47 Forty seven
Elena's POV
He came to me after midnight. The house was asleep. The plans were set. In a few hours, we would run.
There were no words. He just looked at me, standing there in my dark clothes already, and his face did something soft and terrible. He crossed the room and took my face in his hands.
This kiss was different. It was slow. It was a goodbye to this room, to these walls, to the pain we’d lived here. It was a hello to a thousand maybes.
His hands, always so sure, trembled just a little as he undid my buttons. My hands on his clothes were clumsy. We helped each other, silent, shedding the fabric like old skins.
The air was cool on my bare skin. His eyes were hot, drinking me in. He didn’t pull me to the bed. He knelt in front of me. He pressed his lips to the inside of my knee, a whisper of a touch. Then my thigh. My hip. His mouth was a brand, a vow. He was tracing a new map on my body, one that led away from here.
This was not taking. This was worship.
I sank my hands into his hair. My head fell back. Every nerve was alive, singing. His touch was a language, and tonight, I understood every word. It said I see you. I cherish you. You are mine, and I am yours.
We moved to the bed. The world narrowed to this: the slide of skin, the weight of him, the shared breath. He moved inside me with a deep, aching slowness that made tears press behind my eyes. He was looking at me, watching every flicker on my face, and I let him. I held nothing back. I gave him every sigh, every shiver, every piece of my trust.
This was us. The only real thing in a world of lies. This feeling, this connection, was the truth I was running toward.
When I fell apart, it was quiet. A slow unraveling that felt like flying. He followed, his body shuddering, his face buried in my neck with a choked-off sound that might have been my name.
After, he didn’t pull away. He gathered me so close I wasn’t sure where he ended and I began. Our legs tangled. Our hearts beat against each other, slowly calming.
The dark felt safe. Like a cocoon.
His lips brushed my forehead. “I’ll build you a studio,” he whispered, his voice rough. “With windows so big you’ll drown in light. You’ll paint mountains. Real ones.”
I smiled against his chest. “Okay.”
“A small villa. With a garden. Where those weeds you love can grow wild.”
“Okay.”
His hand stroked down my back, possessive and gentle. “Children,” he breathed, the word full of wonder. “With your stubborn chin. Your eyes.”
My throat tightened. That future. It shimmered in the dark, so beautiful it hurt. “Yes,” I whispered.
He held me tighter. “I promise you that life, Elena. I swear it to you.”
I believed him. In that moment, wrapped in him and the dream, I believed him completely. The shadow was gone. There was only this man, and his promises, and the wild, hopeful beat of my own heart.
Matteo's POV
I had to memorize her. Every curve. Every sigh. The exact sound she made when pleasure washed through her. The feel of her skin under my hands, warm and alive.
This was the last time I would touch her as the man she thought I was.
The thought was a splinter of ice in my chest, even as my body burned for her.
I made it slow. I made it an altar. I kissed places I’d never kissed, trying to say with my mouth what I couldn’t say with words. I’m sorry. I love you. Forgive me.
She gave herself to me with a breathtaking openness. No walls. No stubborn resistance. Just pure, trusting surrender. It was the greatest gift I’d ever received. And it was meant for a ghost.
When she came, her eyes open, locked on mine, I felt like I was witnessing something holy. I was ruining something holy.
I held her after, trying to fuse our bodies into one so I could never lose this feeling. The words started to spill out of me: promises, dreams. A villa. A studio. Children.
I painted the paradise with my voice. I could see it. The light. Her laugh. Small hands pulling at my pants leg. I wanted it so badly my teeth ached.
I almost believed it myself.
That was the most cruel part. For a few minutes, in the dark, the lie didn’t feel like a lie. It felt like a future we could steal. We were already stealing ourselves, why not steal a happy ending too?
But the cold truth seeped back in, poisoning the dream.
I am building her a paradise on a foundation of the one lie that will destroy it all.
The villa, the studio, the children… they were built on “Matteo.” And when I tore that mask off, the whole beautiful dream would crack and fall. She would look at me, Silvio, the architect of all her pain and she would see a stranger. A monster. She would not want his children. She would not want his light.
My arms tightened around her. A desperate, panicked grip.
She nestled closer, sighing, her hand over my heart. She felt my tension.
“What is it?” she murmured, half asleep.
“Nothing,” I lied, kissing her hair. “Just thinking about the mountains.”
“Mmm.” She believed me. Of course she did.
I stared into the dark, holding the woman I loved, whispering promises I knew I might not be able to keep. The guilt was a thick, black tar, filling my lungs.
I had one chance. One fragile chance. To get us to Switzerland. To keep her safe. And then, somehow, to tell her the truth in a way that wouldn’t make her run from me forever.
I had to make the real me worthy of the faith she had in the fake one.
The thought was a mountain more daunting than any in the photos.
Her breathing evened out into sleep. I didn’t sleep. I watched the clock. I listened to her breathe. I memorized the weight of her head on my arm.
This was the last night of the lie.
When the sun came up, we would be running toward a new life. And I would be running toward the moment I would have to kill the man she loved, and hope that somehow, I could make her love the monster left behind.