Page 22 of Twisted Vows

She found him later in his study, standing by the window, a drink in hand, his back turned to her. The tension in his shoulders was unmistakable, but his posture was rigid, composed—controlled. He wasn’t just avoiding her; he was resetting the boundaries they had shattered the night before.

“Leaving so soon?” Isla’s voice carried across the room, cool and detached.

Matteo took a measured sip of his drink before speaking. “I have business to attend to.”

She scoffed lightly, folding her arms. “Of course you do.”

His fingers tightened around the glass, but his face remained impassive. The silence between them stretched, calculated, filled with restraint.

She took a slow step forward, but her voice remained cold. “You can’t just pretend it didn’t happen.”

Matteo finally turned to face her, his expression unreadable, carefully crafted into something indifferent. “It changes nothing.”

The words were clinical, detached. A statement of fact. And yet, Isla caught the flicker in his gaze, the brief hesitation before he spoke. She clung to that fraction of a second, knowing he was lying, but unwilling to acknowledge that she was too.

She tilted her head, smirking as if unaffected. “Good. Then we agree.”

But they didn’t. Not really.

Because even now, as they stood feet apart, she could still feel him. Still feel his hands on her skin, his breath against her throat, the brutal possession in his touch. She knew he felt it too. And that was the problem.

Matteo set his glass down with precise, unhurried movements, stepping closer, but his voice remained impassive. “You think this was a mistake?”

Isla lifted a shoulder in an indifferent shrug, though her pulse betrayed her. “A lapse in judgment.”

Matteo’s jaw tightened, but his smirk was ice. “Then it won’t happen again.”

She mirrored his expression, keeping her voice even. “No. It won’t.”

Another lie.

They were both constructing walls, rebuilding the control they had so recklessly abandoned the night before. Every word was measured, each movement intentional. They were circlingeach other like opposing forces, neither willing to give ground, neither willing to be the first to break.

Matteo studied her, his gaze sharp, dissecting. “Good.”

She lifted her chin. “Good.”

A silence stretched between them, sharp and unbearable. Neither of them moved. Neither of them blinked. This was the game they knew how to play—denial, control, precision. The night before had been chaos, a moment where power had slipped from their fingers, where raw need had eclipsed logic.

That would not happen again.

Matteo exhaled slowly, as if making a decision. He reached for his drink once more, lifting it to his lips with an ease that spoke of finality. “Get some rest, Isla.”

And then he turned and left, his strides slow, purposeful. A calculated retreat.

She stood there for a moment, unmoving, willing herself to feel nothing. Willing the echo of his touch to disappear.

But the control she fought to reclaim slipped through her fingers the moment she exhaled.

Because no matter how much she willed it away, the truth remained—

She was already losing this war.

Chapter Sixteen

The villa was always too quiet at night. The vast halls, usually echoing with the presence of guards and distant voices, felt hollow, like a mausoleum that housed the weight of too many secrets. Tonight, Isla felt that emptiness acutely.

She had tossed and turned for hours, unable to find rest. The warmth of last night still lingered on her skin, the ghost of Matteo’s hands still pressed into her memory. She had told herself it was nothing. That she had given in to weakness, that it meant nothing. But as she lay alone in her cold, empty bed, she couldn’t fight the ache in her chest—the unbearable pull toward him.

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