Chapter 6
Rome is louder than I expect, brighter, heavier with history and heat and the feeling that everything beautiful here has already survived ruin at least once, which somehow makes it feel braver than anywhere I’ve ever been, and as the jet descends over the city, lights scattering beneath us like spilled gold, I realize I am holding Devin’s hand so tightly my fingers ache, as if some part of me understands that the ground we are landing on is not neutral territory but borrowed time.
The plane touches down softly, impossibly softly, and the moment we step onto the tarmac the world rearranges itself around him, doors opening, people moving, cars waiting with engines already running, as if Rome itself has been instructed not to keep Devin Cross waiting.
I should feel overwhelmed.
I should feel embarrassed by how easily all of this bends to him.
Instead, I feel dizzy with the intimacy of it, the way he keeps glancing at me like he’s afraid I’ll disappear if he looks away for too long, the way his hand remains at the small of my back as we’re guided through private entrances and into a black car that smells like leather and something expensive I don’t have a word for.
“This isn’t real,” I murmur, watching the city unfold outside the window, ancient buildings glowing under streetlights, people laughing in cafés like love has always been easy here.
“It is,” he says quietly. “For now.”
Those last two words land heavier than the rest.
The hotel overlooks the city, all glass and marble and open space, the kind of place where the view alone feels like a declaration of power, and when we step into the suite I stop short, my breath leaving me all at once, because it’s too much—too beautiful, too indulgent, too far from the life I recognize as mine.
Devin watches my reaction carefully.
“Say the word and we leave,” he says. “Anywhere else. Or nowhere.”
I turn to him.
“You flew me across the world,” I say. “You don’t get to pretend this isn’t intentional.”
A smile tugs at his mouth, soft and sad.
“I wanted you somewhere untouched by expectations,” he admits. “Somewhere I could just be… me.”
“And who is that?” I ask.
He steps closer, the city stretching endlessly behind him.
“The boy who stayed up all night listening to the same songs you did,” he says. “The one who wants this to matter, even if it costs him everything.”
My heart stumbles.
“Don’t say that,” I whisper.
“Why?” he asks.
“Because you don’t know what everything is yet.”
Rome at night is a dream someone forgot to wake up from.
We walk through streets that feel alive, hand in hand, past fountains and ruins and couples leaning into each other like the world has always made room for love, and for the first time since meeting Devin, I let myself forget the contracts and the rumors and the invisible forces moving against us, because here, in this city that has survived empires falling, it feels possible that something as small and stubborn as love might endure too.
He buys me things I don’t ask for and don’t need—a silk dress from a boutique that closes just for us, shoes I’m afraid to scuff, jewelry that glints like a promise I don’t know how to keep—and every time I protest he shakes his head, smiling like this is the only language he’s ever been taught to speak.
“This isn’t how I want you to love me,” I tell him later, as we sit on a balcony overlooking the city, wine untouched between us.
“I know,” he says. “But it’s the only way I know how to give.”
The honesty in that almost breaks me.
That night, when he kisses me, it isn’t rushed or hungry or careless; it’s slow, reverent, like he’s memorizing me, like he’s trying to burn the feeling into himself so deeply it can’t be taken away later, and when we finally pull apart, breathing uneven, foreheads pressed together, the city humming below us, I realize I have crossed a line I will never uncross.
I am in love with him.
Not the idea of him.
Not the fantasy.
Him.
The next morning, Rome feels different.
Sharper.
Heavier.
Devin is quieter, his phone buzzing more often, his smiles strained at the edges, like someone counting down seconds he hasn’t told me about yet, and when I finally ask him what’s wrong, he exhales slowly, sitting beside me on the bed like the weight of the world has finally become too much to carry alone.
“There’s a clause,” he says.
I stiffen. “In what?”
“In everything,” he answers. “In my trust. In my inheritance. In my freedom.”
My chest tightens.
“Tell me,” I say.
“If I publicly defy the engagement,” he continues, “if I choose you without their approval, I lose access to everything. The companies. The accounts. The planes. The house.”
I search his face.
“And?” I ask.
“And they’ll come for you,” he says quietly. “Not violently. Not obviously. They’ll make it impossible for you to exist near me without consequences.”
My throat burns.
“So this—” I gesture to the room, the city, the impossible beauty of it all “—this is goodbye?”
He closes his eyes.
“This was me stealing time,” he admits. “Before they take the choice away.”
The words settle like ash.
Before I can respond, his phone rings.
He answers it, listens for a long moment, his expression hardening with every second.
When he hangs up, he looks at me with something close to devastation.
“They know where we are,” he says. “And they’ve set the date.”
“What date?” I whisper.
“The announcement,” he replies. “The engagement goes public in forty-eight hours.”
The room feels smaller.
Rome suddenly feels very far away.
And as I look at the man I love, standing in a world that refuses to let him choose freely, I understand something terrible and undeniable:
This weekend was never about escape.
It was about saying goodbye before the world caught up to us.
