Ariella's POV
If I had been fully awake, I never would have dared to do what I was about to do. But the wine had made me bold, its warmth coursing through my veins and blurring the lines between what I should and wanted to do. The world around me felt soft, edges fading into one another as my inhibitions melted away.
I could still feel the lingering warmth of that first brief kiss on Francis’s cheek, and it filled me with a reckless kind of courage. My heart raced, not with fear but with an intoxicating blend of excitement and longing. The look in Francis’s eyes had been hesitant and cautious, and that made me want to push just a little further to see what would happen if I crossed that invisible line.
When I moved closer to him again, I could sense him stiffening, his body tensing as
