He still manages to give me butterflies.
And thats why i'm with him and gave up my life for this nightmare filled with dangers.
Tonight is another one of those nights. Another meeting I'm forced to sit through, watching men with bloodstained hands pretend to be kings.
The room was already thick with cigar smoke and the low murmur of dangerous men when I stepped inside. But none of it mattered.
All I saw was her.
She sat far too close to my husband, her laugh ringing sweet and sharp like broken glass. Every gesture was calculated—her hand brushing his sleeve, her body angled toward him like the rest of the world was beneath her notice.
But it was the tattoo at her throat that made the room hold its breath. Inked in bold, black script across pale skin, the letters glimmered faintly in the light:
Γοργών.
The Gorgon.
Whispers rippled quietly around the table. No one had to explain its meaning. Everyone here knew the story—beauty so dangerous it turned men to stone. Power hidden behind a smile.
And she was smiling now. At him.
"You haven't changed," she purred, voice dripping like warm honey. "Still the man who commands a room without a single word."
He didn't move her hand from his arm. Didn't return her smile either. Just sat in that unnerving stillness of his, letting her linger.
My chest burned. I crossed the room, every step measured, until her eyes flicked up and locked onto mine.
Her lips curved, cruel and flawless. "Ah… so this is the wife." She let the word drag, like a blade pulled slow across skin. "Not at all what I imagined."
The men around us chuckled, sensing blood.
I smiled back, sharp enough to cut. "And yet, exactly what I imagined," I murmured. "A shadow from his past who doesn't know when to stay gone."
For a heartbeat, her eyes darkened, her tattoo seeming almost to pulse with heat. Then she laughed, brittle beneath its sweetness. "Careful, darling. Stone is so fragile when it's dropped."
And finally—finally—my husband looked up from the table. His eyes locked on mine, slow and deliberate. A smirk tugged at the corner of his mouth, dangerous and devastating.
Butterflies. Even now, even with her at his side, he still gave me butterflies.
His gaze lingered on mine just long enough to make the air shift—heavy, electric, suffocating.
But then… nothing.
No words. No rejection of her. No claim of me. He only leaned back in his chair, expression carved from stone, a king amused by the petty squabbles of his court.
The rival's smirk widened, emboldened by his silence. She shifted even closer to him, her hand brushing against the sleeve of his suit like she had every right to touch him. "See?" she whispered, though loud enough for me to hear. "He knows where the real power lies."
My stomach twisted, but I forced my chin higher, my smile sharper. If she thought I'd crumble, she was wrong.
"Funny," I said softly, my eyes locked on hers. "You mistake tolerance for affection. But men like him don't keep shadows. They let them fade."
And still, he said nothing. Not a word. Just that unreadable stare that burned through me until I didn't know if he was daring me to keep fighting… or warning me that the game had only just begun.