The day began the way most of Aaravi Mishra’s days did — with ink on her fingers and verses in her throat.

The sky outside the old bookstore had turned the soft orange of late afternoon, casting long golden streaks across the dusty glass windows. A ceiling fan spun lazily above her, barely pushing the warm Jaipur air. The scent of sandalwood incense mixed with the worn paper and leather bindings of old books. This place, her mother’s bookstore, was her haven — a corner of the world where nothing loud could touch her. No chaos. No unpredictability. Just pages, silence, and the quiet rhythm of poetry whispered aloud while she rearranged shelves.

She stood barefoot on a wooden stool, trying to reach an old edition of Gitanjali. Her dupatta had slipped down her shoulder, and a few curls escaped her braid. The fan hummed above her head, drowning out the world outside.

And then, the door creaked open.

She didn’t hear the bell chime — not right away. She only turned when the voice came, smooth and quiet, but holding something heavy. Something dangerous.

“You don’t belong here.”

She froze, hand halfway to the book, body still facing the shelf.

It wasn’t the words that unsettled her. It was the tone — like someone speaking a truth too precise to be accidental. Like someone who had seen her and somehow… known.

Aaravi slowly stepped down, heart thudding. When she turned, the man standing at the threshold didn’t belong to her world — not even a little.

He looked like violence made beautiful. Towering and composed, dressed in an impeccably tailored black suit despite the heat. No tie. The top buttons of his shirt open just enough to show a sliver of a gold chain. Sunglasses in one hand, watch on the other wrist catching the sunlight. His skin was olive-toned, his jaw sharp, and the dark stubble lining it only made his lips look crueler. But his eyes — green, impossibly cold — were the kind that didn’t blink. Didn’t soften.

And they were staring directly at her.

“I beg your pardon?” she said, voice tighter than she liked.

The corners of his mouth tilted up, but it wasn’t quite a smile. “I meant this place,” he said, stepping inside without invitation. “This bookstore. This city. You look like you belong somewhere else.”

Aaravi crossed her arms, ignoring the flutter in her chest. “And you look like you’re lost.”

That got a real smile. Still not kind. But amused. “Fair enough.”

She watched him as he slowly moved through the store, his eyes barely flicking over the books. He didn’t seem interested in reading. But he studied everything else — the furniture, the corners, the windows. Like a man who scanned rooms for exits before he sat down.

“I’m looking for something,” he said.

“What kind of book?”

He glanced at her. “Something rare. Like you.”

Aaravi took a half step back. That wasn’t flirtation. That was… something else. A test? A warning?

She moved behind the counter, putting space between them. “This is a family store. We don’t carry collector editions. Maybe try one of the big chains near the hotel district.”

“I didn’t come here for a book.”

The air thickened.

He took another step toward her — slowly, deliberately. Not threatening, not quite. But every inch of him screamed control. The way he moved, like he could strike or seduce in the same breath.

“My name is Matteo Leone,” he said, and it was a name that didn’t belong in Jaipur.

Leone.

Aaravi had heard it before. On a news snippet her father had quickly changed. On a whispered business conversation between foreign men staying at a heritage hotel nearby. It was the kind of name you didn’t say twice unless you were sure no one was listening.

She kept her voice neutral. “And what brings Mr. Leone to my quiet little corner of the city?”

He stepped close enough for her to see the scar that curved faintly along his jawline. “Business.”

“You don’t look like a book distributor.”

He tilted his head, amused again. “And you don’t look like a woman who pretends not to know who I am.”

Aaravi’s heart stilled.

He knew she’d recognized him. And he didn’t care.

Instead, he glanced around, then walked straight to the poetry shelf. He picked up a worn copy of Rumi and flipped it open, though his eyes didn’t move across the page. “Do you believe in fate, Aaravi Mishra?”

She didn’t remember telling him her full name.

She swallowed. “Not particularly.”

“I do,” he said softly. “I believe in moments like this.”

“And what moment is this?”

He looked up. “The kind where two people from separate worlds meet. And nothing after that stays the same.”

Her breath caught.

She knew she should ask him to leave. Knew she should call her father. Knew — with some primal part of herself — that this man didn’t enter rooms without purpose. And yet, she stood there, rooted like the very poems on her shelves.

“Do you always talk like this?” she asked, trying to steady herself.

“Only when I find something rare.”

Her throat tightened.

Matteo placed the book down gently. “You have the eyes of someone who dreams in silence,” he said. “And the mouth of someone who doesn’t know how much power it holds.”

Aaravi blinked. “Why are you here, really?”

His gaze darkened, flicking to the door behind her. “To see if the rumors were true.”

“What rumors?”

He didn’t answer. Just turned, walking toward the door with the same unhurried, dangerous grace.

Before he exited, he glanced back. “I’ll be back tomorrow. Save me a poem.”

The bell above the door rang as he left, and she stood in stunned silence, one hand gripping the counter.

She wasn’t sure if she felt breathless… or hunted.

—

He returned the next day. And the day after that.

Each time dressed in effortless black, his eyes unreadable, his presence like storm clouds that refused to rain.

