The restaurant's air was too thick, the candlelight too intimate, and Luca Moretti knew he should have walked away. He should have let the silence stretch until one of them broke it, should have let the phone buzzing insistently on the table remind him of who he was and what his family demanded of him.
But instead, he leaned closer.
"Tell me, Aria," he said softly, his voice threading through the low murmur of the room. "Do you believe in fate?"
Her brow arched, elegant and unflinching. "Fate?" she repeated, as if testing the weight of the word on her tongue. "I believe in choices. And in consequences."
He studied her, the flicker of the candle painting shadows across her face. For a heartbeat, he thought she looked nothing like a pawn in this feud. She looked like the queen. And that realization was more dangerous than any order his father could give.
"You sound like someone who carries too many secrets," he said.
Her lips parted, but no words came. Instead, she lowered her gaze to her glass, fingers tightening around the stem. Luca knew that look. He had seen it in himself—someone at war, pulled between duty and desire, truth and survival.
For a moment, silence returned, but it was not empty. It was heavy, filled with all the things neither dared to say.
Then her phone lit up. A single notification, brief, but visible from across the table.
Luca caught it before she could turn it over. One word had flashed on the screen.
"Meeting."
Aria inhaled sharply, too sharp to be casual. Her hand reached instinctively to cover the device, but Luca had already read enough.
"Going somewhere important tonight?" His voice was silk, but his eyes narrowed.
She forced a calm smile. "You seem very interested in my schedule."
"Perhaps," he allowed, leaning back, swirling the wine in his glass. "Or perhaps I just like knowing what the Bellamys are plotting."
Her body stilled at that, the faintest trace of unease breaking through her polished exterior. It was gone in an instant, but Luca noticed. He always noticed.
And it was then, in that fragile shift, that he realized she wasn't just hiding her family's secrets. She was hiding her own.
The thought unsettled him more than he cared to admit.
Before he could press further, one of Aria's bodyguards approached her ear and whispered something urgent. Her eyes flickered, then she rose to her feet, graceful but quick.
"Leaving so soon?" Luca asked, standing as well.
She hesitated, meeting his gaze for a breath that stretched too long. "Some of us don't have the luxury of sitting with wine all night."
And then she turned, her guards falling into step behind her.
Luca watched her go, watched the sway of midnight hair vanish into the doorway, watched the moment slip away like smoke through his fingers.
His phone buzzed again. He finally answered.
"Did you take her?" his father's voice demanded.
Luca's jaw tightened. His eyes were still fixed on the door where Aria had disappeared.
"No," he said, his tone calm but edged. "Not yet."
There was silence on the other end, the kind that burned.
"You're hesitating, Luca. That girl will destroy you if you don't destroy her first."
The call ended.
Luca set the phone down, but his hands clenched into fists.
Because for the first time in his life, he wasn't sure if his father was wrong.
And he wasn't sure if Aria Bellamy was walking into danger—
or if he was.