Chapter 104: Another escape
Morning crept into the villa quietly, bathing everything in warm gold. It removed the night from the walls' feelings, but battered, not acutely jagged, hurt still lingered in my chest.
I was nestled deeply into the bedclothes, gazing upwards at the ceiling, Caspian's hand lying warm upon the curve of my hip. His breaths were even and measured. Comforting.
For the first time in what felt like forever, quiet between us wasn't stifling or broken. It was simply. there. Nice. Synchronized with our breathing.
I rolled onto my side, propping myself on my elbow to see him. His hair was tousled, strewn out on the pillow, his jaw flecked with coarse bristle. By day, he was so conventionally real—not that unattainable ideal male I'd dreamed of, but a man pounded together of obstinacy and largesse and a thousand shattered shards he permitted me to see.
And yet, despite all this, he stayed here.
Stayed with me.
I sprang at the light touch on the door.
I pulled the sheet over my shoulders, as Caspian came around. His eyes snapped open, half-asleep and black, before they cleared to me.
"Stay," he whispered, his voice low and husky with sleep.
There was another knock on the door this time more insistent.
"I'll take care of it," I muttered, stepping away from the bed and lifting his shirt where it had fallen on the floor. Mid-thigh length, still smelling of him—rain and spice.
I barefooted over to the door and opened it to see one of the villa staff waiting there in the doorway, holding an envelope in a glinting silver tray.
"A delivery for you, Miss," she whispered, bobbing her head politely.
I grabbed the envelope and snarled and stepped out into the hallway, Caspian's gaze down my back as I came back to the bed.
"What was that?" he sat up on the headboard, sheet around his waist.
"I don't know." I ripped open the seal and pulled out what was inside.
There was a properly formal invitation, in readable lettering:
> The Midnight Ball
An evening of glamour, masks, and endless stars.
Villa Esmé, Friday night.
And behind it, a mask fell—a silver and long one, with glinting beaded things beaded along the edges.
I stooped and picked it up, something let go of me—a breath I didn't know I was holding.
A ball.
An evening to be someone else for once. Not to have to worry about proposals or fears or ghosts who would not stay dead.
To just. breathe.
Caspian accepted the invite, his features unreadable as he read it with a pinched mouth and scowl.
"Would you like to go?" he asked, his voice cautious.
I smiled up at him and, for the first time in what felt like forever, allowed an actual smile to curve across my lips.
"I think we must go."
He looked at me with raised brow. "You think?"
I sat on the bed and straddled over his lap, invitation written between the fingers of one hand. He curled his up to where they rested on my hips, gripping me in place.
"I think," I started, tilting so our noses were virtually nose to nose, "that we've been foolish for too long and pouted. I think that we have to know what it's like to be. free."
He gazed at me, the tension that had creased across his mouth relaxing.
"A ball, maybe?" he breathed, fingers drawing slow, sensual patterns down my skin over the fabric of his shirt.
I nodded. "Masks. Music. Dancing. No agendas. Just. play."
He laughed, the sound reluctant and low. "You want to see me in a mask."
I smiled. "Maybe."
He didn't answer for a moment, just stared at me with those white-blinding eyes that made my heart thump against my ribcage.
Then he breathed hard, the sound heavy with reluctance to grin. "Alright, Lily. We'll attend the damn ball."
My own laugh was before me—brief, nervous, foolish. I kissed him, a swift dutiful kiss, and climbed off his lap.
"We need to get dressed," I said to him, already in my mind the boutiqued shops we'd strolled past town.
He let out a mockGroan and stretched back against pillows, tossing his arm dramatically over his face. "I knew there'd be shopping."
"You'll do it," I teased, picking up a pillow and whacking him with it.
He drew his arm around my wrist, pulling me down on the bed beside him. I screamed as he rolled over, pinning me beneath him, his smile wicked.
"And if you don't?"
"Then," I panted, my heart pounding as his weight pressed me down, "I'll take care of you."
His smile turned feral. "Promises, promises."
I laughed again, the laughter spilling up from some deep place in me. This—this was what we needed. Not sweet words or empty promises. Just space. Time. Times when love wasn't something suspended in the air—it was simply being.
We came into the sun-baked town a bit later in the day. There were individuals in the town in plenty, a musician playing soft guitar at one end, flower vendors selling their flowers with huge smiles. The scent of citrus and salt hung in the air.
We shopped in the windows, Caspian muttering under his breath whenever I picked up a mask or one of the stardust-like dresses to examine.
There was one dress in one of the windows that stole my breath away—a floating gown of blue silk, the material snagging at every step.
"You'll be more beautiful than the starsof night," Caspian breathed as I stepped out from behind the dressing room door, his voice so tight with awe that my cheeks flushed.
I chewed on my lip, tracing the hem of the dress with my fingers. "Too much?"
"Not enough," he whispered.
He picked one for himself, too—a black, shiny one open mouth and jaw but watchful eyes. Killer. Mysterious.
Just him.
After returning to the villa with our arms filled with boxes and garment bags, tension broke between us. Flip. I hadn't seen Caspian that relaxed since he wasn't spouting threats in a war council meeting room, teasing me for nearly taking a tumble through the doorway.
We sat out on the patio together that night, side by side, drinking a bottle of wine as the sun moved across the water, coloring the sky with deep golds and smoldering reds.
The talk was easy, from the best vacation memories to outlandish stories from childhood.
No Nathaniel for now.
No proposals.
No shattered pieces we were afraid to touch.
Two people awkwardly reconnecting under a wide-open sky.
And as Caspian wrapped his hand around mine, our hands coming together in a gentleness that shredded me open and spilled within the profound oceans of my own soul, I saw something.
Perhaps we didn't have to have it all in one night.
Perhaps we merely had to decide to choose each other, individually.