Page 65 of Fire and Silk
I don’t turn to look. Not at first.
But I feel the man beside me shift. He moves one step closer. His thumb brushes the edge of my hand, not possessive—like an artist brushing dust from the edge of a painting. His other hand rises, fingers slipping beneath a strand of my hair that’s fallen across my cheek. He tucks it gently behind my ear.
No one’s ever touched me like that.
Not like I’m fragile.
Not like I’m dangerous.
His eyes hold mine.
“Come with me,” he says.
He leads.
And I follow.
My legs feel brittle, but I walk. Past Matteo. Past Mico.
I stop.
I turn.
Mico’s face is breaking.
“You can’t trust him,” he says. His voice is thick with disbelief, maybe pain. “He’s playing you. You know he is.”
For a breath, my body wants to run back. To fold into his arms. To beg him to take me far away and never let this place find me again.
But then I feel the weight of the man behind me.
Not heavy. Not cruel. Justpresent.
I answer Mico without lifting my voice.
“I know.”
And I turn again.
The man at my side says nothing, but he walks, and I fall into step beside him.
We don’t speak as we pass through the west wing of the house. The hall narrows and then opens onto a garden so full of bloom it nearly takes the breath from my chest.
Roses spill over trellises. Peach, blood-red, ivory. Some are held upright with polished brass supports. Others climb like they’re trying to reclaim the mansion. There’s a stone basin in the middle, water trickling from a lion’s mouth carved in marble.
I pause.
He doesn’t.
But when I reach out to run my fingers along the rim of a pale-yellow rose, I hear him speak over my shoulder.
“They bloom better when they know someone’s watching.”
I don’t respond.
Not because I don’t want to—but because I don’t understand what that means.
He leads me onward, through a tall wrought iron gate, the kind that would look at home in an opera house. Beyond it, the path slopes down gently, paved in smooth white stone.
