Chapter 23. Hidden Clauses

The night was quiet, the house steeped in that heavy stillness that comes only after midnight.

Margherita lay in his arms, her head resting against Ezio’s shoulder. His hand moved idly along her arm—slow, absent, as if his body remembered tenderness even when his mind wandered elsewhere.

But her thoughts weren’t there.

He felt it the moment she’d stepped into his room—the calm too controlled, her voice too soft. She had smiled when he kissed her, responded to his touch, but it wasn’t the same. She wasn’t present.

He brushed his thumb against her shoulder. “What is it?”

Margherita sat up. “Nothing,” she said. “Headache, maybe.” She rose, began gathering her things. “I’ll go back to my room.”

Ezio pushed himself up on one elbow, watching her. “That’s not what we agreed to.”

She didn’t meet his eyes. “I didn’t know we had to make a schedule.”

“Don’t play coy,” he said, voice even but firm. “If you didn’t want this tonight, why come?”