The villa was quiet. Too quiet.
Outside, the storm had passed, but inside, thunder still echoed in their blood.
Ana lay back against the faded velvet of the chaise lounge, her pulse racing. Hayden stood across from her, dripping rainwater and fury, his coat already tossed carelessly to the floor. His black shirt clung to him like a second skin, soaked through, revealing every line of the body built by war, trained in pain.
"Do you regret it?" Ana asked, voice small.
He didn't answer right away. Just stared at her like he was deciding whether to ruin her all over again—or fall apart at her feet.
"I regret not finding you sooner," he said finally, walking toward her. "Before I became this."
Her breath hitched. "I don't know who I am with you."
"You're mine," he said simply. "You always have been."
Ana should have hated him for it—for everything. But the heat inside her was not born of hate. It was born of longing. Of loss. Of two souls shaped by betrayal and fire, meeting at a fault line where no one left unburned.
Hayden knelt in front of her, eyes locked to hers.
"I want your truth," he murmured.
"I don't know what my truth is anymore."
His hands slid up her calves, under the hem of her damp dress. "Then let me help you find it."
Her eyes fluttered shut. "Hayden…"
"You can say no," he said softly, his voice rough and sincere. "You always can."
But she didn't.
She didn't move away.
Her fingers tangled in his wet hair as he pressed kisses up her thighs, his breath hot and shaking against her skin. There was no gentleness in what followed—only raw, dark hunger. He tore the dress from her like it had wronged him personally, lips moving down her spine, biting lightly at the curve of her hip as if trying to mark what already belonged to him.
Ana arched beneath him, moaning softly as he claimed her again—not just her body, but every wound, every breathless moment of confusion that had led them here. Hayden kissed her like he was starving, like he'd finally reached the one place where his past couldn't touch him.
And she let him in.
Every part.
Because the truth was, in his arms, Ana wasn't afraid of being broken.
She was afraid of never feeling this alive again.
Later, as they lay tangled in silence, Hayden stared up at the cracked ceiling and whispered, "He knows."
Ana turned to him. "Who?"
"My father. About us. About what I've been doing behind his back."
Fear flickered in her eyes. "What does that mean?"
"It means," Hayden said, his voice colder now, "we don't have much time before he decides you're not just my weakness."
Ana sat up. "What are you going to do?"
He looked at her like the answer was already written in blood.
"I'm going to burn everything."