The villa exhaled in the quiet hours after the gala, the flicker of pool lights casting restless shadows against the walls. The night should have felt like a victory — we’d stepped back into the world, smiled through the whispers, and made it home without an incident.
And yet, relief never came.
I stepped into the kitchen, my bare feet cooled my the marbel floor, Caspian's shirt wrapped around me. Mid-thigh was where the hem was, sleeves knotted securely around my clenched fists. His smell lingered on the fabric, threads of smoke and cedarwood lingering on my pale skin. The smell grounded me, but it didn't quiet my pounding heart.
The villa was still, the only sound was the soft whir of the refrigerator and the distant boom of waves on the rock beach far away. The world felt like it was in balance, like a glass ball poised at the tip of a knife's edge.
Behind me, Caspian lingered,his back to me, sitting on the bar. His hand held a glass of whiskey, the amber-colored liquid shining in the dim illumination. He had not taken off his suit, the black fabric wrinkled, tie still knotted tightly around his neck like a noose.
He was looking at me — I just knew it. His gaze swept over me like a touch, searing with inner fires.
You should sleep," he said at last, his voice grinding with exhaustion.
I rested my shoulders against the counter next to him. "I can't."
His jaw clenched, the muscle leaping under his skin. He set the glass down, and the ring clanged too loudly through the quiet house.
"You were wonderful tonight," he breathed, his voice softer than ever. "No one would have guessed it was really difficult for you."
I had swallowed the knot in my throat. "It was difficult."
"I know."
His voice was sorrow and solace. I resented how close he was to the fear — resented the way he wore it like an additional layer of skin, couldn't shed it even when we were in the house together, alone and safe.
"You didn't let me out of your sight through the entire night," I whispered, the realization reluctantly evident.
Caspian didn't argue. He stepped back from the counter, taking three hard steps to cover the space between us. His hand traced the line of my jaw, pulling my face into his.
"I'll always watch out for you," he whispered, his thumb tracing the line of my cheek. "Because I couldn't have made it through losing you."
The words sliced through something within me. I pressed my face into his chest, and he enfolded me in a huge hug. His heart pounded against my skin, slow and steady and real.
We stood there so long my legs ache, until adrenaline from the night seeped down into fatigue. Caspian at last scooped me up and carried me to bed in silence.
He'd dropped me down, traced his hands on my back until I fell asleep.
I had thought the worst was over.
I was wrong.
I woke up hours later to the sound of scrambling feet.
I'd thought I was dreaming — that the madness of the gala had spilled over into dreams. And then I heard the gentle creak of the front door, the restless shuffling of shadows under the bar of light.
Caspian was already on his way.
His muscles coiled, flexing rolls of fat into tighter coils as he glided softly out of bed. He crept silently to the nightstand, his fingers wrapping around a knife I didn't know he possessed, the blade catching moonlight.
He placed a finger on his lips, mouthing for me to be quiet.
I was standing there struggling to breathe, seeing him turn and go back down the hall, my own chest thudding so hard that I was afraid it would give me away.
Hours passed. My heart jumped at every groan of boards beneath our feet, bracing for every step.
Caspian did return, his own face bleached white, his features carved like stone.
"What is it?" I whispered, but he said nothing.
He put an envelope into my hand.
I spilled out the envelope and shook it open, the paper a chilly, silky touch against my skin.
The picture inside flopped my stomach.
It was us —at the gala. A candid photo of me laughing, my head thrown back as Caspian leaned forward close to whisper something against my ear. The photographer had stood directly beside us.
Too close.
There was nothing else. No message. No threat.
Just the picture.
Evidence that someone had been surveilling us.
I pressed a hand over my mouth, the sour taste of bile climbing into the back of my throat. Caspian removed the photo from my hands, his fingers folding around the corners with a harsh intensity that wrinkled the paper in on itself.
His breathing was ragged, his gaze flashing dark and evil.
"I'm doubling security," he growled, pacing back and forth in the room like a wild animal. "I'll assign more men to it. I'll install more cameras. I want motion detectors on all doors and windows. I want someone standing at that bedroom door twenty-four/seven. Nobody gets on this property without my permission."
His rage blazed like lightning, fierce and uncontrolled.
"Caspian," I started, my voice hardly above a whisper.
He didn't stop.
"I shouldn't have let you leave this evening," he snarled, teeth gritted in anger. "It was way too. I knew that, and yet I was convinced by you and now—"
"Caspian."
He didn't move.
I slid across the floor, palms against his chest, to the rhythm of his racing heart.
"I can't keep living like this," I panted, my own breath breaking under the pressure of my terror. "I cannot be waiting for something bad to happen to us . Waiting for you to crack under this immense pressure."
His hands slid forward to frame my face, fingers trailing down me softly-wounded.
"I don't know how to protect you without losing everything, without losing myself" he rasped against me, forehead to forehead.
My ribcage fragmented.
"You don't have to get lost," I said to him, my fists gripping a wad of his shirt. "You just have to let us in. Trust that we can do it if you let us in."
He kissed me then — a wild, desperate, animal kiss that stole the air from my lungs.
He kissed me as if he were going to die and that I was the air he held on to so he wouldn't die.
We fell into the bed, and there was no restraint this time. No restraint.
He tore my clothes from me like a lunatic, his hands harsh, his mouth out of control as he branded himself into my flesh. Every kiss a promise, every touch a prayer for something neither of us would utter.
I held him off at arm's length, passion to passion.
I needed to be alive.
I needed to feel him.
When he was done, he did not release me.
We were under blankets, the picture on the bedside table a shadow.
Caspian's fingers made careless swoops down and up my spine, but his gaze was directed at the ceiling.
I understood that he was not fine.
I wasn't certain that we ever would be either.
"We'll get there," I spoke softly, even though I did not know so myself.
His hold around my hand was clamped vice-like.
"I'll kill him if he ever comes anywhere near you within a mile of you again," he snarled, and his cold tone sent shivers down my spine.
I was afraid because I knew it was something he could do.
And I wasn’t sure how far he’d be willing to go to keep that promise.