The moment I pulled away, he seemed to realize he had broken character. After all, the man standing here was supposed to be the younger brother. Julian Frost. Nothing more.
He forced the emotion down, but his jaw stayed tight. His voice dropped low. "You're leaving?"
I looked straight at him. No flinch, no dodge, as if I meant to see every layer beneath the surface.
"What's the matter? You don't want me to go?"
For just an instant his eyes faltered, struck by something he couldn't name. A flicker of unease passed through them, as though he suspected I already knew the truth.
But he dismissed it almost as quickly as it came, smoothing his expression back to that practiced calm.
No. If she truly knew, she wouldn't be standing here like this. Not this steady. Not with the way she had loved him. If the truth had reached her, she would have shattered.
The thought anchored him. His voice found its usual measured register again.
"Don't listen to what the Don told you. The Moretti Family can provide for you. I made a promise to my brother that I would look after you and honor his trust. So put any idea of leaving out of your head. You stay where I can see you."
I laughed.
The sound carried a bitterness I couldn't name and an irony I couldn't swallow.
I genuinely could not understand him. All he had to do was let me walk out the compound gates, and every complication unraveled on its own. He could stand at Adrian Winslow's side in the open, no more maneuvering around me, no more dread that one day I'd notice a crack in the mask.
So why put on this show of refusing to let me go?
He seemed stung by my laugh, by the tears caught in it. His expression stalled. He was about to speak when his phone cut through the silence, the ringtone sharp and out of place in the still air.
He glanced at the screen, and the hardness around his eyes dissolved at once.
He answered. Adrian Winslow's soft, sweet voice carried through.
"Darling, is the soup ready? I'm so hungry."
His tone turned gentle in a way I had never heard directed at me. "Almost done. I'll bring it to you in a minute. Be good. Just a little longer."
We were standing close enough that I heard every word, heard the playful whine threaded through her voice.