Chapter 7 - The Shadow in the Mirror
Midnight at the Duca Estate.
The storm had returned, driving heavy rain against the glass walls of the master suite.
Amelia stood in front of the grand floor-to-ceiling mirror in the bathroom. She had taken off the emerald gown and was wearing a simple silk robe. She stared at her reflection in the dim light, tracing the thin white scars on her wrists with her index finger.
The war had begun, blood had been spilled, and her captors were paying their debts. Yet, deep inside her chest, a strange, persistent dark void remained.
The bathroom door opened softly.
Roman stepped in, wearing a dark gray linen shirt with the collar unbuttoned, his sleeves rolled up to his forearms. He held a silver tray carrying two crystal glasses of aged scotch.
He set the tray down on the marble vanity, standing behind her, looking at her reflection in the glass.
“You’re quiet,” Roman noted softly.
“I was thinking about the seventh hundredth day,” Amelia murmured, her eyes locking onto his reflection. “I had run out of lead for my pencils. I spent three hours grinding a piece of iron against the floor to make a sharp edge so I could keep carving the marks.”
Roman’s hands came up, resting gently on her shoulders. His broad, warm frame behind her felt like an impenetrable wall against the darkness of the past.
“You don't have to carve marks anymore, Amelia,” Roman whispered, his baritone voice laced with profound tenderness. “You are free.”
Amelia turned around in his arms, facing him directly. Her dark gray eyes searched his face, taking in the sharp jawline, the faint surgical scar near his temple, and the intense, burning hazel eyes that had looked for her for two long years.
“Am I free, Roman?” she asked softly. “Or did I just exchange Garrett Bell’s warehouse for Roman Duca’s golden cage?”
Roman did not flinch from her question. He did not pull away.
He reached down, took her right hand, and unclasped the gold signet ring from her finger, holding it up between them.
“This ring gives you command over thirty thousand men, three billion dollars in liquid assets, and my absolute personal protection,” Roman said slowly, his voice thick with raw, intense sincerity. “If you want to walk away tomorrow—if you want a clean life in Europe, a new identity, a quiet house on Lake Como where nobody knows your name—I will hand you a passport and five hundred million dollars, and I will let you go.”
Amelia held her breath, her heart hammering against her ribs. “And what do you get?”
“I get to know that the only woman I have ever loved is safe, happy, and free,” Roman confessed softly, the absolute truth of his soul laid bare before her.
Amelia stared at him in complete shock.
He had not searched for her for two years to secure a corporate merger. He had not walked alone into a dangerous, unsecured warehouse to catch a traitor. He had done it because he had loved her from the moment he first saw her six years ago at her father’s gala—a silent, intense devotion that had survived two years of blood, shadow, and war.
Tears welled in Amelia’s eyes, hot and brilliant, slipping down her pale cheeks.
She reached out, grabbing Roman’s silk collar, pulling him down to her.
“I don't want a quiet house in Europe, Roman,” Amelia whispered fiercely against his lips. “I want to reign beside you.”
She kissed him.
May you like
It was not a soft, delicate kiss. It was a fierce, hungry collision of two souls that had been forged in pain, bound by blood, and united in absolute conquest.
Roman wrapped his broad arms around her waist, lifting her against his chest, sweeping her into his world forever.
