Page 20 of Watch Me Burn

“It’s just funny. I never pictured Aaron choosing love. Let alone marriage. My older brother, the control freak. The guy who plans his day down to the minute and spirals if anything goes off-script. He used to say marriage was a scam. This doesn’t feel like him.”

Caterina turns her head, lifting a brow at me. “Oh?”

She already knows the answer.

My obsession with structure. My need for precision. The compulsion to keep a grip on the outcome like it’s a ticking bomb shattered the moment Mortelle shoved me into this arrangement. Shattered again when Caterina blew in like a hurricane and smiled while doing it.

Zoe’s not wrong. And I can’t let her know just how right she is.

The truth is too heavy. Too dangerous. I won’t let her carry that weight.

So I smile. “People change. Sometimes you meet someone who makes you want to take risks you never thought you’d take.”

It sounds like a confession, but it’s just another lie.

The words slide off my tongue too easily and burn on the way down.

Because if anyone’s made me gamble everything I’ve built, it’s the woman standing beside me in that white dress. The chaos to my order. The storm I never invited but can’t seem to outrun.

And the stakes? My life, my business, everyone I’ve sworn to protect.

All of it hanging by a thread.

“Whatever,” Zoe sighs, retreating.

“I’m sorry,” I tell her, meaning it. “For how this happened. For keeping you in the dark. But I need you to trust me. To believe that I know what I’m doing.”

Zoe stares at me for several long seconds before turning to Caterina. “If you hurt him, there will be consequences.”

Caterina doesn’t flinch, doesn’t smirk. “I would expect nothing less.”

Dom presses a kiss to Zoe’s shoulder. “We should let them get back to their guests. People are starting to stare.”

He’s right. Curious glances flick in our direction like we’re animals in a zoo.

“We’ll talk more when we get back,” I tell Zoe. “After the honeymoon.”

As she and Dom step away, Caterina lets out a quiet exhale, like she’s been holding her breath for hours.

“She’s never going to trust me again, is she?”

“Probably not.”

The orchestra strikes up something syrupy and cinematic—the cue for our first dance and another layer of performance. Another shield we have to wear like skin.

I offer her my arm, and we move to the center of the floor. My hand finds her waist; hers settles on my shoulder. When we start to dance, it’s disturbingly smooth—like muscle memory from a life we never lived.

Too seamless. Too natural.

Like everything we’ve spent the night pretending might not be pretense after all.

“You dance well,” she murmurs, sounding surprised.

“My mother insisted on lessons. Said no son of hers was going to embarrass the family in public.”

Her mouth curves into a knowing smirk. “So the need to dominate started early.”

“Apparently it stuck.”

“My father was the same way. Except for him, it was never about appearances. It was always about power.”

We turn, and my gaze finds Mortelle across the room. He’s watching us with deep intensity. I can’t tell if he looks pleased or like he’s deciding which of us to eliminate first.

Ten feet away, Tristan raises his glass in a slow, unreadable toast. It’s not celebration—it’s surveillance. That careful tension in his jaw tells me he’s calculating something I’m not privy to.

And I hate that he knows more about my situation than I do.

“Does your father miss anything?” I ask quietly.

“Not a damn thing.”

“Good,” I glance down at her, “then you should probably stop looking at me like that.”

“Like what?”

“Like you’re dissecting me. We’re supposed to be madly in love, remember? The perfect newlyweds who can’t keep their hands off each other.”

Her fingers tighten slightly against my shoulder. “Hard to sell that when I’m still not sure you won’t try to kill me in my sleep.”

I pull her closer, lowering my voice. “Speaking of things that don’t fit the script.”

My lips brush just beneath her ear. “That kiss at the altar wasn’t pretend.”

For just a moment, she slips and I catch it. The tiniest fracture in her armor.

And I fucking savor it.

“It was just a reaction,” she says, her voice steady but not quite as controlled as she wants it to be.

“Try again.”

I feel her pulse spike where my fingers rest against her wrist. The slight hitch in her breathing that she doesn’t want me to notice. Caterina looks away, suddenly fascinated by something over my shoulder.

“Whatever helps you sleep at night, little nightmare.”

She pulls back just enough to meet my eyes, and there’s no fear there. Just fire.

“Careful, Aaron. You don’t want to start something you’re not prepared to finish.”

“That,” I murmur, drawing slow circles against her lower back, “sounded a lot like a threat.”

“It was.”

She leans in, her mouth close enough to make every muscle in my jaw clench. “Whatever this is between us—it’s not love. It’s not destiny. It’s a ticking time bomb.”

I guide her through another turn, pulling her tighter against me as we move. Her breath catches but this time, it feels more like anticipation than fear.

“Is that what you tell yourself? That what happened at the altar was just sparks from friction?”

She tilts her chin up, smile slow and dangerous. “Getting scared, husband? That you can’t categorize what’s happening here?”

I hold her gaze, locked in this moment that feels too real for comfort.

And yeah, maybe I am scared.

Because nothing about this makes logical sense.

Ally. Enemy. Stalker. Prey.

The roles shift so fast they blur together.

