Chapter 3 The shift in the score

The night after their duet, Aria couldn't sleep. Damien's touch still lingered on her skin, his voice-a low, steady hum-haunted her thoughts. Every note they played together echoed in her mind, unraveling something inside her she hadn't known existed. But it wasn't just the music. It was him.

In the quiet of her small apartment, she stood before the window, staring into the city lights. Her violin rested beside her, untouched since she'd left Damien's studio. She told herself she needed distance, space to breathe, but deep down, she knew that was a lie. She wanted to go back. She wanted him to unravel her more.

The next evening, the door to his studio creaked open, as though it had been expecting her. Damien stood at the window, his back to her, bathed in the amber glow of the setting sun. The room was warmer than the last time-intimate, almost suffocating in its quiet allure. Without turning, he spoke.

"I didn't think you'd stay away for long."

His words weren't smug, but they held a weight that sent a shiver through her. Aria closed the door softly behind her, stepping deeper into the room. "You were right," she whispered, her voice barely audible above the tension in the air.

He turned then, his eyes dark and intense as they swept over her. "It's the music, isn't it? It pulls at you, just like it does me."

"It's more than that," she said, her breath hitching slightly as she stepped closer, drawn toward him like a moth to a flame.

Damien's lips curved into a knowing smile as he closed the distance between them. His hand brushed her arm, and a current of heat raced through her. "More than the music?" he murmured, his voice velvet smooth as he leaned in, his breath warm against her ear. "Tell me, Aria... what do you want?"

Damien's question hung in the air like a suspended note, vibrating between them.

Aria's breath trembled as she met his gaze. "I want to stop pretending I don't feel this."

That was all the permission he needed.

He closed the final inch between them and kissed her-slowly at first, like he was tasting every hesitation she'd ever known. His lips were soft but commanding, and when her hands slid up his chest and curled into the fabric of his shirt, he deepened the kiss, his hunger no longer contained.

The world narrowed to that room. To the way his mouth explored hers with precision, like composing a melody he knew by heart. He moved with intention, like every gesture was written in the margins of a forbidden score. When his hands found the zipper at the back of her dress, he paused, his forehead resting against hers.

"I need to know you want this," he said, voice hoarse with restraint.

Aria answered with a nod, but it was the way her lips found his again-urgent and sure-that told him everything.

The dress slid from her shoulders and pooled silently at her feet. Damien's breath caught, but he said nothing. He simply stepped back for a moment, drinking in the sight of her as if she were a masterpiece he'd been aching to frame in memory. Then, slowly, reverently, he traced his fingers along the curve of her collarbone, down the line of her ribs, and she shivered-not from cold, but from the heat of being truly seen.

He lifted her onto the velvet chaise near the window, the city lights casting soft shadows over her skin. Damien knelt before her, his hands skimming up her thighs, spreading warmth in their wake. He kissed her ankles, her knees, her hips-mapping her with reverence and fire.

When he entered her, it wasn't rushed. It was music-each thrust a beat, every moan a harmony. They moved in perfect sync, as if they'd been written into the same sheet music long before they ever met.

She cried out his name and he kissed her through it, holding her as she trembled in his arms, her climax crashing over her like a crescendo.

Afterward, wrapped in his arms, her fingers traced idle patterns across his chest.

"You compose like you touch," she murmured, lips brushing his skin. "With chaos and control."

Damien chuckled low, pulling her closer. "And you play like you love... fearlessly."

The silence that followed wasn't empty. It was full of something sacred. Something that neither of them dared name-but both were helpless to resist

The morning sun filtered through the sheer curtains, casting a golden haze across the studio. Aria stirred beneath the velvet throw draped over her, the remnants of last night still humming beneath her skin. But the warmth beside her was gone.

She sat up slowly, her fingers brushing the imprint Damien had left on the chaise. The room was quiet-too quiet. No footsteps, no music, not even the faint sounds of a kettle or a door.

"Damien?" she called out.

No answer.

Wrapping herself in a nearby robe, she padded barefoot across the room. A faint draft tugged at a panel in the far wall-barely visible, but slightly ajar. She approached, curious, and pushed it gently. The panel gave way with a soft click, revealing a narrow corridor bathed in shadows and dust.

Her breath caught.

At the end of the hallway, a small room opened up, filled with forgotten things-old instruments, torn manuscripts, dust-covered books. But it was the chest in the corner that pulled at her. Ornate and worn, its lock broken. Almost as if someone had rifled through it... or tried to forget what it held.

Aria hesitated, then knelt and lifted the lid.

Inside was a stack of faded sheet music, yellowed and brittle. Beneath them, wrapped in a silk scarf, was a newspaper-folded, creased, and stained at the corners.

She unfolded it with care, eyes scanning the bold headline:

"Prodigy's Final Performance Ends in Tragedy – Moreau Family Scandal Rocks Music World"

Her fingers tightened on the edges.

Below the headline, a black-and-white photo showed a much younger Damien, solemn-eyed beside a grand piano. The article detailed a story of a public breakdown during a live concert years ago-one that ended with a conductor hospitalized and a fire that consumed part of the historic Bellard Theater. Damien had vanished from the public eye soon after, rumored to have suffered a psychotic break.

Aria's heart pounded as she read the final line:

"Though no charges were filed, suspicions remain about Damien Moreau's role in the fire. Some say he was haunted by the unfinished composition that drove him to madness."

She lowered the paper slowly, her thoughts spinning.

This was the man who had touched her like he knew her soul. The man who whispered music into her bones. The man who may have once burned a stage to the ground.

Behind her, the floor creaked.

She turned, eyes wide.

Damien stood in the doorway, shadowed, silent. He held no expression on his face-but his eyes... his eyes burned with something unreadable.

"You weren't supposed to find that," he said quietly.