Page 93 of Ruthless Arrangement

He winces as my hand brushes his injured side, and I pull back. “You need to rest.”

“Stay with me,” he says, the request unguarded in a way I’ve never heard from him.

I help him back to the bed, arranging pillows to support his injured side. When he’s settled, I hesitate only briefly before climbing in beside him, careful not to jar his wounds. His arm curls around me, drawing me against his uninjured side.

The intimacy of the moment, this quiet, unguarded closeness, feels more significant than any of our previous encounters. There’s no audience here, no strategic advantage to be gained. Just two people finding comfort in each other after surviving something terrible together.

As his breathing steadies into sleep, I remain awake. The man beside me is still Nico Varela, manipulator, criminal, dangerous in ways I’m only beginning to understand. But he’s also the man who held me with unexpected tenderness, who admitted fear and vulnerability when he could have maintained his mask.

The truth settles over me like a physical weight: I’m no longer pretending. The feelings that have been growing since that first meeting at Purgatorio. All of it, the fascination, the desire, the deepening emotional connection are real, despite all the reasons they shouldn’t be.

And that makes me more vulnerable than any surveillance or manipulation ever could. Because now, when Nico Varela inevitably returns to being the calculating strategist I know him to be, it won’t be a performance that’s shattered.

It will be my heart.

CHAPTERTWENTY-THREE

Nico

Blood feelsdifferent on your hands when it belongs to someone you care about. An unfamiliar thought, unwelcome. I’ve had blood on my hands before, figuratively, literally; the distinction blurred years ago. But watching Lea’s peaceful breathing beside me, the memory of my blood coating her fingers as she pressed compresses against my wounds is sharp, insistent. The sight of her, determined amidst the chaos, working to keep me alive…it complicates things.

The pale light of early morning filters through the curtains, catching the curve of her cheekbone, softening the sharp intelligence that usually guards her features. The urge to touch her in this unguarded state, is surprisingly strong. I resist, not wanting to break the spell.

My body aches, a constant reminder of vulnerability. The wounds are manageable, physical pain a familiar companion. But theotherexposure from last night unnerves me more: the fever that cracked open defenses, revealing fragments I keep locked away. What did I say in that delirium? What weakness did she witness?

I’ve taken countless women to my bed. None have seen me stripped bare like Lea did. Not just physically, but the shards of memory, the grief over Marco I haven’t allowed myself to process, the raw uncertainty that follows losing the one man I trusted implicitly. And then there was the shift afterward, when the fever broke, when we acknowledged the game we were both playing and somehow chose… something else.

I trace the line of her jaw with my eyes, remembering the taste of her lips, the feel of her yielding against me. That wasn’t strategy, not entirely. Not on my part. An emotional impulse overriding decades of calculation. The thought should terrify me. It does.

“You’re staring,” she murmurs, voice husky with sleep, eyes still closed.

“Force of habit,” I reply, keeping my tone light. “I observe.”

Her eyes open then, dark and knowing, a faint smile touching her lips. “And what have you observed about me this morning?”

That you’re a dangerous complication. That you make me question everything.

“That you snore,” I say instead.

She makes an indignant sound, fully awake now. “I do not.”

“Lightly.” I trace a finger along her collarbone, feeling the slight tremor beneath her skin, watching the way her breath catches. “Almost imperceptibly.”

She swats my hand away, but the smile lingers. This easy intimacy, the shared space, the quiet rhythm of waking together is unfamiliar territory, destabilizing in its simple normality.

A sharp knock interrupts the moment. Lea tenses, pulling the sheet higher. The pattern is Alessandro’s.

“Alessandro,” I say, resigned.

He enters, his gaze taking in the scene with neutral assessment. “Moretti’s men are still probing the perimeter,” he states. “Testing defenses. We should discuss our response.”

I glance at Lea. She’s already reaching for clothes, wrapping the sheet around herself as she stands. “I’ll give you two a moment,” she says, her composure remarkable. She disappears into the bathroom.

Alessandro watches her go. “Less adversarial than I expected,” he remarks.

I swing my legs over the side of the bed, ignoring the sharp protest from my ribs. “Moretti is the priority,” I say, reaching for my shirt, wincing.

He studies me. “She’s quite remarkable, your journalist.”

---