Aria's POV
The voice from the phone call sat in my head the entire drive back to the villa.
I kept replaying it against my will, the way it hadn't sounded threatening exactly but hadn't sounded safe either.
"If you want to understand what you really are."
The words circled like something looking for a place to land.
Outside the window the city was waking up slowly. Normal things. Human things. The kind of ordinary Tuesday world I had lived in my whole life before wedding dresses and bar kisses and glowing hands started rewriting everything I thought I knew about myself.
Damian drove without speaking.
I'd expected him to start arguments immediately. Instead he just drove, both hands on the wheel, jaw set, eyes forward.
The villa gates opened as we pulled in. The mo
