CHAPTER SIX
1459 Words
For a moment, everything freezes.
The penthouse.
The warm lamplight.
The distant whirr of the traffic, down thirty stories.
The world begins to focus on a pin prick:
His hand around my wrist.
His eyes — open. Clear. Sharp.
His voice — calm, even amused.
“You seriously think sleeping pills will do me out?” he repeats, this time more slowly.
My heart rate spikes so hard that I can feel it in my throat.
His fingers cinch in — not painfully, but purposefully. Like he wants me to feel the reality of his awareness. His power. His annoyance tinged with morbid interest.
I meet his eyes.
I can’t panic.
I can’t freeze.
I can’t let anything slip.
The Orchid will never be caught.
Never.
So I tip my chin a little and whisper, “Let me go.”
He does.
Immediately.
But he doesn’t move away. He doesn’t sit back. He doesn’t act as if he’s confused or disoriented. He only stares at me, his eyes silent and uncomfortably present.
“For how long have you been awake?” I ask.
“Long enough.”
His voice is calm. Too calm.
Under thin ice, a constant flow.
I flatten my dress with slow fingers, not to seduce, not to stun — just to buy one second for myself, so I can take a breath.
I need a story.
Not the truth.
Never the truth.
“You fainted,” I say. “You scared me. I thought you needed help.”
“You were trying to reach into my jacket pocket” He states.
God.
He didn’t miss a thing.
I inhale lightly. “I was looking for your phone. Marco abandoned you and I didn’t have your emergency calls.”
A lie.
Clean.
Thin.
Almost delicate.
Lies are my mother tongue after all.
He gets to his feet — not suddenly or menacingly, just unfolding into his full height in one smooth movement. And I have to take a step back as he closes the distance between us, without moving forward.
“You drugged me,” he says.
No emotion.
Just fact.
The gravitas of his voice squeezes the air flat.
“I didn’t,” I answer softly.
His eyebrow lifts. “Isabella.”
My real voice is brittle at the beak of his wine-wet mouth — not mean, not ironic, but all too knowing.
“Do tell,” he says, low. “Why would you feel the need to put something in my drink? Why would the Orchid be going after me?”
I stand with my arms hanging loosely at my sides, not protective, not ashamed.
Just steady.
“Men drug people at events all the time,” I say slickly. “Maybe the glass wasn’t so well-handled.”
“You gave me the glass.”
Right.
That was the sloppy part — on purpose. Victor never tells me everything. He wants me half-blind all the time, so that if I get it wrong, it’s my fault not his.
“You drank alcohol,” I say. “It could have easily been tampered with before I —”
“I never drink at any of these events,” he interjects, softly. “I only accepted because it was from you.”
Oh.
He steps closer.
He’s not attempting to frighten me.
He is taking my measure — the way a man would if he were trying to figure out whether that lioness staying in his house was tame or just waiting for the right moment to kill him.
“Isabella,” he says, “tell me why you did this.”
I can’t do that because that means:
Reveal Victor.
Reveal the agency.
Reveal Lily.
I can’t.
So I take the only route that’s left:
I lift my chin.
And I lie again.
“I didn’t drug you.”
There is a long stretch of silence between us — so long, I can almost hear the war inside him.
Logic fighting instinct. Instinct fighting something else entirely.
There are footsteps down the hall.
Marco.
Shit.
Lorenzo never even looks away from my eyes when Marco enters.
“Is he awa—?” Marco says, panting with haste. He freezes when he saw Lorenzo standing and facing me.
His eyes moved from me to Lorenzo repeatedly.
“Boss? Everything all right? You’re… awake?” He says
Lorenzo’s expression doesn’t shift once.
“Fine,” he says. “I fell asleep.”
My heart is thumping so hard you can damn near hear it.
Lorenzo is covering for me.
Marco narrows his eyes. “Asleep? Just like that?”
Lorenzo’s got one hand in his pocket — the same pocket I was reaching for. Casual. Controlled. It claimed the ground that could've been my grave.
“Long day,” he answers.
Marco studies me. “Did she—”
“No.” The clipped refusal of Lorenzo’s tone cuts the question off. “She stayed with me so that I didn’t fall off the couch.”
Marco hesitates… then nods slowly.
“If you say so.”
Lorenzo says nothing.
He doesn’t have to.
Marco leaves without another question.
It’s like the air changes just as soon as the door clicks shut.
He saved me.
But not out of kindness.
Not out of softness.
Out of calculation.
He whirls around at me, a slow placid step forward.
“You’re going to tell me that sooner or later,” he says.
My stomach tightens. “Tell you what?” I ask
“Why you were sent after me.”
Sent.
Not why I did it.
He already accepts that someone else is responsible.
He’s sharp.
Too sharp.
He walks towards me, unbuttoning the cuffs of his shirt and I tuck the move as too relaxed for how thick the air is with tension.
“You’re shaking,” he says without turning around.
“I’m not” I counter.
“You are” He says still not facing me fully but I could see his face still. What’s up?
I swallow.
“I’m cold.” I lie
“You’re lying.”
I exhale sharply. “You’re awfully confident for someone who was just drugged.”
That earns the faintest smirk.
“I wasn’t drugged.” He says
“You were leaning against me—”
“I was pretending.”he says calmly
My heart seizes in my chest.
“You pretended to pass out?” I whisper.
He finally spins around, but leans back against the console table, hands braced on either side.
“I just wanted to see what you’d do.”
My lips part.
“You were testing me?”
“Everything is a test, Isabella.”
God.
He’s not like any man I’ve ever encountered.
Not in the slightest.
He didn’t fall.
He didn’t falter.
He didn’t even stumble.
He saw everything — graciously, silently, as if watching a storm roll toward the shore from miles off.
“I should go,” I whisper.
“You should,” he says. “But you won’t.”
My pulse stumbles.
“And why is that?”
He presses closer — not touching, not crowding — just wiping out distance with presence.
“‘Because you want something from me,” he mumbles. “And I want to know what it is.
I force myself to step back.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about Mr Moretti, except you have other plans for me tonight, I’m no longer working for you nor am I am escort for you anymore. I’m leaving.” I say trying to sound bold.
He studies me for what felt like decades before he simply says”We’re not anywhere near finished.”
“I’m leaving.” I repeated.
“Let me walk you out.”
That took me aback because wasn’t he just arguing that I’m not going anywhere.
“No,” I snap and regained myself.
He looks me over — not offended, not surprised. Just… learning.
Then he nods once.
“As you wish.”
I step around him and head for the door.
But before I reach it—
His words kiss my back like a shadow:
“Isabella.”
I stop.
“Whoever sent you …” he mutters under his breath, “they’re going to be very disappointed.”
I turn my head a bit, just enough to let me see him over my shoulder.
“And why is that?”
He smiles — slow, dark and devastating.
“I’m not the one who is going to break.”
The elevator dings.
Marco is at the far end of the hall.
Lorenzo doesn’t avert his eyes from me.
“And you’re not, either,” he adds.
- Writer
