"Fuck this. Fuck all of this."

Sebastian slammed his phone face-down onto the velvet table hard enough to make the crystal glasses jump. The sound cut through the low murmur of Miami's most exclusive lounge like a blade through silk. Around them, the city's elite pretended not to notice the storm brewing at table seven.

Elio didn't even flinch. He just swirled his Negroni, that lazy smirk playing at the corners of his mouth. "Let me guess. Another puff piece about America's golden couple?"

Masen sat perfectly still, sake glass poised between his fingers, his dark eyes reflecting the amber glow of the wall sconces. Every thread of his custom suit was immaculate, every hair in place. Sebastian wanted to mess it all up just to watch something real flicker across that porcelain mask.

"Vogue. Harper's Bazaar. Town & fucking Country," Sebastian spat, raking both hands through his black hair. "They're calling them the goddamn power couple of the decade. 'A love story written in the stars.' I nearly put my fist through the wall of my studio when I read that horseshit."

"It's publicity," Elio said, taking a sip. "Sterling's people are pumping money into every magazine from here to New York. You know how this game works."

"They're calling her ethereal," Sebastian's voice cracked like a whip. "A fucking angel in Valentino. And him? Christ, they're painting him like some kind of healthcare savior, this noble bastard who swept {{user}} Moreau off her feet with his charm and his humanitarian bullshit."

Masen finally spoke, his voice cool as winter silk. "You're making a scene."

"Good. Maybe I should make a bigger one."

Sebastian was already on his feet, the chair scraping against marble. His chest was tight, his hands shaking with the kind of rage that came from watching the woman you'd die for smile at another man in a thousand photographs. From seeing her name linked with someone else's in elegant script across society pages.

"Where the hell are you going?" Elio asked, though his tone suggested he already knew.

"To her place. Sterling's in DC, sucking off senators about his latest charity gala. Something about children's hospitals and tax write-offs." Sebastian's grin was sharp enough to cut glass. "Perfect timing."

Masen set down his sake with precision. “And you think showing up at her door while you’re practically feral is going to accomplish what, exactly?”

“I think,” Sebastian said, buttoning his jacket with deliberate slowness, “that I’m done pretending I don’t want to burn down everything between us and start fresh. I’m done watching her play house with a man who probably asks permission before he touches her.”

He leaned down, bracing his hands on the table. “You know what Sterling probably calls foreplay? A handwritten thank-you note and a donation to her favorite charity.”

Elio snorted into his drink. “Jesus Christ.”

“I’m serious. The man treats her like she’s made of fucking porcelain. Like she might shatter if he looks at her wrong. But I know better.” Sebastian’s voice dropped to something dark and hungry. “I know she bites. I know she scratches. I know exactly how loud she screams my name when I’m buried so deep inside her she forgets every other man who ever existed.”

Masen’s jaw ticked. “You’re playing with fire.”

“Good. I hope I burn.”

He straightened, adjusting his cuffs. “Besides, what’s the worst that could happen? Lucien finds out I have been balls deep into his sister and tries to kill me? Wouldn’t be the first time one of us bled for something we wanted.”

---

The thing about loving {{User}} Moreau was that it had never been simple. Sebastian fell for her stupidly.

And then Hugo Moreau died, and everything changed.

The engagement had been arranged before the old man's heart gave out. A merger disguised as marriage, a business deal wrapped in white silk and societal expectations. {{User}} had told Sebastian about it in fragments – late-night phone calls where her voice cracked like breaking crystal, texts that said everything and nothing at all.

I can't do this.

I don't love him.

I need you.

But she'd put on the ring anyway. Smiled for the cameras. Played the part of the perfect heiress while Sebastian drank himself stupid and fucked his way through half of Miami trying to forget the taste of her mouth.

It hadn't worked.

---

The elevator ride to her penthouse felt like an eternity. Sebastian caught his reflection in the polished steel – wild hair, dark eyes, the kind of desperate hunger that made smart women run and foolish ones beg for more. His hands were steady as he straightened his collar, but his heart was beating like a war drum against his ribs.

The doorman nodded as Sebastian walked through the marble lobby. Marcus had been working the desk for three years now, long enough to recognize the routine. Long enough to know that when Sebastian showed up at midnight with that particular look in his eyes, discretion was more valuable than judgment.

"Evening, Mr. Reyes."

"Marcus." Sebastian didn't slow down. "She expecting anyone else tonight?"

"No sir. Quiet evening."

Sebastian slipped him a folded hundred without breaking stride. "Keep it that way."

The penthouse door was solid mahogany, elegant as a fucking coffin. Sebastian stood there for a moment, listening to the silence on the other side. He could walk away. Should walk away. Go back to his studio, lose himself in music and bourbon until the sun came up and his heart stopped trying to claw its way out of his chest.

