I lifted my chin. “Do you want to ask me about it?”
His eyes darkened. “No.”
“Why not?” I whispered.
“Because I know what I saw. And I need to hear the truth from your lips. Not the story in my head.”
I crossed my arms, letting the neckline of my dress shift slightly. “What I had with Winston Salerno died long before your heart ever stopped beating.”
He turned me toward him, slowly. His eyes were stormclouds and velvet. “Then forget him.”
His hand slid to the small of my back, drawing me against his chest. His scent —earthy, dark spice, and smoke–wrapped around me like silk laced in danger.
“You have me now,” he whispered, so close our noses brushed. “And I swear to God, Scarlett–I’ll break a man’s neck if he thinks he can steal you from me.”
My heart stuttered.
Not because of the threat.
Because of the promise.
It was sick. Twisted. Obsessive.
And it made my thighs press together.
“I’ve never felt this way before,” I murmured, my nails grazing his chest through his shirt. “Not with Winston. Not with anyone.”
Zacharias didn’t answer.
He kissed me.
It wasn’t gentle.
It wasn’t cruel.
It was claiming.
My body ignited under him. He lifted me like I weighed nothing, carried me through the penthouse until my back hit the glass wall. Cold. Then heat.
Clothes–ripped. Buttons popped. My gown puddled on the floor like blood,
His mouth was everywhere–neck, shoulder, the scar near my rib no one ever touched before.
Chapter 17
4/4 63.0%
12:21 Mon, 19 May GM
“You’re mine now,” he growled against my skin. “All of you. Every inch.”
I arched into him. “Then take it.”
He did.
81%
Harder than before. Wilder than I ever let anyone before. The kind of intimacy that made your bones ache and your breath vanish.
Glass rattled.
The chandelier swung.
One of the vases on the marble side table cracked, shattered.
We didn’t stop.
He pulled my wrists above my head, kissing the inside of my palm like I was sacred, while he drove himself into me with such force I moaned loud enough to wake the dead.
I saw it then–Zacharias wasn’t just in love.
He was starving for me.
“Say you’re mine,” he demanded, between thrusts, so deep I swore my soul left my body. “Say no one will ever touch you again.”
I bit his shoulder, breathless. “No one. Never. Only you.”
He cursed under his breath, kissed me again, deeper this time, slower–like he wanted to memorize the taste of my tongue.
Fuck, I was drowning in him. In us.
And somewhere–behind the sheer curtain of haze and lust–I knew Alina was
listening.
She thought her planted mic in his tie would ruin us.
What a fool. I moaned louder.
Let her hear what love sounds like.
Let her hear what it sounds like when a man worships his wife.
It didn’t end quickly. Two/hours passed like thunder. Zacharias came undone more than once–each time softer, then harder. Each time whispering things in Italian against my skin, in a voice thick with obsession.
When it was over, we lay.tangled on the floor–sheets crumpled, hair wild, hearts still racing.
He brushed his lips against my collarbone and murmured, “I think I’d kill the world if it meant keeping you.”
Chapter 19
2/4 64.83
12:21 Mon, 19 May
- JM.
81%
I smiled wickedly and whispered back, “Then start with her.”
***
The first thing I heard that morning wasn’t my name from Zacharias’s lips.
It was glass breaking.
No, not in our penthouse.
Alina’s hotel room, two floors below. Where she rented and stay like a stalker.
She’d smashed her vanity. Again.
Leandro–her favorite lackey–was already cleaning up the shards while she screamed at the walls. I didn’t need a camera to know. I had ears in that hotel. Spy. And her tantrums? They were practically a daily matinee show by now.
Turns out, listening to your sister moan while her husband wrecks her for two straight hours tends to unhinge even the most deluded.
Poor Alina. All that planning. All that poison
And I still got the crown.
So she did what little girls with broken hearts and no power do–she turned to
the internet.
Within twelve hours, hashtags bloomed like weeds.
\#ScarlettTheStalker
\#Colombo’sWitch Wife
\#TheRealBrideAlina
\#ScarlettMade Him Forget
Screenshots of old photos. Blurred CCTV from five years ago of me standing too close to Zacharias in a garden. Edited clips of me at the gala with glowing red eyes like some damn succubus.
One “news” account even posted:
“Sources confirm Scarlett spiked Zacharias’s tea the night of the accident. Experts say long–term coma and amnesia could’ve been intentional.”
Another called me a “whore in couture.”
Creative. I’ve been called worse.
Still, I knew it was heating up when a reporter cornered me outside the Maison de Vellor showroom the next afternoon. She didn’t even wait for my heels to click to a stop.
Chapter 18
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12:22 Mon, 19 May
M
成≥80%
“Scarlett! Is it true you were obsessed with Zacharias long before he proposed?”
“Did you really trap him into marriage while he was still in a coma?”
“Do you feel guilty knowing Alina was supposed to be the bride?”
I turned to her slowly, sunglasses still on, lips curled in a smile colder than my diamond collarbone necklace.
“I don’t answer questions shouted like slaps,” I said sweetly. “But thank you for the inspiration.”
That night, I made the call.
The next morning, I walked into a studio wearing ivory silk, lips wine–red, and heels sharp enough to gut rumors.
The camera went live.
And I did what I do best.
I performed truth like a goddess carving it into stone.
“I’m not just Zacharias Colombo’s wife,” I said, voice soft but cutting. “I am his future. His present. And his choice–even when he had no memory of his past.”
A pause. The host leaned in, eyes wide. “But it’s true… your half–sister Alina was originally betrothed to him?”
I smiled, slow and indulgent. “Yes. She was.”
“But… then why-”
“She left,” I said, tone sharpened. “He was in a coma for years. And she left. She asked our father to remove her from the marriage contract. She move on. While I stayed. Then I agreed to marry him and become his wife. Because why not? Zacharias isn’t just a sleeping king… he’s a man worth dying for.” My smile deepened. “And I don’t regret it. Not one breath of it.”
The host hesitated. “But… people are calling you-”
“A witch?” I laughed. “Good. Because I am. A witch who hunted down a princess who thought she could steal my king.”
The silence was delicious,
“And if anyone’s upset that I wear his ring now,” I purred, “they should’ve tried harder not to disappear when he needed loyalty most.”
