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CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

AURELIA

A drian’s lips crash against mine, and it’s like that first gasp of air after being underwater for too long—painful and relieving all at once. His hands cup my face, and I’m drowning in his touch, his scent, his confession.

I love you, Aurelia.

The words echo, pulsating between disbelief and desperate need. How many nights did I lie beside this man, craving exactly this? How many times did I search his cold, distant eyes for even a glimmer of the emotion he’s just shown?

I kiss him back with all the fury and longing that’s been building inside me. Ten years. Ten years of misunderstanding, of loneliness disguised as companionship. His confession isn’t just words; it’s a key unlocking a door I thought would forever remain closed.

The heat builds between us. My fingers tangle in his hair, feeling its softness, confirming he’s real and here and mine . His hands move from my face to my hips, pulling me closer until there’s not even air between us. We’re pressed together, heartbeat to heartbeat.

I don’t know if I’m crying or laughing or both. So much time wasted. So much hurt that could have been avoided if either of us had found the courage to speak up.

His tongue dances with mine, and it’s different from every kiss we’ve shared before. Those were brief and part of the performance we maintained for a decade. This kiss holds nothing back. It’s raw and honest and devastating.

My knees weaken, and I cling to him like he’s the only solid thing in a world spinning out of control. Because he is. In this nightmare of betrayal and violence, Adrian has emerged as my constant—the one impossible truth I never saw coming.

But…

Something catches in my chest. I pull back, my breathing ragged, my lips still tingling from his kiss.

“Wait,” I whisper, pressing my hand against his chest. His heart hammers beneath my palm, strong and steady and alive. “If you loved me all this time, why did you cheat on me?”

Adrian stiffens, his body becoming the statue I’m too familiar with. For a terrifying moment, I think he’s going to retreat behind his mask and become the cold, controlled Adrian I knew instead of this new man who’s just confessed his love.

“I never cheated on you,” he says, his voice so low I have to strain to hear it.

I step back, crossing my arms over my chest. “Don’t lie to me. Not now. Not after everything.” The memory of lipstick on his collar, the perfume that wasn’t mine clinging to his skin, the late nights when he wouldn’t answer his phone. “I saw the evidence myself.”

Adrian runs a hand through his hair, messing it up. It’s a gesture so uncharacteristic it reminds me how much he’s changed. Or maybe he’s just finally showing me who he always was beneath the perfect son.

“It wasn’t cheating.” His jaw tightens. “It was… survival.”

“What the hell does that mean?” The hurt and confusion must be evident in my voice because he flinches.

He moves to the poker table, leaning against it heavily as if the weight of his memories might crush him. “My father,” he begins, then stops, swallowing hard.

The atmosphere in the room darkens. I feel it like a physical pressure against my skin.

“What about your father?” I ask when the silence stretches too long.

Adrian’s eyes meet mine, and I see something there that makes my heart ache. Shame. Pain.

“I was my father’s favorite,” he says, the words dropping like stones into still water.

I wait, sensing that whatever comes next will change everything.

“Do you know what that meant in the Harrow household? Being the favorite wasn’t a privilege. It was a sentence.”

“What are you saying?”

“Those nights I disappeared…” His voice catches, so he clears it and starts again. “When I was away, I often had to attend Consortium parties. The women you th ought I was with willingly…” He straightens, steeling himself. “My father forced me. Made me his entertainment. Made me perform for him.”

My lungs seize. “Perform?”

“Sex was a spectacle to my father. A demonstration of power.” Adrian’s eyes go distant, like he’s seeing ghosts instead of me. “He would arrange these private gatherings. Important men from the Consortium would be there. And women—so many women. Trapped. And he would make me… participate.”

I cover my mouth with my hand, bile rising in my throat. “Oh my God.”

“The first time I refused,” he continues, his voice flat and emotionless now, “he beat my mother so badly she couldn’t get out of bed for days.

The second time, he threatened to kill Julian in his sleep.

He said he’d make it look like an accident.

He even threatened to hurt you—rape you in front of me.

To protect everyone, I stopped fighting what father wanted. ”

My mind races back through our years together. All those nights he came home with haunted eyes, blood on his knuckles, locking himself in the bathroom for hours. I’d thought he was out fighting, like taking care of men for Consortium business. But it was from those parties?

