Page 102 of Forged

Neomi nods slowly. “That’s exactly it. He doesn’t feel like one to me either.”

The quiet stretches before she reaches for my hand, her fingers threading loosely through mine.

“What if we stopped pretending this was just a one-time thing?” she says.

I look down at her.

“What are you suggesting?”

“I’m suggesting we see where this goes,” she replies. “We don’t have to rush anything or make it complicated. We could just…spend time with him.”

Her thumb moves slowly across my palm.

“You’re talking about dating him,” I say.

Her smile widens slightly. “Something like that.”

“And you’re sure that’s something that you want?”

“I’m curious, Lars,” she says honestly. “And I think you are too.”

“Yeah, I am,” I admit.

“Yeah?” Neomi’s brows lift slightly. “Good,” she says, leaning over to kiss me.

The kiss is gentle, lingering just long enough to make my chest tighten before she slips out of bed.

“I’m making coffee.”

I watch her disappear to the kitchen. For a moment the room is quiet again. My mind is filled with everything that could go wrong. I’ve lived a life where survival relied on planning for the worst and my past experiences only reinforced that in love.

But I don’t feel like I have to have my guard up with Gabriel. Something inside me is yelling jump again. Just like the night I married Neomi.

“Fuck,” I curse to myself.

I need perspective. I run a hand through my hair, and I swing my legs out of bed, knowing there’s one person whose opinion I want before this goes any further.

It’smidmorning when I pull up to the estate, and the grounds are already alive with quiet activity. Security rotates through their shifts while staff move between the main house and the gardens, the entire place running with the quiet precision of a machine that has operated this way for decades.

I find my aunt in the kitchen, standing at the marble island with a porcelain cup of coffee between her fingers. She’s wrapped in a pale pink silk robe that drapes effortlessly over her frame, the kind of garment most people would reserve for late evenings, yet on her it looks perfectly normal for morning coffee. Her hair is styled precisely as if she’s about to host a formal dinner, and her makeup is immaculate—every detail in place despite the early hour. Violette Marchetti has never been the sort of woman who allows the day to catch her unprepared.

She glances up when I step into the kitchen.

“Lars.”

Her eyes narrow slightly as she looks at the clock on the wall behind me, then back at my face.

“It’s ten o’clock on a Friday morning,” she says, lifting her coffee cup. “Shouldn’t a married man be somewhere making money for his wife to spend?”

I pull out the chair across from her. “I do that most days.”

“Or,” she continues smoothly, ignoring me, “you should be in your bed giving her orgasms and keeping the marriage interesting.”

I stare at her. “You’re unbelievable.”

She smiles into her coffee cup. “I’m experienced.”

I sit down, leaning back in the chair. “That’s a sentence I never wanted to hear from you again.”