Seraphina Moretti had always known herself to be impatient. It was one of the few qualities she embraced about her own flaws—she was born to push, to demand, to pry open the world with fingernail or threat, whichever worked first. Yet nothing in her life—nothing in her carefully curated, pampered existence—had prepared her for the terror of being trapped behind a cold wooden panel in the walk-in closet of the most powerful man on earth, listening to every breath he took as though he might hear hers in response.
She had not intended to stay hidden.
Her plan, if it could even be called that, had been simple: slip in, look around, confirm how changed he was, and slip out again before he came home. But she miscalculated the timing. Or perhaps she miscalculated him—because the Adrian who walked into the room was not the boy whose footsteps she used to hear from a mile away due to their lumbering heaviness. This man moved like a shadow, a predator, a creature shaped by fear and sharpened by danger.
So she stayed still.
Ten minutes turned into thirty.
Thirty became an hour.
Her legs began to ache, then burn, then tremble with the strain of standing so unnaturally locked in place. Her back pressed painfully against the wall, and her breath stayed small, shallow, careful.
She thought he would leave the closet after grabbing a change of clothes.
But he didn't.
He worked.
She didn't even know at what point he started—she only realized it when she saw him, through the narrow crack between two mirrored panels, take his laptop from the dresser and sit on the floor against the wall just outside the closet. He sat there, in silence, cross-legged, his back straight, his expression carved from unwavering focus.
And he worked.
Pages flicked. Spreadsheets scrolled. His hands moved quickly, efficiently, without hesitation.
He works in his bedroom floor?Is he insane? When did he become this… relentless?
Hours rolled by like sand.
He didn't eat.Didn't drink.Didn't stand.Didn't stretch.Didn't speak.
The only motion she saw was his fingers and the slight shift of his jaw whenever he clenched it—habitual, controlled, the unconscious mannerism of a man wrestling down exhaustion through sheer will.
She had always mocked him for being incompetent, spoiled, useless.
Now she wondered if she had ever understood even a fraction of the person in front of her.
Two hours in, her feet throbbed and her spine screamed. Her heartbeat never slowed—it was a wild frantic beat, not of fear, but of something far more confusing. Shame slithered up her throat each time she saw that cold focus, each time she caught the faint sheen of fatigue in the hard set of his eyes.
He's killing himself.
He's actually killing himself with work.
And she had come here to… what?Annoy him?Manipulate him?Try to force a marriage with a man who no longer even saw her?
The hours passed slowly.
She counted the seconds between his breaths.She studied the muscles that tensed along his forearms.She watched the way he pushed back strands of hair from his face with impatient fingers.She watched the faint tremor in his shoulders from exhaustion—so slight he likely didn't even know it was there.
And then, sometime deep into the night, he stood.
Seraphina's heart jumped wildly.
He stretched—just an inch, just enough to roll his neck. And for the first time tonight, she saw him up close through the crack in the wall.
And it shattered something inside her.
He lifted his shirt to pull it off.
And her breath caught.
She had expected him to be slimmer, yes. She had expected cosmetic changes. But she hadn't expected this.
He was built.
Lean, lithe, muscles defined like marble rendered with surgical precision. A torso sculpted through ruthless training—she could see the faint shadows of bruises on his ribs, the contours of his shoulders shaped by nightly battles against insomnia and inner demons. His waist was narrow, his abdomen a plane of rigid discipline. His back—
She almost made a sound.
His back was a map of quiet, brutal transformation. Muscles pulled tight beneath skin, scars faint but visible—evidence of the violence he endured in captivity. Lines carved by sweat, by pain, by determination.
This wasn't the body of a pampered heir.
This was the body of a man who clawed his way out of hell.
She pressed a hand hard over her mouth, tears stinging unexpectedly at the corner of her eyes—not because of beauty (though he was beautiful), but because she realized, with crushing weight, that she had never once understood the magnitude of what he went through.
She thought he got lucky, being rescued.She thought he inherited by fate.She thought he lived cushioned by wealth.
But the truth—staring at his bruised ribs, at the etched tension in his muscles—was far darker.
He earned his survival.
And he endured it alone.
He threw the shirt into the laundry basket, then unbuttoned his slacks slowly. She whipped her head away, cheeks blazing, breath quick and uneven. She hadn't come here to… to spy on him like this. She wasn't meant to see him as a man. Certainly not like that.
She cautiously peeked again only when she heard the bathroom door open.
He walked toward it, now only in briefs, body gleaming faintly under the soft ambient lighting.
She didn't even register desire—only a dizzy mixture of shock, disbelief, and a nausea of guilt swirling deep in her stomach.
He closed the bathroom door and turned on the shower.
The moment water hit tile, Seraphina moved.
Her legs nearly gave out, pins and needles shooting up her calves. She staggered out of the closet, holding her breath even though the sound of running water drowned everything else. Her heels clacked once—too loud—and she froze.
No movement from behind the bathroom door.
She crept across the room, every step agony, every breath shallow, her hand pressing against the wall to steady herself. By the time she reached the hall, her face was flushed, her pulse frantic.
She made it to the corridor.
Only when she reached the far end did she finally allow herself to breathe again, her chest rising and falling in silent, violent waves.
She leaned against the wall, trembling.
Not from fear.
From something much worse.
From the realization that the boy she thought she hated was dead—and the man who replaced him was so far beyond her reach, so much larger, so much deeper, so much… stronger… that she didn't even know how to stand in the same house as him anymore.
She slid down the wall, knees to her chest, shaking.
And for the first time in her life, Seraphina Moretti—selfish, proud, demanding Seraphina—whispered a truth she had never said aloud:
"What have I done…?"