Chapter 3
1621 Words
Chapter Three: Lines That Shouldn’t Be Crossed
The next morning, Lena woke up to the sound of a piano.
She hadn’t heard a piano in years—at least, not one played like that. The melody wasn’t soft or polished. It was jagged, erratic, full of dissonant chords and unresolved tension. Whoever was playing wasn’t trying to impress anyone. They were trying to bleed.
She slipped out of bed and pulled on a soft cotton dress that had appeared in the wardrobe overnight. It hugged her frame delicately, the kind of luxury that whispered wealth instead of screaming it. She padded barefoot through the quiet villa, following the sound.
The music led her to the east drawing room. Sunlight pooled through floor-to-ceiling windows, casting golden patterns across the marble floor.
Nikolai sat at a black grand piano, his back to her, hair tousled, forearms flexing as he pressed the keys. He wore a black T-shirt and loose charcoal pants—simple, but still devastatingly precise. Even relaxed, he moved like a man born to command.
She stood in the doorway, silent.
She’d been watched her entire life—on runways, in studios, behind flashing cameras—but this was the first time she felt like she was the one doing the watching. And he was more beautiful for it. Not in the conventional sense, but in the rare way something terrifying could also be irresistible.
He stopped playing.
“Enjoying the performance?” he asked, without turning around.
“I didn’t want to interrupt.”
“You didn’t.”
He finally looked over his shoulder. “You didn’t sleep well.”
She walked in, folding her arms. “I’m still trying to decide if this is a vacation or a kidnapping.”
That earned the faintest hint of a smirk. “Are you asking for the official label?”
“I’m asking for my agency back.”
He stood and met her in the center of the room. “Then take it.”
She blinked, surprised. “Just like that?”
“I don’t hold people hostage, Lena.”
“No,” she said, raising her chin. “You just watch them until they think it’s love.”
His expression shifted—something darker flashing in those sharp eyes—but he didn’t rise to the bait. “It’s not love. Not yet.”
“Oh, so you’re waiting for it?”
“I’m not waiting for anything. I’m just not pretending.”
She exhaled slowly. “I want to leave the villa today. Alone.”
He tilted his head. “Why?”
“To remember who I am when you’re not looking.”
The air stretched tight between them.
“You’re not a prisoner,” he said finally. “But I’ll be sending security.”
She bristled. “Why does everyone who says I’m free also insist on guarding me?”
“Because you’re valuable,” he said simply. “And because I’ve seen what happens when beauty walks alone.”
Lena narrowed her eyes. “I’m not a painting to be stolen, Nikolai.”
“No. You’re the artist pretending to be the art.”
That silenced her.
He stepped back. “I’ll have a car ready in one hour.”
---
She didn’t wait.
An hour later, she slipped out through the side garden and flagged a taxi at the end of the long private drive.
The driver didn’t recognize her. That was the first miracle.
The second was that Florence in the daylight felt real again.
It was noisy, full of life and careless chatter, unlike the golden cage she’d been waking up in. Lena kept her head up, her posture straight, and walked like someone who didn’t need protection. She ducked into shops, ignored the subtle glances of recognition, and breathed in the smell of street food, spice, and stone.
She bought figs from an old woman who gave her a toothless smile.
She tried on sunglasses she didn’t need.
She lingered in front of an art gallery window and saw her own face in the reflection—bare, stripped of makeup, still beautiful, but different. Raw.
At a quiet corner café, she ordered an espresso and leaned back in the chair, finally exhaling.
Her phone buzzed.
A message.
Unknown Number:
You’re beautiful when you walk without fear.
—N
Her throat tightened. Even here, he was watching.
She deleted the message.
Not because she didn’t want it.
But because she did.
---
When she returned to the villa, dusk was spilling across the horizon. The sky was all flame and shadow, and the sea reflected it like a mirror.
Nikolai met her at the entrance. He didn’t speak right away.
His gaze dragged over her—wind-blown hair, flushed cheeks, worn leather sandals.
“You left without the car,” he said.
“I didn’t want to be followed.”
“You were.”
