Thirty Days
786 Words
Thirty days.
That’s how long it had been since Aria Mendez became Aria Marcellus.
Thirty days of burning stares, stolen touches, and quiet battles in a mansion too big for a woman who once dreamed of freedom. Dominic hadn't laid a hand on her since that night outside the ballroom. Not once. He kept his distance… but never his eyes.
He watched her.
All the time.
At breakfast. In the hallway. On the terrace where she’d taken to standing alone at dusk, pretending she wasn’t waiting for him to come outside.
And now it was the last night of their arrangement.
Thirty days.
He had promised.
> “After that, you can run.”
She could still remember his voice—rough with restraint, torn between demand and surrender. But he hadn’t said another word about it since. No hint. No reminder. No plea.
And yet… here she was. Not packing. Not running.
Waiting.
The clock struck midnight.
The hallway outside her bedroom creaked with slow, heavy footsteps.
She didn't move.
The knock came seconds later.
Soft. Just once.
Her hand trembled on the knob before she turned it.
Dominic stood there in a black shirt, the top buttons undone, sleeves rolled to the elbows, jaw sharp and shadowed. But it was his eyes that made her throat tighten—because they weren’t angry. They were… afraid.
“Are you leaving?” he asked.
She stepped aside silently.
He entered, walking like a man expecting rejection, not refuge.
“I made a promise,” he said quietly. “I don’t break them. If you want to go, the jet’s ready. No guards. No contract. I’ll even clear your family’s debt in full. You’ll never hear from me again.”
Her chest ached. “Why?”
“Because I want you to stay,” he whispered. “But not as my prisoner.”
Aria crossed the room, stopped inches from him. Her voice was barely a breath.
“Why did you take me, Dominic?”
His throat worked. “Because I wanted something that was mine. Something no one could twist or use or ruin. I thought if I had you, I'd be safe from what the world took from me.”
“You didn’t even know me.”
“I didn’t need to,” he said. “I just... I saw fire in you. And I needed warmth more than you’ll ever know.”
Silence bloomed.
Then Aria reached up, touched his cheek—just once.
“You didn’t steal me, Dominic. You found me where I was already lost.”
He looked at her like she was a dream.
“I don’t know how to love gently, Aria.”
“Then don’t,” she whispered. “Just love me honestly.”
He kissed her then.
Not with fury.
Not with hunger.
But like a man choosing to fall, and a woman letting herself catch him.
---
The next morning, the staff whispered when they saw them together at breakfast—Aria in a silk robe that wasn’t hers, Dominic pouring her coffee like it was the most natural thing in the world.
Julian showed up at noon.
“I suppose this means you’re staying,” he said dryly.
“I suppose it does,” Aria replied with a small smile.
He studied her. “Be careful with him. He was born with armor, but never learned how to take it off.”
“I don’t want him to,” she said. “I just want to be the one he lets inside it.”
---
That night, Dominic stood at the edge of the balcony, staring at the city skyline.
Aria stepped beside him.
“What are you thinking?” she asked.
“That I didn’t think I’d survive the month without destroying everything.”
“You didn’t destroy anything,” she said softly.
“You’re wrong,” he said, turning to her. “I destroyed the part of me that believed I wasn’t capable of being loved.”
His voice cracked—barely.
“And you?” he asked. “You still have the chance to leave. You could start over. You could—”
She kissed him, slow and firm, silencing every fear in his mouth.
“I already started over, Dominic. The moment you walked into that chapel and said I was yours.”
---
A year later, the world knew her as more than the woman who married a Marcellus.
She was the woman who made him human.
Who taught the devil how to love.
And he… he never let her forget who she belonged to.
Not because she was his.
But because she chose him.
Again. And again.
And again.
- Writer