But one thing’s crystal clear. That kiss at the altar knocked something loose inside me, and I fucking hate that it did. Hate that it exists outside my rule.

“It’s a complication we don’t need.”

“At least we agree on something.”

The music fades, but we hold the final pose a beat too long. Her body molded against mine, my hand resting low on her back. I forget how long we stand there until applause snaps us back to reality.

We break apart, bowing to the crowd like actors taking a curtain call.

As I lead her from the dance floor, our hands find each other again—automatic, practiced.

When she glances down at our intertwined fingers, I offer a low explanation.

“Your father’s watching.”

“My father is always watching,” she says, but doesn’t let go.

The rest of the reception blurs together like a fever dream.

Toasts that taste like poison. Choreographed affection. Fabricated speeches that make me want to set something on fire.

Tristan stands with his glass raised, smile easy as breathing.

“To finding the unexpected,” he begins, voice carrying to every corner of the room. “And to my best friend—who swore he’d never be caught. Looks like the right woman finally set the perfect trap.”

Laughter ripples through the crowd like they’re all in on some joke I don’t understand.

They don’t hear what I hear, the edge buried in his words, the warning coiled beneath the toast. But I catch it.

And when his eyes find mine, it’s not just mockery I see. It’s genuine worry.

Like he’s afraid I’m actually buying into this lie. Like he’s not sure I remember where the line is anymore.

We’re not celebrating.

We’re barely surviving.

And he’s wondering how much of me will be left at the end.

Is he worried I’ll actually fall for her?

Fuck that.

Over my dead body.

By the time we’re making our exit, preparing for the so-called honeymoon, the easy rhythm between us feels too natural. Too comfortable.

She leans into me like it’s instinct, her smile softening when our eyes meet.

It’s all an illusion. But it’s the effortlessness of it that makes my skin crawl. The way we slip into this lie like we were born to it.

“You’re disturbingly good at this,” I say as we slide into the waiting limousine.

“So are you. Better than I expected.” Caterina kicks off her heels with a sigh of relief as the door clicks shut behind us.

The privacy screen rises. We’re finally alone.

No audience. No cameras. No more pretending.

And suddenly, I need space between us.

I tug at my tie like it’s choking me, the pressure beneath my ribs sharp and relentless. This marriage, these lies, the slow unraveling of everything I used to anchor myself to.

I need something that doesn’t feel like her.

“What happens now?” I ask, doing my best to sound detached.

“Now?” She stretches like a cat, voice lazy with satisfaction. “Now we play honeymooners. Two weeks in paradise, pretending there’s nowhere else we’d rather be.”

“Do we actually have to keep up the act? Who’s going to see us there?”

She laughs, low and cruel. “You think my father lets anything happen outside his reach? Maldives or Manhattan, there’ll be eyes watching. Every room, every bed, every intimate moment—real or fabricated.”

“That’s not happening.”

Caterina burst out laughing. “Oh honey, you couldn’t handle me even if you wanted to.”

Something sharp and primal twists in my chest. I want to shut her up. Want to grab her and kiss her again just to see if it breaks her composure the way it did at the altar.

Instead, I stay silent, letting her think she’s winning. Let her underestimate what I’m capable of.

She shifts beside me, her dress sliding higher as she settles into the leather like she owns it. Like she owns me.

Caterina hums something between satisfaction and challenge.

“You always this fun on your honeymoon?”

I don’t give her the satisfaction of a response.

Caterina fills the silence with her presence, soaking up the air like expensive perfume mixed with poison. Silence doesn’t bother me—I thrive in it—but it needles at her. Or maybe it’s not the quiet she hates. Maybe it’s that I haven’t looked at her since the car started moving.

I’m still trying to figure out if this is a honeymoon or a hostage situation with better accommodations.

“You’re overthinking everything,” she says eventually.

“I’m not thinking about anything.”

The silence stretches taut between us, like a wire waiting to snap.

“This doesn’t have to be hell, you know.”

I glance at her. “You offering a way out?”

“No. Just a way through. We’re stuck with each other, Aaron. You can keep pretending I’m the villain in your story, or you can figure out how to survive me.”

My single laugh is low and humorless. “Coming from you, that’s rich.”

“You married me, remember?”

“Because your father gave me two options. Marriage or a grave.”

“Still, you said yes.”

I look away, hands tightening in my lap. There’s no roadmap for this. No instruction manual for pretending your world hasn’t already exploded.

I’ve faced worse odds, but never like this. Never with everything at stake.

The city falls away behind us, replaced by empty roads and the illusion of escape. The car speeds toward the airport, toward the lie of paradise. A honeymoon rigged with surveillance and hidden microphones.

A marriage built on blackmail.

And beside me, this woman. This contradiction in white silk. The only person who’s ever made me question whether I still own my mind.

In the window, our reflection stares back. Composed, polished, fake.

She looks serene.

I look like a man who just nailed shut his own coffin.

My wife. A threat.

The only person who makes me feel like I’m coming apart just by existing in the same space.

And here’s the part I’ll never admit out loud?—

Pulling away from her feels harder than staying close.

And that realization? That’s what’s going to ruin me.