Six Years Ago - Florence, Italy
The night after the Galleria Mascherata
The Moretti estate was asleep.
Isabella wasn't.
She stood barefoot in the marble corridor, her silk robe clinging to her legs as she moved like a shadow toward the east garden. The air still carried the scent of last night's cigars and roses. She could hear the ocean past the stone walls. But her heart was pounding for something else.
For him.
She told herself it was foolish.
That she had imagined it.
That Leonardo Valentini couldn't possibly have meant it when he bowed to her with that wicked smile and whispered-
> "If I kiss you now, will our fathers start another war?"
And yet...
The note had been tucked into her glove when she got home. No name, no signature. Just a time. A place. And three words written in the most arrogant, dangerous handwriting she'd ever seen:
> Come if you dare.
---
She found him leaning against the old fig tree in the garden, dressed in black again, like he only existed after sunset. One hand in his coat pocket. The other holding her earring.
He twirled it between his fingers like a secret.
"You really came," he said, not surprised.
"You broke into my estate," she snapped, folding her arms. "You're insane."
He smiled. "Maybe. Or maybe I just wanted to see if you'd obey your father like a good little bride."
"I'm not a bride yet."
"That's why I'm here."
---
He walked toward her.
Isabella didn't move. She knew she should scream, call the guards, run back to her room and pretend this never happened. But her feet stayed frozen in the dew-drenched grass, her breath tangled in her throat.
When he reached her, he didn't speak.
He lifted her hand, placed the stolen earring in her palm...
Then leaned down, slowly, his mouth grazing her ear.
> "You wear ivory like a saint, Isabella. But you're not one. Saints don't come to meet sinners in the dark."
She should've slapped him.
Instead, she turned her face toward his.
And for one electric second, their mouths hovered so close they were breathing the same lie.
Then-
His hand curled around her jaw.
Her lips parted.
And he kissed her.
Not soft. Not sweet.
Hungry. Filthy. Forbidden.
The kind of kiss that reeked of everything she was never supposed to want.
She gasped into him. He bit her lip. She shoved him back-he laughed-and the sound made her thighs clench in ways she'd never admit out loud.
"I hate you," she whispered, breathless.
Leonardo only stepped closer, pinning her to the tree behind her. His knee slid between her legs, careless, commanding.
> "Good. Hate me harder. Just don't stop coming back."
---
They didn't speak after that.
He vanished over the east wall like smoke, and she stood alone, flushed, trembling, lips bruised with guilt and desire.
But the worst part wasn't the kiss.
The worst part was knowing-
It wasn't going to be the last.
The moment she stepped back inside the villa, her body betrayed her.
Her lips were still swollen. Her chest still heaved. Her thighs still burned where his knee had pressed between them-like her body hadn't caught up to the fact that he was gone.
Gone... but not forgotten.
Isabella climbed the stairs without making a sound, gliding past her mother's bedroom door, past the guards stationed in the west corridor, back into her own suite where the fire still crackled low.
She locked the door behind her.
And for the first time in her life, Isabella Moretti collapsed.
Not with grace. Not with poise.
She fell into her bed with her robe still open, her fingers shaking.
She touched her lips like they didn't belong to her anymore.
Like they belonged to him now.
Leonardo fing Valentini.*
She hated him.
She hated the way he looked at her like he already knew what she'd taste like when she begged.
She hated the fact that he kissed her like he had every right to.
She hated that she let him.
But most of all?
She hated how badly she wanted it again.
---
By morning, there was no trace of him.
No message. No sign. No note hidden in her glove.
She should've been relieved.
Instead, she walked through the Moretti estate like something inside her had been flipped open. Exposed. Unfolded and never put back the same.
Even when her fiancé-Giovanni di Verona, a tall, well-bred boy with the soul of a ledger-came by to discuss engagement details with her father, Isabella sat silently at the table, watching the way his mouth moved and feeling absolutely nothing.
Not like she felt last night.
Not like she felt when Leonardo whispered in her ear like he had a claim to her breath.
---
That afternoon, the staff brought in a fresh bouquet of white roses to place on her vanity. Her mother said they were from Giovanni's family-a gesture of courtship.
But Isabella found it buried between the petals.
A note.
Just four words.
> "Same tree. Midnight. -L"
She didn't smile.
She didn't cry.
She just stared out her window, eyes dark, mouth parted, heart pounding like something very wrong had just begun to feel very, very right.
Midnight. The East Garden.
She didn't dress carefully this time.
No robe. No veil of modesty.
Just a slip of black silk beneath a trench coat, heels clicking softly on stone as she moved through the shadows like she belonged to them.
The guards had changed rotation. She knew their patterns. Her whole life had been trained choreography-dodge, lie, smile. This was just another performance.
Except this time, her audience was the devil.
He was already there. Waiting.
Back to the tree, cigarette between his lips, coat open, collar up, like this was his estate and not the place his father once tried to burn down in a turf war.
He didn't turn as she approached.
"Smoking under a fig tree?" she said, tone flat. "How poetic."
Leonardo exhaled slowly, head tilted. "Had to kill the time somehow. You kept me waiting."
"You gave me four words," she replied. "I considered not coming."
"You considered it for exactly five minutes," he said, finally turning to face her. "Then you spent the rest of the day wondering what I'd do to you if you did."
She froze.
Because he was right.
And worse-he knew it.
---
He stepped closer. The silence shifted. The garden shrank around them.
"Take off your coat," he said.
Her breath caught.
"What?"
His jaw tightened. "I said take it off. Or I will."
Isabella didn't move. Not yet.
But her fingers twitched at her sides. Her eyes locked on his, searching for the threat, the bluff, the joke-
There was none.
Only fire. Only heat.
Only Leonardo, who stepped forward and reached for the lapels himself.
He pulled it open slowly.
Her breath stuttered in her chest.
The silk beneath clung to every inch of her-thin, black, indecent in the moonlight. It wasn't meant to be seen. Not by him.
But he didn't flinch. Didn't smile.
He just whispered, voice low, dark, and hungry:
> "Tell me, Isabella... is this what you wear for your fiancé too?"
She swallowed hard. "You don't get to ask me that."
"Don't I?" He leaned closer, mouth brushing the curve of her jaw. "You came here for me. Wearing this. Alone. At midnight. In your father's garden. What exactly do you think I get to do?"
Her knees went weak. She hated how easily he read her. How shameless he made her feel.
She hated even more that it turned her on.
---
He didn't touch her.
Not yet.
But he moved behind her, dragged his fingertips down her arms, slow, like a brand.
"I want you to remember this," he said, mouth near her ear.
"Every time he puts his hands on you-
Every time you smile in public-
Every time you sit at your father's table and pretend you're not mine."
Isabella shut her eyes, fists clenched.
> "I'm not yours."
He didn't laugh this time. Didn't tease.
He just slid one hand around her throat and held it there-gently, firmly, like a threat wrapped in silk.
> "You will be."
---
And then he walked away.
Just like that.
No kiss. No release.
Only silence and the echo of his hand still around her neck.
She didn't move for a full five minutes.
She couldn't.
Because that night, he didn't take anything from her.
He made her realize how much she wanted to give him.