Chapter 3
880 Words
3:11 AM — Room 707, Rome
The city outside their window didn’t sleep, but Isabella did—for a moment.
Her body curled beneath the sheets like silk-wrapped sin.
Leonardo lay beside her, eyes open, chest rising and falling like a man who’d just walked through fire.
Because he had.
Every night with her was a blaze.
And yet he kept coming back.
He couldn’t stay away.
---
He reached for her hand in the dark, slid his fingers between hers.
She didn’t wake, but her body moved—subtly, as if it knew him now.
Like her skin had memorized his touch.
He stared at her like a man possessed.
Because he was.
He hadn’t just touched her—he’d inhaled her.
He could still taste her breath, still feel her voice scratching behind his ribs when she moaned his name like a prayer.
She wasn’t his.
Not in public.
Not on paper.
But in here? In this bed? In this city where no one dared call them by their real names?
She was his everything.
And it scared the hell out of him.
---
She stirred an hour later, lips swollen, hair a mess, eyes dark with sleep and something far more dangerous.
She looked at him like he was her last cigarette—
Deadly. Addictive. Irresistible.
> “We have to stop,” she whispered.
He didn’t flinch.
> “No.”
> “Leonardo—”
> “You say that every time. And every time, you come back to me wet and trembling and begging for it.”
Her eyes burned.
> “Because I can’t stop.”
> “Then don’t,” he snapped, grabbing her wrist, yanking her across the bed. “Don’t lie to me. Don’t lie to yourself.”
> “This is dangerous.”
> “So f***ing what.”
His mouth was on hers again before she could cry or think or run. His hands dragging her down, his voice like fire in her ear:
> “Let it be dangerous. Let it kill us. Just don’t you dare leave me.”
---
From that night on, they didn’t even pretend anymore.
He started showing up in cities where she traveled.
She started wearing his cologne behind her ears.
They both stopped sleeping unless it was in each other’s arms.
They became reckless.
Unhinged.
So in love it was bleeding into destruction.
And the world?
It was starting to notice.
Over the Next Few Weeks — Florence, Rome, Milan
It wasn’t supposed to feel like this.
Not for her. Not for him.
At first, it was just s*x.
Stolen. Sinful. Sharp around the edges.
But slowly—
So slowly neither of them noticed it happening—
Something shifted.
---
It was in the way she started texting him for no reason.
Not to meet. Not to fight. Just… to talk.
> “Do you believe in fate?”
“I don’t believe in anything but your mouth.”
“You’re impossible.”
“And you’re still here.”
---
It was in the way he started waiting outside her charity luncheons.
No words. No warnings.
Just standing across the street in a black coat and sunglasses, cigarette in hand—so she’d know he was there.
She never told him to stop.
---
It was in the silence after they touched.
Not the wild kind.
The quiet kind.
Like the night she curled against his chest in a Milan hotel and whispered:
> “If I could be born again, I’d want to be yours first.”
Leonardo didn’t answer.
He just held her tighter.
---
They still fought.
They still broke things.
Sometimes she’d scream at him and try to leave.
Sometimes he’d grab her by the waist, drag her back to bed and say:
> “Say it. Say you love me or I’ll f***ing lose it.”
> “I don’t—”
> “Liar.”
---
But she did start saying it.
In the dark.
In gasps.
In ways she thought he wouldn’t notice.
Like the night she was falling asleep on his chest and whispered:
> “I’d kill for you.”
He kissed her forehead, voice raw:
> “Don’t. I’ll do the killing. You just stay mine.”
---
And then came the breaking point.
It wasn’t s*x.
It wasn’t a kiss.
It was a fever.
Isabella got sick. Badly. High fever. Nearly collapsed at an embassy event. Her fiancé left with the ambassador to continue talks.
Leonardo?
He showed up in her private suite before the staff could call security.
He didn’t ask. He didn’t leave.
He sat beside her bed, sponging her forehead, whispering her name over and over like a prayer.
And when she woke, delirious, skin burning, she reached for him—not her mother, not Giovanni.
> “Leo…”
> “I’m here, baby. I’m here.”
> “You’re not supposed to be.”
> “Try and stop me.”
---
That was the night she realized it.
Not just obsession.
Not just lust.
Love.
The kind that made her want to burn down everything she’d ever known.
The kind that made her choose him, every time—even if it killed her.
- Writer
