Page 63 of Beautiful Villain
The convoy kept its distance.The engines hummed.The restaurant disappeared into shadow.
I thought about all the small things that had brought us here.Not the big moments—the obvious ones—but the fragments.The way she looked at me when she thought I wasn’t paying attention.The sound she made when she laughed properly, surprised by the sound of her own voice.The way she’d trusted me without ever saying the word.
I’d always believed things happened when they were meant to.Not in a romantic, stars-aligning way—more like gravity.You could fight it for a while, but eventually, everything fell where it was always going to fall.
Fate.Timing.Call it whatever you wanted.
I’d been there the day she fell.
Literally there.
The memory came back sharp and clear.The moment I’d turned and seen her flying through the air, white dress tangling around her legs, eyes wide with shock rather than fear.I hadn’t thought.I’d just moved.
I’d assumed it was coincidence.Luck.
Now, sitting here with her tucked against me, it felt like something else entirely.
She’d crossed my path in the most unlikely way possible, just as Archie Popovich had.Two collisions, equally inevitable, equally destructive—only one of them had softened something in me I didn’t realize had gone rigid.
Archie had become my enemy the moment we’d recognized each other.A mirror held at the wrong angle.Too similar.Too opposed.Mikayla, on the other hand, had slipped under my guard without ever trying.
And that was the problem.
Because she wasn’t just a woman I wanted.She was, objectively, valuable.To Archie.To the war we were locked in.To the outcome I’d been chasing for months.
She was leverage.
And somewhere between dinner and the drive home, I knew—with absolute clarity—that I could no longer give her up.
Not to him or anyone else, no matter the circumstances.
The idea of handing her over, of watching her walk back into his orbit for the sake of Provence, turned my stomach in a way nothing else had managed to.I could win territory.I could rebuild empires.I could outmaneuver Archie a dozen different ways.
But I couldn’t replace her.
So I’d somehow have to do both.
Keep her.And win Provence.
The car slowed as we pulled into the drive.The house rose out of the dark, solid and familiar, lights glowing softly like it was waiting for us.Mikayla stirred beside me, lifting her head, blinking like she’d been half-asleep.
“We’re home,” I said quietly.
Home.
She nodded, a small smile tugging at her mouth.“Home…”
I opened the door for her and followed her inside, the warmth of the house wrapping around us.The guards had thankfully made themselves scarce.The silence felt intentional, like the walls themselves knew better than to intrude.
She kicked off her shoes near the door.I watched her without trying to hide it.
“Mikayla,” I said.
She turned, brows lifting slightly, questioning.
I took her hand.
Didn’t give myself time to think about it.Just closed my fingers around hers and pulled her with me down the hallway, past rooms she’d already seen, past the familiar, toward the one place I never brought anyone.
