Porcelain & Fire

The First Test

Alessia

The next morning, he’s already there.

I open my bedroom door and nearly collide with him. Matteo stands in the hallway, solid and immovable, arms loose at his sides but coiled all the same. He doesn’t blink. Doesn’t speak. Just tilts his head slightly, as if wordlessly inviting me to move.

Like a shadow that’s decided it doesn’t need permission to follow.

I force my chin high, sweeping past him without comment, though my pulse skips once at the weight of his presence at my back. He doesn’t trail too close, doesn’t crowd me—but I know he’s there. Every step down the stairs, every shift of air behind me, he’s there.

By the time I sit at the table, he’s already stationed behind my father’s chair, hands clasped loosely in front of him, gaze fixed straight ahead. Silent. Watchful. Like he’s been here forever.

I spear my fork through the eggs, breaking yolk with more force than necessary. “You know, for someone supposedly hired to keep me safe, you’re terrible at blending in. Ever considered not standing like a hitman waiting to pull the trigger?”

“Ever considered eating without commentary?” he says smoothly, eyes still forward.

The fork freezes halfway to my mouth.

Silence stretches, long enough for the weight of it to settle. He actually answered me. Calm. Direct. Like he’s allowed.

My father clears his throat, sharp and low. A warning—for me.

Heat pricks the back of my neck, but I smirk, unbothered, letting it curve slow and sharp. “Careful, Bianchi. I might start to think you’ve got a personality under all that brooding.”

He doesn’t bite. He waits, stone-still, until my father excuses himself. Only then does he say, voice pitched low, “You like pushing people, don’t you?”

“Only the ones who think they can push me first.” I smile, sweet and poisonous.

---

By afternoon, the house is a cage that shrank overnight. The knowledge of him in every hallway, every corner, tightens the walls. So I test him.

In the sitting room, I sprawl on the sofa and kick my feet onto the polished coffee table. He posts by the wall, pretending to be invisible. The hum of the grandfather clock fills the silence, each tick another reminder of him watching me.

“So,” I say, loud enough to echo, “do you even sleep? Or are you solar-powered?”

“Don’t worry about me,” he replies, voice even as glass.

“Not worried,” I shoot back. “Just wondering if my father hired a bodyguard or a stalker.”

That earns me a glance—sharp, brief, cutting. “Call it what you want. I’m not leaving.”

Something in his tone needles deeper than I expect. I sit up, fold my arms tight across my chest. “God, you’re insufferable.”

“And you’re predictable.”

The word lands harder than it should. Heat spikes—annoyance, then something uglier I refuse to name. I’m on my feet before the comeback forms, storming past him with my pulse thudding in my throat.

My bedroom door slams. Silence drops like a curtain.

Predictable.

The word rattles around my skull until I throw a pillow at the wall just to hear something break the quiet. I pace. I breathe. I stop.

If he thinks he’s mapped me out already, he needs a new compass.

The window lock slides with a soft click. Cool air licks my face. I’ve done this a hundred times—trellis, ledge, shadow, gone. Patience is the trick. And Matteo? He’s probably planted outside my door like a textbook soldier, waiting for me to sulk.

I swing a leg over the sill, then the other. Fingers on stone, toes on iron. Down in three breaths. My feet kiss the ground without a sound.

The estate spreads wide around me, familiar as my own skin. I slip through shadow and hedge, circle the side path where deliveries come. The back door gives under a practiced touch.

Inside, the sitting room blooms from the dark with the glow of the TV when the remote clicks alive. I flop onto the sofa, feet back on the coffee table, volume up just enough to be heard.

It doesn’t take long.

He appears in the doorway, scanning, processing. His face is all iron, but a flicker betrays him—just enough to tell me I’ve unbalanced the board.

I stretch, lazy, like I’ve been there all along. “Oh,” I murmur, innocent as a saint. “Were you looking for me? I’ve been right here. Maybe you’re not as good at this shadow routine as you thought.”

Silence answers—stone-cold, heavy. His jaw ticks once. The tiniest crack. Satisfaction warms my chest.

Round one, me.

He lingers. Watches. Weighs. When he finally speaks, his voice is low and level. “I underestimated you.” No excuse. No temper. Just truth. “I won’t make that mistake again.”

My grin turns slow and triumphant. I rise like a queen abandoning a throne and brush past him. “Good,” I purr. “You’re learning.”

He doesn’t move. Doesn’t stop me. But I can feel him watching, heat pressed between my shoulder blades all the way to the stairs.

Back in my room, I close the door with a soft click. The satisfaction hums.

Point made.

And tomorrow? I’ll push harder.

---

Back in my room, I close the door with a soft click. The satisfaction hums through me, curling warm in my chest.

Round one: mine.

I toss myself onto the bed, silk sheets whispering under me, and let out a breath I didn’t know I’d been holding. My lips curve into a grin I can’t quite tame. Predictable? He didn’t see that coming.

I imagine his face again—stone, but not unshakable. That flicker when he realized I’d slipped past him. Not outrage. Not panic. Just calculation adjusting to new information. The way his jaw ticked once, like he’d catalogued me in a new category: not fragile, not porcelain, not even reckless. Dangerous.

The thought sends a thrill through me. For the first time in too long, I feel like I set the terms, even if just for a moment.

But the quiet doesn’t stay sweet. Silence never does in this house. It stretches too long, pressing heavy on the walls, reminding me I’m never as free as I pretend.

I roll onto my side, staring at the door. I know he’s still out there. He won’t sulk back to whatever barracks the others use. He’ll post himself in the hall like a statue, breathing quiet, waiting.

And the worst part? I can feel him.

Not in the room—he’d never cross that line. But in the air. In the way the shadows seem thicker near the door, in the way every creak of the old house makes my pulse quicken because I think it’s him shifting his weight.

He said he underestimated me. That he wouldn’t make that mistake again.

The challenge is laid, and I can’t ignore it. Tomorrow, I’ll have to be sharper. Smarter. Less obvious. If I let him box me in, even once, he’ll own the board.

I close my eyes, forcing my body to stillness, but my mind keeps running—paths out of the estate, gaps in his armor, ways to needle him until he cracks.

Because that’s what this is now. Not guard and ward. Not protector and protected.

A game.

And if Matteo Bianchi thinks he can cage fire, he’s about to learn what happens when it slips through the bars.