“Those nights I came back bloody…” he says, reading my thoughts.

“Father would make me have sex with those women in front of him, often in front of a crowd. Then… I’d be forced to humiliate them further.

I had to… hurt those innocent women so Lucian didn’t hurt my family.

Or you.” His eyes are misty and I can tell he’s fighting his emotions; I’ve never once seen Adrian so close to tears.

“For the rest of my life, I’ll be haunted by what father made me do at those fucking parties. ”

“The blood…” I whisper. “That night you came back and your knuckles were raw. You wouldn’t let me touch you…”

“He made me hurt a girl who reminded me of you,” Adrian says, his voice breaking. “She had red hair. Not as beautiful as yours, but… close enough. He knew. He always knew exactly how to cause the most pain.”

I move toward him without thinking, my anger dissolving under the weight of this new understanding. My hand reaches for his, and he flinches before letting me take it.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” I ask, my voice thick with unshed tears.

His fingers tighten around mine. “How could I? It was my shame to bear. And telling you would have put you in danger. If my father had known how much I truly cared for you, he would have dragged you into those rooms too. Made me hurt you in front of everyone.”

And just like that, everything shifts. The cold, distant Adrian I resented for years wasn’t rejecting me—he was protecting me the only way he knew how. By keeping me at arm’s length and never letting his father see how much I mattered.

All those nights I lay beside him, feeling unwanted, unloved, he was carrying this unbearable weight alone.

“I’m so sorry,” I whisper, reaching up to touch his face. “I had no idea.”

His eyes close at my touch, almost as if it pains him. “ I never wanted you to know. I never wanted you to look at me the way you’re looking at me now.”

“How am I looking at you?”

“Like I’m broken.”

Is that what he sees in my expression?

“No,” I say firmly, taking his face in both my hands, forcing him to meet my gaze. “I’m looking at you like you’re the strongest person I’ve ever known.”

His breath catches, disbelief clear in his eyes.

“You survived,” I continue. “You protected your mother, Julian, me—all while enduring things no one should ever have to endure. You’re not broken. You’re a fucking miracle.”

A tear slides down his cheek—the first I’ve ever seen from him—and I catch it with my thumb. The gesture feels sacred somehow, like I’m being trusted with something precious and fragile.

“I couldn’t bear for you to know,” he says. “I thought… I thought if you knew the things I’d done, the things I’d been forced to do, you’d be disgusted. That you’d leave.”

I shake my head, my own tears falling freely now. “Never.”

His hands come up to cover mine, and for a moment we just stand there, breathing together.

“When I thought you were dead,” I begin, my voice unsteady, “something broke in my heart. Not just because I lost someone I cared about, but because I realized how much I had misunderstood everything. How much time we had wasted. ”

He pulls me against his chest, and I rest my head there, listening to the steady rhythm of his heart.

“I always cared for Julian,” I continue, needing to be honest with him. “But what I felt for him wasn’t lasting love. It was obsession. Like an addiction. Something toxic that burned too bright.”

Adrian’s arms tighten around me.

“But you,” I say. “With you, it was different. Quieter and steadier. I didn’t recognize it as love because it didn’t hurt the way loving Julian did. When I lost you—when I thought I’d lost you forever—I understood. It wasn’t that the feelings weren’t there. I just didn’t know how to see them.”

I pull back just enough to look into his eyes, needing him to understand what I’m trying to say.

“I love you. Not the mask you wore for ten years. Not the perfect Harrow heir. You. The man who went through hell to protect the people he loved. The man who’s standing in front of me now.”

I can sense his control slipping, but he holds it together long enough to say, “We were born to complain. Life has given us that—a curse to never truly appreciate things until they’re long gone. To complain about them before truly appreciating them.”

I nod. “I love you, Adrian.”

His control—that careful restraint he’s maintained for years—finally shatters completely. He pulls me against him with a force that steals my breath, his mouth claiming mine with an intensity that borders on desperation.

This is a raw, primal kiss. It’s a dam breaking after years of holding back a flood. His hands tangle in my hair, angling my face to deepen the kiss, and I surrender to it completely.

