“Caterina.”
His voice is firmer now, a thread of steel woven through the pain. It cuts through my self-pitying spiral. He sounds like he did in the conference room. Like he did in the casino. In command. Unyielding.
I lower my hands.
He’s pushed himself up against the pillows, his face pale and etched with pain, but his eyes are clear and focused on me.
“It’s all right.”
“It’s not all right,” I whisper, shaking my head. "I-I-I attacked you. I practically jumped on you. You're injured and I—"
“You didn’t attack me,” he cuts in, his voice still quiet, but absolute. “And you didn’t hurt me.”
“But you just—”
“I moved wrong.” He takes a slow, careful breath. "It’s bound to happen when you have a new set of stitches in your side. I was warned."
He’s trying to make me feel better. He’s trying to take the blame, and it’s only making me feel worse.
“I shouldn't have come in here,” I say, my gaze fixed on the floor. "I don't know what I was thinking," I repeat. I feel like a broken record. A stupid, broken, horny—still so fucking horny—record.
“Adrenaline,” he says, like it’s the most natural thing in the world. “Fear. A near-death experience. It does things to your head.”
My head snaps up. He’s being clinical. Detached. He’s putting a label on what happened, putting it in a box.
He's giving me an out.
But what if he's right?
The humiliation is a physical thing, a hot, suffocating blanket, but the cold logic of his words is starting to sink in.
He’s right. I’ve been running on pure, uncut adrenaline for hours. And fear. God, the fear. It’s been coiled in my stomach like a snake since he grabbed my arm and dragged me across the casino floor.
Kissing him was an impulse. A desperate, primal impulse to feel something other than that cold, slithering fear. To feel life. To feel him.
He's the only thing that's felt real all night.
I take a step back, then another, putting a safe distance between us. The distance that should have been there all along.
“I should go,” I say again, my voice stronger this time.
He doesn’t argue. He just watches me, his expression unreadable in the dim light.
I turn and make my way to the door, my bare feet silent on the rug. I can feel his eyes on me the entire way, a physical weight on my back.
My hand is on the doorknob when he speaks again.
“Caterina.”
I freeze, my back still to him.
“Try to get some sleep,” he says.
I don't turn around. I can't.
I just nod, a stiff, jerky motion that he probably can't even see. Then I open the door, slip out into the hallway, and close it quietly behind me.
The hallway is dark and quiet, but it doesn’t feel safe. It feels like a long, empty corridor leading back to my own fears.
