Page 128 of The Pucking Arrangement

So, I make a decision.

We have a few more days. And then, I’ll let her go.

“Dance with me?”

She looks up, startled. “What?”

I push back my chair and stand, reaching for her hand.

“We have a few more days.” My voice is in shreds. “Before the world takes you away from me.”

Her lips part, eyes wide, like she finally understands.

That this is the end.

That I won’t chase her. Won’t ask her to choose.

Because I won’t risk Ris’s heart.

And because I know, deep down, she’s already chosen.

She stares at me, like she’s trying to read between the lines. But then, slowly, she slips her fingers into mine.

I pull her close as Albinoni swells around us.

Her head finds my shoulder, like it was made to rest there. My arms tighten around her, my body curving to hers.

“Tell me about Dubrovnik,” I murmur into her hair.

And she does.

She paints me a picture—concerts under the stars, ancient stone stages, music floating over the Adriatic. Her voice is light, animated, but her fingers curl into the fabric of my shirt like she’s afraid to let go.

“It sounds perfect,” I say when she finishes. “I want this for you.”

And I mean it.

Even though every word is killing me. She pulls back just enough to look at me, something breaking in her eyes. “Dmitri?—”

“Shhh.” I press my lips to her forehead. “Just dance with me.”

Because if I let her finish that sentence, I might beg her to stay.

And Iwon’tdo that to her.

Chapter26

Liquid Heartbreak

Erin

Saint-Saëns’s aria spills from my bow like liquid heartbreak, each note bleeding into the air, raw and aching. This music was meant for grand opera stages, gilded halls where sopranos drape their voices in velvet and lace. But on the cello, it’s stripped bare—honest, intimate, unsoftened by words.

My fingers trace the phrases instinctively, muscle memory pulling me through the motions while my mind fractures, spiraling in a dozen directions.

I hadn’t expected him to react like that when I told him about Dubrovnik.

No argument. No pleading. Just a slow inhale, a flicker of something unreadable in his eyes—then a quiet nod, like he’d seen this ending coming long before I did.

---