Page 86 of Vow to Claim You

We land in a different world. Palermo is all light. It pours off the sea and ricochets off pale stone and lands warm on my skin the second I step onto the tarmac. It feels like Monsera.

The venue is a villa above the coast, old and golden and draped in white flowers. It’s beautiful. It’s also crawling with the most dangerous people on earth, dressed like a magazine spread.

We’re barely through the gates when I see her.

Chiara.

The whole moment seems to lean toward her the way a room leans toward the person it’s all for. Serena walks on her side, and beside her, with one hand at the small of Serena’s back like a brand, is Nikos.

Serena’s gaze finds us first, and it moves over Aric, and then it settles on me, cool and exact. I remember, all at once, that the first time this woman looked at me, she was deciding whether I deserved the air I breathed.

Then Chiara looks up, and her gaze locks with Aric’s across the courtyard.

I don’t know what passes between them. That’s the worst part. I can’t read it—this thing that exists in the space between two people who were once meant to build a life together and never got the chance.

A second. Two. Long enough for something to turn over low in my chest. Long enough for that’s all it is, Ayanna to echo through my mind, and, for the first time, sound like a lie.

Then her gaze slides from him to me. Her replacement. It’s only a flicker, barely half a second, but it feels as though she’s looking straight through skin and bone, searching for the place I’d break. Then someone steps between us, breaking the line of sight.

“You came.” Hyun-seok smiles, and his whole face beams in a way I’ve never once seen on my husband. He clasps Aric’s hand and pulls him into a half embrace, two thumps to the back. “I wasn’t sure you would.”

“I said I would.”

Hyun-seok nods, then turns to me and smiles once again. “Ayanna. Thank you. Truly. It means more than he’ll ever let me say.” His eyes cut to Aric, fond and exasperated. “He’s not built for sentiment, this one. I’ve made my peace with it.”

Despite everything, I almost chuckle. “I’m learning.”

“You have my sympathy,” he says lightly, but there’s real kindness under it, and I understand why Aric keeps this man. “Come. I’ve had a room made up for you both. Change, settle, and breathe before the chaos starts. Second floor. Someone will show you.”

We step into the room. The shutters are half drawn against the afternoon, a balcony beyond them framing a long blue ribbon of the Mediterranean. Our bags are already waiting.

Aric makes his way to the window and stops there, his back to me. The silence stretches between us until I can’t hold the question in any longer.

“Does it bother you?”

He doesn’t turn. “Does what?”

“Your best friend. Marrying her.” I make myself say it. “Chiara.”

He turns and looks at me across the room. “Why would it?”

“Because she’s the woman you planned a future with once.” The words come out before I can dress them up. “A real one. Not⁠—”

“That was before.” He cuts in, his tone calm as ever.

“And now?”

“Now I’m married to you.”

My pulse trips. I cover it the only way I know how—chin up, voice flat. “That’s not an answer.”

“It’s the only one there is.” He takes a step closer. “You keep doing this. Deciding my attention is somewhere it isn’t. On the wedding. On her. On a life that stopped being mine the day I signed the same contract you.” Another step. “You want to know where my attention is, Ayanna?”

“Where?” That comes out as a whisper.

“Right now,” he murmurs, “it’s on my wife.”

My heart skips a beat. The world narrows until there’s nothing left but him. His words find somewhere deep inside me and take root, and I hate how badly I want to believe them. I hate even more how frightened I am to.