He never touched her. Never crossed the invisible line she kept drawing. But he asked her questions. Strange, intimate ones. About books, about her childhood, about what kind of love she believed in. And she, like a fool caught between curiosity and caution, answered them.

She started saving him poems.

He started bringing her flowers he never admitted he bought.

And each night after he left, Aaravi sat on her rooftop and tried to convince herself she wasn’t falling into something with no bottom.

Because men like Matteo Leone didn’t fall in love.

They claimed. They consumed. They destroyed.

And she… she was already bleeding a little under the skin.

The rain arrived without warning.

Not the gentle kind that kissed rooftops and whispered over the sandstone of the city, but the kind that roared — wild, unapologetic, as if Jaipur itself were trying to drown a secret.

Aaravi watched it from behind the bookstore’s wooden counter, chin resting in her palm, the evening shadows slipping longer across the shelves. Her father had left early for a temple visit, and the streets outside were emptying quickly. She was about to close early when the door creaked open.

He entered, soaked.

Matteo Leone didn’t seem like the type to get caught in rain. Yet there he stood, shirt plastered to his frame, black strands of hair curling slightly at the ends, drops trailing down the edges of his jaw. Still composed. Still lethal.

He looked like chaos wearing skin.

“You’re wet,” she blurted before she could stop herself.

He raised an eyebrow. “Am I?”

Aaravi swallowed, flustered. “I meant—you could’ve waited somewhere for the rain to stop. Why come here?”

His eyes darkened, slowly scanning her face. “Because you’re here.”

The words hit her low in the stomach.

She turned sharply, pretending to sort papers. “This isn’t a lounge, you know.”

“I’m not here for coffee.”

“Good. We don’t serve any.”

A silence stretched between them. Not awkward — never awkward. With Matteo, silence was like a loaded weapon resting on the table. A lull before something cracked.

She finally glanced at him. “Do you ever say things without meaning something else underneath?”

Matteo stepped closer, his shoes echoing faintly on the wood floor. “Would you prefer I lie?”

“I’d prefer if you came here like a normal customer and not a—”

She stopped.

He waited, amused. “Not a what?”

Her voice lowered. “Not a man who scares me.”

Something shifted in his expression. Not offense. Not guilt. Just… something older. Like a memory tugged too hard.

“I scare you?” he asked, softer now.

Aaravi hesitated. “You don’t belong in this world.”

“You said that last time.”

“And it’s still true.”

He reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a thin, folded paper. “Then maybe this will make things easier.”

She unfolded it slowly. Her breath hitched.

It was a lease document.

Her name was on it.

And stamped across the bottom, in clean legal English: Property now under the ownership of Leone Holdings.

The floor tilted.

“You—” She backed away. “You bought this building?”

He nodded. Calm. Casual. “Yes.”

“But why?”

His voice remained quiet. “Because someone tried to offer your father a bribe to sell. I outbid them.”

Her heart pounded. “And why would you care who owns my building?”

“Because I know who made the offer.”

“And?”

Matteo’s jaw tightened. “And because the man who made it doesn’t ask nicely twice.”

Aaravi stared at him, throat dry. “You think you’re protecting me?”

“I know I am.”

She laughed, bitter and confused. “By becoming my landlord?”

“No.” His voice dropped to something darker. “By making sure no one touches what’s mine.”

The air fractured.

She took a shaky step back, anger bubbling under fear. “I’m not yours.”

He nodded once, as if acknowledging a temporary truth. “Not yet.”

Her breath caught in her throat.

This wasn’t love. This wasn’t flirtation.

This was war with lace gloves on.

“You don’t get to come into my life and decide things,” she said, trembling. “You don’t get to draw lines around me like I’m part of your world.”

“I didn’t draw the line,” he murmured. “I’m just protecting what’s already inside it.”

The words twisted something in her chest. She didn’t know whether to slap him or fall against him.

Instead, she said, “You should leave.”

Matteo didn’t argue. He walked to the door, paused with his hand on the handle.

“You asked me yesterday why I was really here,” he said, eyes not meeting hers.

“I’m here, Aaravi, because for the first time in my life, I want something clean. Something that isn’t built on blood.”

And then he was gone, swallowed by the rain.

She locked the door after him. But it didn’t matter.

The storm was already inside.

—

Later that night, long after the rain had stopped, she found herself curled on her rooftop, her shawl wrapped tight, phone in hand, his name glowing on the screen.

She hadn’t saved it. It had appeared on its own.

She stared at the single message.

“You left the light on.”

She didn’t reply.

But she didn’t turn the light off, either.

The silence inside the bookstore was never just silence anymore.

It hummed now — with presence, with memory, with the echo of footsteps too heavy to forget. Matteo hadn’t come in two days, and yet Aaravi felt him in everything. In the untouched poetry shelf where his fingers had once lingered. In the small indent on the counter where he’d once leaned too close. In the rainwater stain on the floor where he’d stood, soaked and uninvited, and told her she was his.

Not yet.

The words lived rent-free inside her now.

She told herself she hated it — the arrogance, the claim, the way he’d bought the building without permission, without warning. But there were things she didn’t admit, even to herself. Like how she checked her phone too often. How she left the light on after closing. How she replayed their conversations when she thought no one was watching.

