chapter 4
1365 Words
The mansion echoed with that hollow kind of silence I’d never get used to—too perfect, too polished, too Vincenti. Morning light slanted through the tall windows of the drawing room, stretching long fingers over the grand piano and the piles of wedding portfolios Adrian had arranged like ammunition on the desk.
I sat curled on the velvet sofa, my legs tucked under me, an old notebook in my lap and frustration buzzing just under my pale skin. Adrian stood a few feet away, as taut and crisp as ever, even with his sleeves rolled up and his dark hair slightly mussed from running his hand through it again and again. He always did that when I got on his nerves.
“You want a jazz trio for the ceremony, are you serious?” he asked, eyebrows raised, voice clipped with disbelief.
I didn’t bother looking up. “Yes, I want a jazz trio.”
“This isn’t a bar in New Orleans. It’s a wedding, it needs romance, old romance.”
“Our wedding,” I said flatly, though I didn’t mean it the way he did. “And I’m not walking down the aisle to something that sounds like it belongs in a funeral home where the corpses can dance.”
He crossed his arms, the soft fabric of his white shirt straining at the biceps. “The ceremony has to be dignified. Respectable. Jazz is well, it's…”
“Alive?” I offered. “Emotional? Unpredictable? Like, I don’t know, me?”
He didn’t smile. “Like chaos like you.”
I finally looked up. “So that’s what you think of me. Chaotic.”
“I think,” he said slowly, “you find pleasure in defying everything that’s expected of you. Including this marriage, everything has to shock everyone.”
“And I think you find pleasure in sucking the soul out of everything that could be meaningful and sweet.”
His jaw tensed, and for a second, I thought we’d spiral into another full-blown argument. But instead, he let out a slow breath and moved to the piano bench. He tapped the top of it absently, not looking at me. “We could compromise. Something contemporary but elegant.”
“You mean something boring but acceptable, but boring still.”
The corner of his mouth twitched up. “You’re impossible.”
“And you’re infuriatingly hot.”
He rolled his eyes, but something soft flickered in them.
Without thinking, I started to hum. Just a few notes from a melody I’d been playing with in my head all week. A light rhythm, wistful and a little mischievous. It was a tune that didn't belong to any era or genre, just something that felt I don’t know, mine.
I didn’t expect him to respond, but then I heard it.
A soft tapping.
I looked over. Adrian, still seated on the bench, was tapping along against his thigh, picking up my rhythm without missing a beat.
Our eyes met.
Something in my chest twisted.
He didn’t look away. “What is that?”
“I don’t know,” I admitted, my voice suddenly quiet. “Just something I’ve had in my head all week. I hear music sometimes when I’m overwhelmed. Helps me… breathe.”
He nodded, surprisingly thoughtful. “My mother used to hum when she was anxious. Same three notes. Over and over.”
It was the first time he’d spoken of his mother without that carefully constructed detachment. I swallowed the urge to ask more.
“Play it,” he said suddenly, gesturing to the piano.
I blinked. “What?”
“The melody. Just try.”
I hesitated. My fingers itched with the impulse, but I didn’t know how to play properly. Not like him. He’d probably had tutors flown in from Vienna or something. Still… I slid off the sofa and sat beside him on the wooden bench. Our legs brushed. His presence was warm and solid, and annoyingly distracting.
I pressed a few tentative keys, testing out the notes, building the tune from my memory of humming it. My hands were clumsy, but the sound was sweet. Then, to my shock, Adrian joined in. He filled in the spaces I left, adding depth and grace to the notes, like he knew exactly where I was trying to go. I looked at him, and he didn’t glance back, he just played, eyes on the keys, brow furrowed in concentration.
We made music together.
Not perfect. Not polished. But alive.
When we finished, the last note hung in the air like a secret. I stared at the keys, stunned by the moment we’d just shared. It had felt like something that mattered. Something real.
Adrian broke the silence first. “We’re not very good at this.” He said softly.
“The song?” I asked.
“No. This marriage. The pretending. The pushing.”
I looked at him. Really looked at him. Beneath the sharp lines of his jaw and the layers of control he wore like armor, there was someone still trying despite himself.
“We don’t have to pretend all the time, you know.” I said, my voice barely above a whisper.
He turned to face me fully. His eyes, so dark and unreadable, searched mine like he was trying to find something solid in me, something honest.
“Do you ever think,” I asked, “about what this would be like if it weren’t a contract?”
He didn’t answer for a long moment. “Sometimes,” he admitted. “Then I remember what’s at stake. Your father. My legacy. The weight of everything we’re trying to hold together is heavy.”
“But there’s still us.” I said. “Somewhere under all the expectation and obligation. Isn’t there?”
He stared at me. “I don’t know. But… I’d like to find out.”
It felt like a truce. Not surrender, but something gentler. Something new.
I stood from the bench and stretched out my hands, shaking off the heaviness.
“We could pick a song together,” I said, glancing over my shoulder at him. “One that doesn’t belong to our families. One that’s just ours.”
He didn’t smile, but his eyes softened. “You’d let me help?”
“Help is a strong word, I’d let you try.” I teased.
He chuckled actually chuckled, and it made something in me ache with an unfamiliar warmth somewhere deep.
We spent the next hour flipping through vinyls and old recordings, debating songs and dancing between jokes and jabs. It wasn’t perfect. I still thought he was too serious, and he still thought I was impossible.
But there were moments. Glimpses. He let his guard down. I let him in.
And in the soft light of the drawing room, surrounded by sheet music and compromise, we found the barest edge of something that didn’t feel forced.
When I finally collapsed back onto the sofa, breathless from laughing over his complete hatred of acoustic covers, he sat beside me close enough to feel the heat of his body.
“This song,” I said, holding up one of the records we’d flagged. “It could be our opening.”
He nodded. “It’s beautiful.”
“So are you,” I said without thinking.
The words slipped out before I could catch them, and I froze. But he didn’t mock me or deflect. Instead, he reached out, brushing a strand of hair behind my ear with a gentleness that startled me.
“You make me crazy, Lyra.” He murmured.
“Likewise.”
We sat there, our faces inches apart, suspended in something fragile and sharp-edged.
Not quite love.
Not quite peace.
But maybe, just maybe, the beginning of both.
Then a knock at the door.
It wasn’t loud—just two sharp raps. But it felt like a gunshot in the stillness we’d woven between us.
Adrian blinked, pulling back ever so slightly, the warmth in his eyes shuttered so fast it almost hurt to see.
The door creaked open before either of us could answer.
- Writer