Every barrier between us dissolves. The years of misunderstanding, the weeks of grief, the days of uncertainty—all of it burns away under the heat of this connection.

My body remembers his, but this feels entirely new.

Adrian—Dante—whoever he’s becoming, is finally allowing himself to touch me with the passion he’s kept locked away.

“Aurelia,” he breathes against my mouth. His hands slide down my back, gripping my hips with possessive heat.

I’m drowning in the sensation. The hardness of his body pressed against mine, the taste of him on my tongue, the scent of his skin—it’s overwhelming and intoxicating. My fingers fumble with the buttons of his shirt, desperate to feel his skin beneath my palms.

He groans when my hands finally make contact with his bare chest, the sound vibrating through me like an electric current.

Without breaking the kiss, he lifts me effortlessly, turning to set me on the edge of the poker table.

His body pushes between my legs, pressing against me in a way that makes my head spin and my thighs clench around him.

The cards scatter beneath me as Adrian pushes me back onto the table, his weight a delicious pressure pinning me in place. His mouth leaves mine to trail fire down my neck. My back arches instinctively, seeking more of him, wanting all of him at once after so much time lost .

“I’ve always wanted to fuck you like this,” he rumbles as he nips at my nipple through my blouse.

“Like what?”

“Without holding back.”

Those words set us both in motion and we claw at each other’s clothes. In a matter of seconds, we’re both naked and both too desperate to be joined that nothing else matters. Gripping my hips firmly, he lifts me and thrusts inside.

The force of him is so intense I cry out. He’s always been girthy and he gave me no time to adjust to his size. But I don’t care.

“Fuck me,” I bite out, gripping his shoulders.

His mouth crushes against mine, swallowing the sounds, his thrusts deep and relentless. It’s too much. It’s not enough. My body shatters around him, ten years of craving finally, blissfully, satiated.

I gasp his name, and he slows—a subtle shift that sends sparks through every nerve ending.

Just a few years ago, he wouldn’t have cared about making me finish, yet now he’s easily made me come twice.

In the past, he would have fucked me quickly, his movements cold and stiff.

Now he’s all fire, all hunger, his movements matching mine with an eagerness that makes my heart beat only for him.

He pulls out and then pauses—a wicked gleam in his eyes before he slams back into me with such ferocity I think I’ll come apart at the seams. The table rattles beneath us as I clutch at his shoulders, dragging my nails down his back.

“Aurelia,” he groans again, and this time it’s a plea .

Before I can respond, he withdraws completely again. I whimper at the sudden emptiness but then moan when he trails a finger down my thigh to where I’m still aching for him. He’s teasing me. Torturing me.

“You want more?” he asks.

I can’t form words; I can only nod desperately as the tension builds to unbearable heights.

Adrian leans over me again, capturing my mouth in another kiss as he thrusts back in—slow this time, drawing it out until I’m unraveling beneath him. His lips move to my ear, whispering my name.

“Yes,” I gasp, pulling him closer.

He picks up his pace again but doesn’t lose control this time.

Every stroke is deliberate and perfect and sends us spiraling toward oblivion together.

His hands are everywhere—cradling my face, gripping my hips, entwining with mine above the chaos of scattered cards—and the entire time he’s watching me with an intensity that holds me captive.

“I love you,” he whispers. And I realize—this is making love.

For the first time in my life someone is making love to me.

“Adr—” I start to say but can’t finish. My release crashes over me suddenly, violently, overwhelming in its completeness.

Adrian follows moments later with one final thrust that makes us both cry out as if in pain. But it’s only pleasure; an all-consuming pleasure.

We collapse together on the table, a tangle of limbs and sweat. He buries his face in my neck while I cling to him.

When our breathing finally steadies, Adrian lifts his head to look at me—really look at me—and what I see in his eyes steals whatever air I’ve managed to recover from my lungs.

“Do you believe me now?” he asks softly.

I nod because words are still beyond me; because for the first time since this all began—the betrayal and bloodshed and the web of lies—something feels right again.

I press my lips to his forehead in answer and feel hope flicker to life inside the hollow spaces where grief once lived.

“We should probably get dressed,” I say eventually.

He only lets his delicious weight sink into me further. “So soon?” he asks, slipping his hand between my legs. Then he grins. “But we’ve only just begun.”