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Vi lifted her face and kissed Chiara’s forehead, then simply allowed her own to rest against it.

“I don’t know how you survived that blow. I know I wouldn’t have been able to.”

Chiara held Vi tighter. “You thought it was him.”

Vi’s quiet sob was heart-wrenching in the silence of the room, despite the continued screams outside the door.

“I did. I was so sure. He’d left my place just minutes before you knocked and he took the camera with him—”

Chiara tucked a lock of auburn behind Vi’s ear, and on pure instinct and muscle memory from five years ago, gently tilted Vi’s chin up, holding her face in her hands.

“I thought it was him too, for just one tiny moment, before it all slid into place for me. Then I realized it could have never been him. He is your father and you love him, despite him being totally worthless, but he never had the balls, Vi. He never did.”

“Did you really recognize the gown?”

“The rest of the little things just never added up. The stolen gowns, and then the fact that he did not give a damn about me.”

Now it was Vi’s turn to lean back to take a better look at Chiara’s face.

“Excuse me?”

“Well, yes, I am rather magnificent in my own right—”

“You are magnificent in every right!” Vi laughed, and Chiara smiled along with her, the expression remaining and warming her voice despite what she had to say.

“I would like to think that, if I’d have ruined someone’s life, the next time I see them, I would at least spare them a passing glance. And Charles had eyes only for you that night at the event and again at my party. He could not have cared less about Lilien Haus, some wretched gala or Poise’s Chiaroscuro launch. He was there to seeyou.”

“Ha, only because I wounded his pride by refusing him access to myself. I took away his heir. And I honestly don’t know how to deal with him blaming me for my mother’s death. Has he really hated me that much all my life? And if he has, why seek me out again? My therapist will have her work cut out for her for years.” Vi shook her head, and the laughter was now mirthless.

Chiara wanted to tell Vi that she suspected there was more to Charles’ reaction to seeing her again after years of not being allowed, after years of being deprived. Hell, she herself had the exact same look in her own eyes when she had first seen Vi again at Mercer Street that September day. Longing. Love. And a rending of the heart that could only come with that emotion.

But she kept her thoughts to herself, allowing Vi to gather her closer and nuzzle her cheek.

“I don’t want to talk about them anymore, not tonight…”

Outside, police sirens were sounding very close to them, and now someone was shouting out of the opposite building’s window, a cacophony of voices mingling into the unintelligible.

“You might be called in to post bail. Unless your stepsisters do it.”

“I am no longer certain about anything where my family is concerned. Only that they ruined me five years ago, and I was so close to losing you forever.”

“You wouldn’t have. I would have come to my senses.”

Vi peered at her from beneath her bangs, and Chiara grinned.

“What? I would have. I did! In fact, I knelt in front of you right by that wall over there.”

“Oral sex is coming to your senses?”

“Darling, you are confusing all the metaphors and we once agreed that is entirely my prerogative.”

“I didn’t agree to any of that, Chiara. And since you’re allowing me to change the subject, let me do it again by telling you that what was truly hot was you, standing there, casually leaning against the windowsill, single-handedly saving me from my horrible family, slaying the dragon, breaking the curse, climbing up that tower and rescuing the princess.”

“Vi, now you’re not just mixing up metaphors, but your fairytales as well. All I ever did was help you with your shoe.”

Vi placed her hand on Chiara’s chest, under the collarbones, and she could feel her own heart beating steadily against the now warm-again skin of Vi’s palm.

“You did so much more than that. You saved me. Back in Paris and again in New York.”