I woke up alone.
For one exquisite, disorienting moment, I smiled into the pillow.
It still smelled like Matteo.
Cedarwood. Clean linen. The faint trace of his cologne. And something warmer beneath it—something unmistakably his.
The scent wrapped around me like the memory of his arms.
My skin still carried the imprint of the night before. The tenderness of his hands. The rough honesty in his voice. The single word he had spoken in the darkness with more vulnerability than I had ever heard from him.
I closed my eyes and let myself relive it for one dangerous second.
The storm outside.
The way he had kissed me as if restraint were no longer possible.
The steady beat of his heart beneath my cheek as I fell asleep in his arms.
Since our arranged marriage began, I had felt something a
