Chapter 171

Sofia. I didn’t know how long we stayed like that. Tangled limbs, lazy fingers tracing idle patterns on skin, heartbeats slow and synced like we’d finally hit a frequency that didn’t make my chest ache. Eventually, the post-bliss haze wore off, and I heard Arsen groan softly into my neck. “We’re gonna be late, aren’t we?” I blinked, staring at the ceiling like it had betrayed me. “Shit. Lunch.” “Yep,” he said, dragging himself up like a man about to face a firing squad. “At the estate. With your mafia husbands.” I snorted. “Don’t be dramatic.” He raised an eyebrow. “Sofia. Nikolai once threatened to stab me for taking the last breadstick.” “To be fair, it was garlic and we were drunk.” “Still stabbed adjacent,” he muttered, pulling his shirt back on while I dragged myself into a fresh pair of jeans and tried to fix my hair like it hadn’t just been thoroughly ravaged by affection and a little emotional healing. By the time we made it out to the car, I was buzzing with nerves and that fl