“I figured.”
She moved past him, toward the hallway.
“You disobeyed me,” he said quietly.
She stopped mid-step. “You said I could leave.”
“I said I’d arrange protection. That was the condition.”
“Freedom with conditions isn’t freedom, Nikolai. It’s performance.”
He didn’t respond.
So she kept walking.
---
Dinner was quiet.
Lena didn’t dress up. She wore another cotton slip and kept her feet bare. She noticed that Nikolai didn’t seem to expect more of her. He’d changed too—no tailored suit, no watch, no performance.
Still, his presence filled the space like gravity.
He served her wine. Didn’t speak.
She let the silence stretch.
Until finally, she said, “Why me?”
He looked up from his plate. “I already told you.”
“That you’re obsessed. That I’m real. That I don’t hide well.”
“All true.”
“But not why. Not really.”
He put his glass down.
“I watched you in an interview three years ago,” he said. “You were wearing that green silk dress—your first high-profile campaign. Everyone talked about your beauty. But your eyes said something else.”
She remembered that interview. Remembered how she’d spent the entire flight there crying after being dropped from another agency. The makeup artist had tried to cover her swollen eyes.
“I saw you,” he continued. “And I knew. No one else did.”
“Knew what?”
“That you weren’t just surviving this industry. You were bleeding for it. But not for fame. For control. Because if you couldn’t control how they saw you, you’d disappear.”
She swallowed hard. “You make me sound like a tragedy.”
“You’re not a tragedy, Lena.” He leaned closer, voice dropping. “You’re a revolution.”
---
Later that night, she wandered.
The villa was too large, too quiet, too full of secrets.
She wandered through the art gallery again, her fingers brushing the frame of a painting that showed her laughing—head thrown back, eyes bright, caught in a moment she didn’t remember.
Had he imagined it? Or seen it, somehow, when no one else had?
She moved deeper into the east wing.
Then stopped.
There it was.
A door.
Carved wood, dark and worn. No handle. Just a keypad.
Lena tilted her head. Why would a man who had shown her every intimate painting, who had fed her, clothed her, exposed his obsession so shamelessly… lock this door?
She touched the keypad.
It beeped softly.
Four digits. Simple enough.
She tried her birthday.
Nothing.
Then his—at least the year, which she vaguely recalled from an old Forbes article.
Still nothing.
She considered walking away.
Then typed: 0113—the date of that first interview he’d mentioned.
The door clicked.
Open.
She froze.
What the hell are you doing?
But her hand pushed the door open anyway.
The room was dim, lit by soft backlights hidden in the ceiling. She stepped inside and gasped.
It wasn’t just a room.
It was a sanctuary.
A shrine.
Every inch of the walls was covered in photographs. Polaroids. Torn magazine covers. Candid shots, blown-up stills from footage, close-ups of her eyes, her hands, her back as she walked away.
Some were blurred.
Some were perfect.
All were her.
In the center was a single chair and a sketchpad, half-filled.
With her face.
Over and over again.
Lena stood there, heart pounding, overwhelmed. Not fear—not entirely. Not rage.
But something else.
Something deeper.
She’d always known she was watched. Controlled. Marketed.
But never seen.
This room—this mad, obsessive room—proved one thing:
Nikolai saw everything.
---
She didn’t hear him until he was behind her.
“I was going to show you,” he said quietly.
She turned around slowly.
He didn’t look angry. Just... exposed.
Like she’d walked into the center of his mind.
“This is beyond obsession,” she whispered.
“I know.”
“You built an altar.”
He didn’t deny it.
“Do you want me to be afraid?” she asked.
“No,” he said. “I want you to understand.”
“Understand what?”
“That I don’t need your permission to love you like this.”
Her breath caught.
And then he stepped closer—just once, carefully—like waiting to see if she’d run.
She didn’t.
Because deep down, terrifying as it was, she understood him.
She’d been collected her whole life. Owned, but never claimed.
And now here she was.
In a locked room built like a cathedral of her own image.
And for once… she didn’t feel like she was being erased.
She felt real.
- Writer
