Page 100 of Goldflame

His fingers tighten around mine. “How could I? It was my shame to bear. And telling you would have put you in danger. If my father had known how much I truly cared for you, he would have dragged you into those rooms too. Made me hurt you in front of everyone.”

And just like that, everything shifts. The cold, distant Adrian I resented for years wasn’t rejecting me—he was protecting me the only way he knew how. By keeping me at arm’s length and never letting his father see how much I mattered.

All those nights I lay beside him, feeling unwanted, unloved, he was carrying this unbearable weight alone.

“I’m so sorry,” I whisper, reaching up to touch his face. “I had no idea.”

His eyes close at my touch, almost as if it pains him. “I never wanted you to know. I never wanted you to look at me the way you’re looking at me now.”

“How am I looking at you?”

“Like I’m broken.”

Is that what he sees in my expression?

“No,” I say firmly, taking his face in both my hands, forcing him to meet my gaze. “I’m looking at you like you’re the strongest person I’ve ever known.”

His breath catches, disbelief clear in his eyes.

“You survived,” I continue. “You protected your mother, Julian, me—all while enduring things no one should ever have to endure. You’re not broken. You’re a fucking miracle.”

A tear slides down his cheek—the first I’ve ever seen from him—and I catch it with my thumb. The gesture feels sacred somehow, like I’m being trusted with something precious and fragile.

“I couldn’t bear for you to know,” he says. “I thought… I thought if you knew the things I’d done, the things I’d been forced to do, you’d be disgusted. That you’d leave.”

I shake my head, my own tears falling freely now. “Never.”

His hands come up to cover mine, and for a moment we just stand there, breathing together.

“When I thought you were dead,” I begin, my voice unsteady, “something broke in my heart. Not just because I lost someone I cared about, but because I realized how much I had misunderstood everything. How much time we had wasted.”

He pulls me against his chest, and I rest my head there, listening to the steady rhythm of his heart.

“I always cared for Julian,” I continue, needing to be honest with him. “But what I felt for him wasn’t lasting love. It was obsession. Like an addiction. Something toxic that burned too bright.”

Adrian’s arms tighten around me.

“But you,” I say. “With you, it was different. Quieter and steadier. I didn’t recognize it as love because it didn’t hurt the way loving Julian did. When I lost you—when I thought I’d lost you forever—I understood. It wasn’t that the feelings weren’t there. I just didn’t know how to see them.”

I pull back just enough to look into his eyes, needing him to understand what I’m trying to say.

“I love you. Not the mask you wore for ten years. Not the perfect Harrow heir. You. The man who went through hell to protect the people he loved. The man who’s standing in front of me now.”

I can sense his control slipping, but he holds it together long enough to say, “We were born to complain. Life has given us that—a curse to never truly appreciate things until they’re long gone. To complain about them before truly appreciating them.”

I nod. “I love you, Adrian.”

His control—that careful restraint he’s maintained for years—finally shatters completely. He pulls me against him with a force that steals my breath, his mouth claiming mine with an intensity that borders on desperation.

This is a raw, primal kiss. It’s a dam breaking afteryears of holding back a flood. His hands tangle in my hair, angling my face to deepen the kiss, and I surrender to it completely.

Every barrier between us dissolves. The years of misunderstanding, the weeks of grief, the days of uncertainty—all of it burns away under the heat of this connection. My body remembers his, but this feels entirely new. Adrian—Dante—whoever he’s becoming, is finally allowing himself to touch me with the passion he’s kept locked away.

“Aurelia,” he breathes against my mouth. His hands slide down my back, gripping my hips with possessive heat.

I’m drowning in the sensation. The hardness of his body pressed against mine, the taste of him on my tongue, the scent of his skin—it’s overwhelming and intoxicating. My fingers fumble with the buttons of his shirt, desperate to feel his skin beneath my palms.

He groans when my hands finally make contact with his bare chest, the sound vibrating through me like an electric current. Without breaking the kiss, he lifts me effortlessly, turning to set me on the edge of the poker table. His body pushes between my legs, pressing against me in a way that makes my head spin and my thighs clench around him.

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