I barely slept.
By the time midnight came, I'd changed clothes three times, rehearsed and discarded a dozen opening lines, and questioned my sanity approximately every five minutes.
The hallways were silent as I made my way to Dante's suite. The other staff were asleep, the security doing their rounds outside. Just me and my thundering heartbeat.
I knocked softly. Once. Twice.
The door opened immediately.
Dante stood there in black sleep pants and a bare chest, his hair slightly damp from a recent shower. Casual, domestic, devastatingly attractive.
"Seen enough he questioned? with a slight smirk as I drooled.
"Come in," he said quietly, stepping aside.
His suite was different at night—softer somehow, with only a few lamps lit, casting golden light across dark wood and leather. Through the windows, the ocean stretched endlessly under moonlight.
"Would you like something to drink?" he asked, ever the gentleman even in this situation. "Wine? Water?"
"I'm fine."
"Elena." He turned to face me fully. "You're shaking."
I was. I couldn't seem to stop.
He crossed to me, taking my hands in his. "Hey. It's just me. Just us. Nothing has to happen that you don't want."
"That's the problem," I whispered. "I want too much."
His eyes darkened. "Tell me."
"I want—" I took a breath. "I want to forget who we're supposed to be. What brought me here. All the reasons this is impossible. I want to just... be with you. Even though I shouldn't."
"Why shouldn't you?"
Because I killed your parents. Because I'm here to destroy you. Because every moment with you is a betrayal of my dead family.
"Because you're Dante Morelli," I said instead. "And I'm no one. A maid you bought at an auction. This could never be real."
"Stop." His hands tightened on mine. "You're not no one. And you're not just a maid—you never were. From the first moment I saw you, I knew you were different."
"Different how?"
"Educated. Observant. Carrying secrets too heavy for one person to bear." He lifted one hand to cup my face. "I see you, Elena. The real you, beneath whatever you're hiding. And I—" He stopped, seeming to gather courage. "I'm falling for you. Have been since that first night when you looked at me without fear."
My heart clenched. "Dante—"
"I know it's insane. I know there are a thousand reasons why this can't work. But I can't fight it anymore. I don't want to." His thumb brushed my cheekbone. "Tell me I'm not alone in this. Tell me you feel it too."
I should have lied. Should have ended this before it went any further.
But I was tired of lying. At least about this.
"I feel it," I whispered. "I feel everything."
The relief on his face was beautiful and heartbreaking.
He kissed me then, slow and deep and thorough as he slide his hand under my dress and his visible hard on touching my stomach as I clench my fist taking all in. he kissed me like he had all the time in the world. Like I was something precious he wanted to savor.
"I need you to know something," he murmured against my lips. "Before this goes any further. I need you to understand what you're getting into."
"What do you mean?"
He pulled back, leading me to the couch by the windows. We sat, and he kept hold of my hand like he was afraid I'd disappear.
"My parents," he began, his voice tight. "They were monsters. I know the world thinks they were just businessmen, pillars of the community. But they were cruel, sadistic people who hurt anyone who got in their way."
I went very still.
"My father used to beat me," he continued, staring out at the ocean. "Not for discipline. For sport. My mother watched and did nothing. They saw people as property, life as something cheap and disposable."
"Dante—"
"When they were killed, I was in Chicago on business. I got the call at three a.m." His jaw clenched. "And my first reaction wasn't grief. It was relief. I was relieved they were dead, Elena. What kind of person does that make me?"
"A human one," I said quietly. "They hurt you. It's natural to feel—"
"There's more." He looked at me then, his eyes haunted. "I've spent the last three years investigating their deaths. Trying to find who did it, to understand why. And the more I dig, the more I discover about the things they did. The families they destroyed. The lives they ruined."
My heart pounded against my ribs.
"I found evidence that my father was involved in human trafficking. That my mother helped facilitate it. Children, Elena. They sold children." His voice broke. "And I can't—I don't know how to reconcile that. They were monsters, but they were my parents. And whoever killed them might have had good reason."
The world tilted.
"What are you saying?" I whispered.
"I'm saying I don't know if I want to find their killer anymore. I'm saying maybe—maybe they got what they deserved." He turned to me, desperate. "Does that make me a terrible person? That I can't mourn them? That part of me is glad they're gone?"
I couldn't breathe. This wasn't supposed to happen. He wasn't supposed to question their deaths, to see them for what they were.
He was supposed to be just like them, or blindly loyal to their memory. Not this complicated, damaged man trying to make sense of inherited evil.
"You're not terrible," I managed. "You're honest. And that's—that's rare."
"I'm telling you this because I need you to understand. My hands aren't clean, Elena. I've killed people. Done terrible things to protect this organization, to honor my parents' legacy. But I want out. I want to dismantle it all, piece by piece, and become something better."
"Why haven't you?"
"Because I didn't have a reason to before." He pulled me closer. "But now I do. You. You make me want to be better. To build something clean instead of maintaining something rotten."
Oh God. This was so much worse than I'd imagined.
"I don't deserve that faith," I said, my voice cracking.
"Yes, you do." He kissed my forehead, my cheeks, my lips. "Whatever you're running from, whatever secrets you're keeping—they don't change how I feel about you."
"They might."
"Never."
I wanted to believe him. Wanted to confess everything and let the chips fall where they may.
But I couldn't. Not yet. Not when I didn't know how this story ended.
So instead, I kissed him. Poured all my guilt and longing and impossible love into that kiss, trying to tell him without words everything I couldn't say aloud.
He responded with equal intensity, his hands sliding into my hair, tilting my head back to deepen the kiss. We fell back against the couch, tangled together, the conversation giving way to something more primal.
"Stay tonight," he breathed against my neck. "Stay with me."
"Dante—"
"I'm not asking for—we don't have to—" He pulled back, his eyes searching mine. "I just want to hold you. To wake up with you in my arms. That's all."
It was such a simple request. So intimate and innocent and devastating.
I should have said no. Should have maintained the boundaries between us.
But I was so tired of being alone. So tired of carrying this weight by myself.
"Okay," I whispered. "I'll stay."
---
We moved to his bed, and he was true to his word. He pulled me against his chest, my back to his front, and simply held me. His heartbeat steady against my spine, his breath warm on my neck.
"Tell me something true," he murmured into the darkness. "Something real about you."
I thought of all the truths I could never tell. My real name. My family. What I'd done.
"I'm afraid," I said finally. "All the time. Of what I've become. Of what I'm capable of. Of losing the few good things I've found in this world."
His arms tightened around me. "You're not alone in that fear anymore. I've got you."
But you don't, I thought. You don't know what you're holding. Who you're protecting.
"What about you?" I asked. "Tell me something true."
"I think I'm falling in love with you," he said quietly. "And it terrifies me more than any bullet or blade ever has."
Tears slid silently down my face.
I was falling in love with him too. With the enemy's son. With the man I'd come to destroy.
And when the truth finally came out—and it would, it always did—it would destroy us both.
But for tonight, wrapped in his arms, listening to his heartbeat, I let myself pretend.
I pretended we were just two broken people finding solace in each other. That our love story could have a happy ending.
That redemption was possible for someone like me.
I fell asleep to the sound of the ocean and the warmth of his embrace.
And for the first time in three years, I dreamed of something other than blood and revenge.