That was the worst part of all — she wasn’t sure if she hated it… or if she was waiting for him.

And then on the third day, she found the rose.

It was left on the poetry shelf — white, full bloom, wrapped in the kind of silk ribbon no local florist used. No note. No message. Just that singular presence. Elegant. Lethal in its implications.

Her fingers closed around the stem. No thorns.

Of course there weren’t.

Matteo never left obvious wounds.

She should’ve thrown it away.

Instead, she placed it in an old glass bottle and tucked it between Rumi and Tagore like it belonged there.

—

By late evening, the sun had slipped behind the dusty skyline of Jaipur. The shutters creaked as she pulled them down. Just as she reached for the final lock, her phone vibrated.

Unknown Number.

But it wasn’t really unknown.

Matteo: Come outside. No questions.

Her pulse jumped.

She should’ve ignored it.

Instead, she stepped out.

The black car was waiting. Long, tinted, sleek. A man in a suit stood by the rear door. Not Matteo. Someone with an earpiece and a neck too thick for comfort.

He didn’t speak. Just opened the door.

Aaravi hesitated. Every inch of her screamed to walk away.

But her hands moved on instinct.

When the door shut behind her, the world outside went silent.

He was inside.

Matteo.

The backseat was dim, the scent of his cologne—dark sandalwood and something sharper—already thick in the air. He didn’t speak at first. Just studied her. Like she was a complicated poem he hadn’t yet decided how to read.

“You shouldn’t come here like this,” she whispered.

“And yet you came.”

She looked away. “What is this?”

“A truce.”

Her eyes snapped back to his. “A truce for what? We’re not at war.”

He smiled faintly. “Aren’t we?”

The car pulled away from the curb, and for a moment, Aaravi felt her old world dissolve behind her. The hum of the street. The chai vendors. The safety of familiarity.

Matteo’s hand rested near hers. He didn’t touch her. He didn’t have to. The space between them pulsed.

“Where are we going?” she asked.

He didn’t answer immediately. Then: “Somewhere quiet.”

—

It was a rooftop.

High above the city, away from the temples and the palaces and the glittering chaos of Jaipur. The car had stopped by an old haveli, now turned private. The staff had opened the gates without question. Matteo had led her up marble stairs and through candlelit halls. And now, she stood on a terrace laced with soft lights, looking down at a city she suddenly felt very far from.

“You brought me here for this?” she asked, turning to him.

Matteo leaned against the carved railing, hands in his pockets. “I brought you here because no one listens this high up. No whispers. No threats. Just air.”

She crossed her arms. “You talk like a man being hunted.”

“I am.”

Her breath caught.

He looked at her then. Really looked. “You think you’re the only one with secrets, Aaravi?”

“I don’t have any.”

He chuckled once. Dark. “Everyone does. Even you.”

She stepped back, wary. “Why are you doing this? I didn’t ask for protection. I didn’t ask for anything from you.”

“You didn’t have to.”

“That’s not how it works.”

“It is with me.”

She didn’t answer. Couldn’t. There was something in his tone — a weight, a fracture — that warned her this wasn’t flirtation anymore.

“You live in a world of stories,” Matteo said, voice lower now. “Words. Shelves. You’ve made yourself small in it. Safe. But your life is not safe, Aaravi. Not anymore.”

“Because of you,” she snapped.

“No,” he said calmly. “Because of your name.”

Her eyes narrowed. “What do you mean?”

But Matteo just looked out over the city. “There are things your father never told you. About why your family really left Delhi. About the men he once worked for. About the debt your name carries — one that someone intends to collect.”

She went still. “You’re lying.”

He shook his head. “I don’t lie, dolcezza. I don’t have to.”

Aaravi’s chest tightened. “Why are you telling me this?”

“Because I want you to understand something.” He stepped toward her, close enough that the space between them vibrated. “This is not about obsession. This is not about claiming something fragile and breaking it. This is about you.”

“What about me?”

His hand rose, fingers barely grazing her cheek.

“You are the only thing in my life I didn’t plan for.”

Her breath hitched.

“You’re light in a world built on blood,” he whispered. “And I will burn anyone who tries to touch you.”

The words landed somewhere deep — between fear and desire, between resistance and collapse.

She should’ve stepped back.

She stepped forward.

His lips brushed hers — soft, hesitant, like even he didn’t know if he was allowed. But when she didn’t pull away, his hand slid behind her neck and the kiss deepened.

It wasn’t soft after that.

It was war.

Heat, breath, teeth. The kind of kiss that blurred edges and made poetry irrelevant. That said things no verse ever could. Her fingers curled into his shirt. His arm locked around her waist. And for one suspended moment on that rooftop, she forgot everything — who he was, what this meant, where it would end.

She only remembered how it felt to be kissed like a secret that might shatter the world.

When they broke apart, both breathless, he didn’t let go.

“I’m not good for you,” he murmured.

“I know.”

“And yet...”

And yet.

She didn’t say it aloud.

Because some truths didn’t need words.

Some truths came with roses and rooftops and green eyes that never blinked when they stared into your soul.