Page 66 of Knot Their Safe Haven

Silver threads through what remains, creating something between moonlight and shadow. The color should age me but instead adds gravitas, like I've finally grown into myself. Dark circles rim my eyes, exhaustion carved into the corners, but beneath it all?—

Satisfaction.

The woman in the mirror has survived.

Not just the bomb, the water, the surgery. But twenty years of slowly dying from want.

She's thin, sharp-angled where softness used to live, but there's steel in her spine that wasn't there before.

I trace the silver strands, remembering how I used to dye them religiously. Hide the evidence of time passing, of biological clocks ticking toward midnight. Now they catch the bathroom light like threads of starlight, beautiful in their honesty.

Movement catches my eye—fabric hanging on the door's back.

The dress is perfection in burgundy silk, the color of wine aged in shadow. Bias-cut to forgive and celebrate in equal measure, with rouching that creates architecture where nature has grown lazy.

It's sexy without trying, elegant without apology, exactly what I'd choose if I had unlimited resources and a body twenty years younger.

Another sticky note in that same precise hand:

"And if you're feeling frisky enough, I'm confident this matches your preferences."

I laugh, the sound bouncing off marble and glass like escaped birds.

He's right.

The dress whispers money, power, and so many possibilities.

The moment I ignited this, I'll stand on that deck in this dress that fits like destiny, and Alessandro Lucien Devereaux will ask if I want to rewrite twenty years of disappointment.

The smart answer is no.

Too much history, damage, and risk involved to play this unpredictable game with my life.

But I'm thirty-nine years old, almost on the verge of death, recently resurrected into a newfound life, and entirely out of smart answers.

I study my reflection—silver hair catching light like spun moonbeams, eyes that have seen too much but still want more, a face that shows every battle but won't admit defeat.

The dress hangs there like a question.

Or a dare…

Like the first move in a game I've been afraid to play.

"You know what?" I tell the woman in the mirror, reaching for silk that probably costs more than most mortgages. "Why the fuck not. Let's try it."

I have nothing else to lose.

SCENT OF DESTINY

~ALESSANDRO~

The wine tastes like patience rewarded—a2005 Château Margauxthat's been waiting nineteen years for the perfect moment. I roll the burgundy liquid across my tongue, savoring notes of blackcurrant and cedar while the sun bleeds gold across mountains still glistening from the afternoon rain.

The deck has been transformed into something from a director's wet dream. Crystal glasses catch dying light like trapped fire. Bone china so thin it's translucent waits on charcoal linen. Candles in hurricane lamps flicker against the coming darkness, their flames steady despite the mountain breeze.

The table is set for two, intimate without being presumptuous, elegant without ostentation.

Behind me, the glass cottage glows like a lantern, every surface reflecting the sunset's theater. The rain stopped twenty minutes ago, leaving the world washed clean and performing its apology in the form of a perfect rainbow arcing across the valley.