PROLOGUE

The sun beat down relentlessly over the field, but I hardly noticed. Around me, the players slowed their horses, their confusion apparent. Yet, I didn't care. My pulse thundered in my ears as I strode purposefully across the immaculately kept turf. Startled murmurs rippled through the crowd, gasps echoing as they realized I was disrupting the match. Let them talk—this wasn't about them.

It was about him.

Perion.

There he stood, as if he owned the world, leaning casually near the sidelines. A cigarette rested unlit at the corner of his mouth, his expression cool, indifferent—like my sudden intrusion was nothing more than a minor inconvenience. The tailored suit clinging to his broad shoulders spoke of arrogance, the kind only he could carry. His sunglasses shielded his eyes, but I didn’t need to see them to know the intensity lurking behind those dark lenses. He looked somewhat gloomy, but I could see the faint twitch of his jaw as I approached.

My breath hitched as I stopped a few feet away, my chest heaving. There was no need for pleasantries, no room for civility. My voice, sharp and cutting, broke the tension between us. "What the hell are you doing here?"

He didn’t flinch. If anything, he seemed amused. Tilting his head, a slow, infuriating smirk spread across his lips. "Silly, I was about to ask you the same thing."

"Don't." I stepped closer, my tone firm, my eyes burning with anger. "Don't act like this is normal. You're here—again. Spain, Monaco, France—everywhere I go, there you are. Do you even realize how insane that is? Do you understand what it looks like?"

His smirk deepened, and his voice, maddeningly smooth, only fueled my anger. “I really don’t know what you’re talking about.”

With a flick of my hand, I knocked the cigarette from his mouth, crushing it beneath my heel. “Why are you here, Perion?” I demanded, my voice quieter now, almost pleading. “Don’t lie to me.”

“Why are you here?” I repeated, my voice trembling despite my best efforts. “I watched you die, Perion. I grieved for you. You don’t get to just show up and act like—like you have some right to be here. You don’t get to—”

He finally removed his sunglasses, letting them dangle from his fingers. His piercing eyes met mine, the intensity of his gaze pulling me in like it always did. Slowly, he stepped closer, closing the distance between us.

His jaw tightened, the muscle ticking as he exhaled slowly. “I'm sorry.”

I froze. The weight of his words slammed into me. My mind screamed to stay angry, but his apology—so rare, so unexpected—left me reeling.

His hand twitched as if he wanted to reach for me but stopped halfway, letting it fall to his side. “I had to make you believe it,” he continued. “It was the only way to keep you safe.”

“Safe?” A bitter laugh escaped me. “You faked your death, vanished without a word, and left me to pick up the pieces of my life alone. And you call that ‘keeping me safe’? Safe from what? From you? And now you’re here, expecting me to just accept you? To believe that you’ve been...what? Watching me? Following me? F'k you, Perion! Did you ever even love me?”

My voice broke on the last question, and I hated myself for it. I didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of knowing how deeply he’d hurt me. He was too close now, close enough that I could smell the faint hint of his cologne, feel the magnetic pull that had always made me weak. I hated it. Hated him. Hated how he could unravel me with just a look.

His jaw tightened, and for a moment, he looked like he might break. “I’m the man who kept you alive, the man who would have died for you. Don’t act like I didn’t care.”

“Pathetic.” My voice broke, and I took a step back, needing distance. "All those years, you were lying to me. How could you return and screw me yet again?”

“I never lied about how I felt,” he said, his tone unwavering. He stepped closer, and I hated the way my body betrayed me—the way my pulse quickened, the way I couldn’t tear my eyes away from him. “Everything I did was to protect you.”

I turned sharply, refusing to let him see the tears brimming in my eyes. “Leave,” I said, my voice firm despite the ache in my chest. I shot him a warning look, my eyes narrowing with impatience. "You can leave now and not come back. I don’t need you around."

He didn’t listen. His presence loomed over me like a shadow I couldn’t escape. With every step I took, his persistence became more suffocating, more maddening. I pivoted to leave instead. I ignored his plea to stop me.

"Carmenta, please go back." My history, sure, is coming for me at some point. With a sharp tilt of my chin and a piercing gaze, I spat out the words, "What did I tell you about you and your orders?"

“Stop telling me what to do!” I snapped. “You don’t get to do that anymore. You don’t get to act like you care, like you’re protecting me, when you’ve already made it clear that I don’t matter to you.”

His eyes darkened, his expression unreadable. For a moment, I thought he might lash out, but instead, he stepped closer again, the space between us evaporating.

"Get lost!"

While he begged for my attention, his words fell on deaf ears—I refused to let his desperation sway me. With every step I took, the distance between us seemed to grow, but his presence lingered in the corners of my mind. Still, I was resolute, determined to escape the tangled mess of the past that weighed heavily on my shoulders.