Page 77 of The Silent War

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“You,” Luca said.

She huffed a laugh. “Cheating.”

“True,” he said.

She turned to me. “Your turn.”

“The dress,” I said. Then—because truth should be precise—“The way you didn’t straighten it when people looked.”

We didn’t kiss her. We didn’t touch more than fingers. We stood there with her in a glass room that made the ocean feel tame and let our bodies relearn the shape of her breathing in real time.

Someone started a speech upstairs. Our surname was in it. I didn’t flinch.

Her phone lit it. She checked it, then slid it away without reading. I didn’t ask. She didn’t owe me the content of her silence.

“Ten minutes are up,” she said, smiling a little like she hoped we’d argue.

“We can renegotiate,” Luca said.

“Terrible businessmen,” she said. “You’ll give me the whole company if I ask nice enough.”

“We already did,” I said.

She looked between us like she understood more than we’d said. Then she stepped close and reached up to fix a wrinkle in my lapel I’d put there on purpose so she’d do exactly this.

Her fingers stayed longer.

“Thank you for letting us on the palace,” she said.

I didn’t react. Not with my face. But my chest burned.

“You knew,” Luca said softly.

“I’m not stupid,” she said. “And I listen when the yacht tells on her owners.”

I wanted to laugh and couldn’t. I wanted to lift her up, but I settled for what I could have.

“You’re welcome,” I said.

She looked back at the water, then at us, then at the doorwhere the reunion waited with its speeches and cameras and alumni who wanted to pretend to like us now.

“Come on,” she said. “Let’s go let them think their lives matter for half an hour.”

“Half,” I agreed.

“Twenty minutes,” Luca bargained.

“Fifteen,” she decided, and started toward the hall with that small, fearless smile that made the whole world align.

We moved with her.

One step behind, then one step to either side. Not flanking or caging.

Just… home positions.

Chapter Twenty-Five

BASTION

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