Page 82 of Of Lies and Shadows

He stays there, forehead resting on mine, both of us breathing hard.

And for a moment, we’re not enemies. Not pawns or puppets. Just two people tangled in something too raw to name.

He rolls onto his back, his breathing ragged, and his arm reaches instinctively for me. He tries to bring me with him, tuck me against his chest like it’s the most natural thing in the world. Like we didn’t just lose ourselves in something that shouldn’t have happened.

I let him guide me for a second, but the weight of it hits me all at once.

The pleasure.

The intimacy.

The way I forgot everything—who he is, what he did—just because his body knew how to make mine sing.

I slip out of his hold, carefully and quietly, gathering theedges of the sheet around me like armor.

“Where are you going?” His voice is low but already laced with warning.

“Time to sleep,” I say, not meeting his eyes.

“Exactly,” he replies. “So stay.”

I hesitate at the foot of the bed, every nerve still humming, every part of me screaming to escape before I forget again.

“I’m going back to my room.”

He sits up slowly, the sheet falling to his waist. His expression hardens. “Imagine the kids,” I add quickly. “If they come looking for me and I’m not there?—”

“They’ll get used to it,” he snaps. “Youaremy wife, Francesca.”

I look up at him, my throat tight.

“Mine.” The word slices through the air, sharp and possessive. A claim.

“I’m not yours, not in the way that matters,” I whisper. “I’m not a body to tuck into your bed when it suits you.”

His jaw clenches. “That’s not what this is.”

“Isn’t it?” I hold his stare, and for once, he doesn’t flinch.

The silence stretches.

Finally, I speak again, quieter now. “You said you wanted me to try. I did. But that’s all I have to offer to you.”

He exhales hard through his nose, his muscles tense with something I can’t name. Not anger. Not entirely. Something darker and sadder.

“You forget I see the woman who reads bedtime stories like they're scripture. The woman who laughs when shethinks no one’s watching. You want to pretend none of that matters, but it does.”

I swallow hard. Now is not the time to explain again that I know the truth deep in my bones. That I learned very young to see people as they are, not as I wished them to be.

“Goodnight, Dante.”

He doesn’t stop me this time. Doesn’t speak. Just watches as I put on my discarded robe from the floor and slip through the door, barefoot and still aching.

And somehow… that silence is louder than anything else.

As soon as I step into my room, I close the door softly behind me and press my back against it, clutching the robe to my chest like it might keep the memory of him out. But it’s useless. My skin still tingles. My thighs are still trembling. My body still hums with the aftershocks of something I can’t name.

I never imagined sex could feel like that. Raw. Consuming. Beautiful.

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