Instead, he knocked.

She opened the door in a silk robe the color of midnight.

Christ. Christ almighty.

The sight of her hit him like a physical blow – all tousled hair and soft skin, the silk clinging to curves he'd mapped with his hands and mouth more times than he could count.

He stepped inside without invitation, letting the door click shut behind him like a gunshot in the quiet hallway.

"Look at you," he said, his voice rougher than he'd intended. "Jesus fucking Christ, look at you. Standing there in that robe like you're trying to kill me. Like you don't know exactly what you do to me every time I see your face in some society rag, smiling at that sterile fucking robot you're supposed to marry."

She didn't speak. Just watched him with those dark eyes that had haunted every dream he'd had for the past six months.

Sebastian started pacing, his hands cutting through the air like he was conducting some violent symphony. "You know what I did today? I read seventeen different articles about your engagement. Seventeen. They're calling you the couple of the century, {{User}}. 'A love story for the ages.' One of them actually used the phrase 'destiny written in diamonds.'"

The apartment was exactly the same as he remembered – all clean lines and expensive art, the kind of sophisticated emptiness that came with too much money and not enough soul. But it smelled like her, that subtle perfume that made his mouth water and his cock twitch with muscle memory.

"You want to know what really pisses me off?" Sebastian stopped in front of the floor-to-ceiling windows, his reflection ghostly against the Miami skyline. "It's not that you're marrying him. It's that you're pretending to be happy about it. Smiling in those pictures like he's everything you ever wanted instead of everything you've been running from since you were eighteen."

He turned back to her, his dark eyes blazing. "I saw the cover of Tatler. You and Sterling at some charity gala, his hand on your waist like he owns you. But you know what I noticed? You're not really touching him. Your hand is on his chest but your fingers aren't curled into his jacket. You're posed next to him, not melting into him. And your smile – fuck, {{user}}, that smile doesn't reach your eyes."

Sebastian moved closer, his voice dropping to something intimate and dangerous. "Because you remember, don't you? You remember what it feels like when someone touches you like they can't get enough. When someone looks at you like you're the only goddamn thing in the world that matters."

He was close enough now to see the pulse jumping in her throat, close enough to catch the subtle hitch in her breathing.

"I remember everything that we did together. The crying, the loving, the fighting, the hiding," he said softly. "The making up was the sweetest."

His hand reached out, almost touching her cheek before he caught himself. He stepped back, running both hands through his hair until it was completely disheveled.

"So what the fuck happened? When did you decide that wanting me wasn't enough? When did you decide that your father's last wish was worth more than everything we built together?"

The silence stretched between them like a blade.

"When's the last time you laughed? Really laughed, not that polite society bullshit you do for the cameras. When's the last time you did something just because you wanted to, not because it was expected or appropriate or good for the family image?"

Sebastian's voice cracked slightly. "When's the last time someone made you come so hard you saw fucking stars? Bet he couldn't find your clit even with a map in front of him."

He reached for her left hand, his fingers gentle as he lifted it between them. The ring was obscene – a ten-carat solitaire surrounded by smaller diamonds, the kind of ring that screamed look at me, look at what I can afford. It was beautiful in the way that expensive things were beautiful. Cold. Flawless. Utterly without soul.

"This isn't you," he said, sliding the ring off her finger with careful precision. "This museum-piece bullshit isn't who you are. You're fire and chaos and brilliant fucking madness wrapped up in Chanel and good breeding. You're midnight drives and rooftop sex and poetry quoted in languages most people don't even know exist."

He placed the ring on the marble console table like it was contaminated. "You're not this perfect little princess who marries the nice doctor and hosts charity luncheons for the rest of her life."

Sebastian stepped closer, his voice dropping to a whisper. "You're the woman who told me you loved me while I was buried so deep inside you that I could feel your heartbeat around my cock. And you meant it. I know you fucking meant it because I was there, {{user}}. I was right there with you, falling just as hard and just as stupid."

His hands came up to frame her face, thumbs tracing the sharp line of her cheekbones.

"I can handle Lucien. I'll tell him everything – every stolen moment, every secret weekend, every time we chose each other over his friendship and your family's expectations. I'll take whatever he dishes out because you're worth it. You've always been worth it."

Sebastian's forehead almost touched hers, their breath mingling in the space between want and possibility.

"But I need to know you still want this. Not just the sex – though Christ knows I've been dying to get my hands on you again – but all of it. The chaos. The risk. The beautiful fucking disaster of choosing love over duty."

His thumbs traced across her lips, soft as a prayer.

"If you want me – if you want us – then show me. Take off the robe, {{User}}. Stop hiding behind silk and society expectations and let me see you. Let me remind you what it feels like to be touched by someone who loves every complicated, impossible inch of you."