Page 96 of Vow to Claim You

He rises in one smooth motion and holds out his hand. “Come. We’ve been gone long enough for them to invent something worse than the truth.”

I lay my hand in his and let him pull me up. “Heaven forbid the truth.”

The corner of his mouth moves. Not a smile. The country next to one.

Aric’s hand finds the small of my back the moment we step out, and it stays there the whole way down—warm, broad, openly proprietary in a way it has never been in public before. Like a claim, laid out for the room to read.

And the room reads it. I’m sure of it. I feel the glances that slide off us a half second too late, the conversations that resume a beat too smoothly. I’m certain that every soul on this terrace knows exactly what happened between us even if they don’t. But the kiss is on my skin like heat off a stove, and I can’t make myself believe it isn’t on theirs too.

Then I see Marcelina and forget my own embarrassment entirely.

She’s standing with Zahra and Camila near the edge of the dancing, champagne untouched in her hand. Across the terrace, Bobby has his hand on the waist of a woman in red who is not his wife, leaning into her laugh like the rest of the room doesn’t exist—and like his wife isn’t watching.

I feel Aric go alert beside me. His gaze cuts across the floor to Alexei, and Alexei’s comes back. Something passes between them, like they’ve watched this show before and know how it ends.

Marcelina sets her glass down on a passing tray, says something to Zahra, and excuses herself toward the villa.

I look at Aric, and he nods, as though he reads my question with no words needed.

I follow Marcelina. I don’t know her well. We’ve traded a handful of conversations, a few kindnesses. But I saw her face just now—the half second before the mask went back on—and I know that face. Zahra falls into step beside me without a word, and behind us I hear Camila mutter something and follow as well.

The music drops to a muffled pulse the moment the door of the powder room swings shut. Marcelina stands at the long mirror, both hands braced on the counter, looking at her own reflection like she’s checking it’s still holding together.

“I’m fine,” she says, before any of us can speak.

She says it so easily—so smoothly, so completely without a crack—that I almost believe her.

“I’m used to it,” she adds, lighter still, and reaches to fix a strand of hair that doesn’t need fixing.

The door opens again. Camila sweeps in, takes in the scene in a single glance, and leans back against the wall with her arms folded.

“Well,” she drawls, “I was wondering how long it’d take before someone walked out of that.”

“I’m fine.”

“Mm. Yes.” Camila examines her nails. “And I’m a nun.”

Marcelina’s mouth tightens. She draws a slow breath, and for just a second, the composure slips enough for me to see what it costs her.

“You deserve better than that,” I say, tone harsher than intended.

She meets my eyes in the mirror. “Deserving has very little to do with a marriage like mine, Ayanna.” There’s no self-pity in her voice. “You’ll learn. Or you won’t, and you’ll be one of the lucky ones. I hope you’re one of the lucky ones.”

For a moment, my thoughts drift to Aric.

To the bullet he took without hesitation. To the contract he burned rather than hold over my head. To the way he stands between me and anyone who’d reach for me, the way he kissed me like a man surfacing for air, the way he just knelt on a marble floor to fix my shoe and made it look like nothing at all.

We didn’t choose each other either. The paper that bound me to him is the twin of whatever paper bound Marcelina to Bobby. Same world. Same bargain. Same impossible odds.

And mine, somehow, against everything I braced for—mine might not be the disaster I was expecting.

I never once let myself think it before tonight…but I might be one of the lucky ones.

“Marcelina.” Camila’s voice has lost its edge. “You don’t have to go back out there smiling.”

“Yes,” Marcelina stresses. “I do.” She pushes herself off the counter and smooths her dress.

When she turns back to us, the mask is flawless again. Only her eyes refuse to play along. They find mine, fierce and unwavering.