Chapter 4 THE PILLOW FORT
POV SYLVIE
The silence in the room lasted exactly three minutes.
It wasn't a "peaceful, moonlit" silence. It was a "if you breathe too loud I’ll stab you with a ballpoint pen" kind of silence. I was clinging to the edge of the mattress so hard I was pretty sure I was leaving permanent finger marks in the expensive Egyptian cotton.
"You’re breathing too loud," I snapped, glaring at the shadows on the ceiling.
A rustle of sheets. Nathaniel shifted, his voice dropping into that low, gravelly tone that usually made people do whatever he wanted. Not me. "I’m breathing at a normal human volume, Sylvie. It’s not my fault your ears are calibrated for bat-sonar levels of annoyance."
"I have a lot on my mind. Like the fact that I’m sharing a bed with a guy who probably thinks 'affordable housing' is a penthouse with only three bathrooms."
"It’s one night. Get over yourself. And give me some of the duvet, you’re hoarding it like a dragon with a gold obsession."
He gave the blanket a sharp tug. I yanked it back.
"No. This is my emotional support fabric," I hissed, wrapping myself in it like a burrito. "You have your billions, your trust fund, and your custom-made suits. I have this one piece of polyester. Go buy your own blanket."
"It’s not polyester, it’s eight-hundred-thread-count silk, you uncultured—" He stopped, huffing a breath that sounded like a growl. "Fine. If you want to be a selfish brat, be a selfish brat."
"I am a scholarship student, Nathaniel. We are trained in the art of survival. This blanket is my territory. The border is the middle of the mattress. Cross it, and I will declare war."
"You already declared war three years ago when you reported my 'lack of citations' in the Econ midterm, you little snitch."
"They weren't citations! You just quoted your dad's golf buddies and called it 'primary source data'!"
I felt the bed shake as he turned to face me. Even in the dark, I could feel the heat radiating from his chest. "It worked, didn't it? I got an A."
"You got an A-minus. I got the A. And that’s what really burns your expensive soul, isn't it?"
Suddenly, the duvet was ripped away with a violent jerk. I yelped, tumbling toward the center of the bed as Nathaniel pulled the entire thing over his side.
"Hey! Give it back!" I lunged for the edge of the blanket, my hand catching his shoulder instead. It was hard, warm, and way too muscular for someone who spent all day reading balance sheets.
"Make me," he challenged.
I didn't think. I just acted. I scrambled over the "border," pinning his arm down with my knee and grabbing the silk fabric. We ended up in a tangled mess of limbs and limbs, rolling around like two stray cats in a dumpster.
"You’re… so… annoying!" I grunted, trying to pry his fingers off the duvet.
"And you’re… surprisingly… heavy!" he fired back, though he was mostly laughing—that dark, infuriating chuckle that made my pulse do a stupid little dance.
"I am not heavy, it’s the weight of my superior intellect!"
I managed to get a handful of the blanket and yanked hard. But Nathaniel was faster. He rolled, taking me with him, until I was pinned beneath him. His hands were on either side of my head, and the duvet was somewhere on the floor, forgotten.
The room went dead silent.
My heart wasn't just beating; it was slamming against my ribs like a riot. Nathaniel’s face was inches from mine. I could see the glint in his eyes, the way his chest was heaving from the exertion. The air between us felt like it was charged with enough electricity to power the entire hotel.
"Get off," I whispered, though my voice had zero conviction.
"You started it," he whispered back, his gaze dropping to my lips.
I was about to tell him exactly where he could shove his "you started it" logic when a sharp, rhythmic sound echoed through the room.
Knock. Knock. Knock.
We both froze.
"Nathaniel? Sylvie? It’s Silas." The voice from the hallway was dry and clinical. "Arthur wanted me to check if you needed anything for the morning. Extra towels? A wake-up call? Or perhaps more... privacy?"
My stomach dropped. The chaperone.
Nathaniel’s eyes widened. In one fluid, terrifyingly fast motion, he grabbed me and pulled me toward the center of the bed. "Say something," he hissed.
"What? What do I say?"
"Something... engaged! Something that sounds like we weren't just fighting over a blanket like toddlers!"
He threw his arm over my waist and buried his face in the crook of my neck. I froze, the feeling of his stubble against my skin sending a jolt straight to my toes.
"We're fine, Silas!" Nathaniel called out, his voice a bit strained. "We were just... uh... discussing the itinerary for tomorrow."
"At one in the morning?" Silas’s voice sounded skeptical through the heavy wood. "It sounded like someone was being murdered. Or perhaps an earthquake."
"It was just a pillow fight!" I yelled, then immediately wanted to crawl into a hole and die. A pillow fight? Really, Sylvie?
There was a long pause in the hallway. I could practically hear Silas judging our entire bloodlines.
"I see," Silas finally said. "I shall tell Arthur that your 'itinerary' is quite vigorous. Goodnight."
We listened to his footsteps retreat down the hall. Neither of us moved. Nathaniel’s arm was still heavy across my stomach, and his breath was warm against my throat.
"A pillow fight?" he muttered into my skin. "That’s the best you could do, Miss 4.0 GPA?"
"You didn't exactly help, Mr. Empire Heir!" I whispered back, my face burning.
He didn't pull away. Not at first. He stayed there for a beat longer than necessary, his fingers curling slightly into the fabric of my cat t-shirt. Then, he cleared his throat and rolled back to his side of the bed.
"Go to sleep, Sylvie. Before I actually murder you."
"The blanket is still on the floor," I pointed out, my voice trembling.
He reached down, grabbed the duvet, and threw it over both of us with a rough sigh. "Just share it. If you kick me one more time, I’m telling Silas you have a foot fetish."
"You wouldn't dare."
"Try me."
I stayed on my side, staring at the wall. My skin felt like it was on fire where he’d touched me. I looked at the "border" in the middle of the bed—the invisible line that was supposed to keep us apart.
It was gone. And as I finally drifted off to sleep, I realized that the "cat and mouse" game we were playing was getting a lot more dangerous. Because in this version of the story, I wasn't sure who was the predator and who was the prey anymore.