Chapter 7: First Move

Chapter 7: Chapter 7: First Move

The door had barely closed behind Hale when Nero stopped pretending the infrastructure proposal still interested him.

His signature dried at the bottom of the page while evening settled over Palatine beyond the office windows. Wedding staff had begun illuminating the inner gardens, warm lights appearing one by one beneath the trees and along the pale stone paths. Somewhere in the adjoining suite, one of his guards crossed the sitting room, quiet enough that Nero registered the movement without looking.

Seven years.

He leaned back and let the pen roll between his fingers.

He remembered exactly where he had been when he ruined his own patience.

Alamina, in winter.

A palace meeting so unbearably dull that Nero had spent half of it contemplating whether diplomatic immunity covered murder by boredom.

Sebastian had been there.

That had made everything worse.

At twenty-five, Sebastian Fitzgeralt had already perfected the particular combination of competence and indifference that made people watch him even when he was doing absolutely nothing remarkable. Dark trousers, a white shirt with the sleeves pushed to his forearms after the meeting room became too warm, and his coat abandoned over the back of a chair.

Nero had been eighteen and painfully aware of every movement Sebastian made.

The way he leaned over the maps. The way his dark hair fell slightly forward when he read. The way his green eyes sharpened whenever someone said something particularly stupid.

Nero had escaped onto the balcony during the break because staring at Sebastian for another forty minutes without doing anything about it had begun to feel humiliating.

Sebastian had followed him.

Even seven years later, Nero remembered the cold against his face and the pale Alaminian capital stretching beyond the palace walls. Snow remained in the shaded corners of the courtyards below, and the metal railing had been cold enough to sting beneath his palms.

Then Sebastian had walked outside without bothering to retrieve his coat.

There you are.

Nero smiled faintly.

Sebastian had been irritating from the beginning.

The conversation itself had gone wrong remarkably fast.

Sebastian teased him.

Nero glared.

Sebastian teased him again.

And eventually, after years of Sebastian treating every look and half-finished sentence as either harmless flirting or adolescent dramatics, Nero had simply looked at him and said it.

I like you.

His eighteen-year-old self deserved some credit for efficiency.

Sebastian’s response deserved considerably less.

Nero could still see the exact moment understanding settled into those green eyes.

He had hoped for surprise.

Shock, perhaps. Instead, Sebastian had known.

That was what had hurt most.

He had known and immediately reached for the gentlest knife available.

You’re young.

Nero’s amusement disappeared.

Seven years later, those two words remained insulting.

Sebastian had spoken about proximity and admiration and timing. About intensity and familiarity. About all the perfectly reasonable explanations for why an eighteen-year-old prince might mistake years of wanting the same man for something permanent.

There’s no reason to ruin this over something you’ll outgrow.

Nero had not forgotten a single word.

Sebastian had taken everything Nero had deliberately kept to himself and reduced it to youth and hormones.

Nero had wanted rejection. A real one.

I don’t want you.

That would have hurt, but it would have been clean.

Instead, Sebastian had effectively patted him on the head.

Nero had responded with precisely the amount of emotional maturity expected from an eighteen-year-old enigma whose pride had just been pulverized.

Badly.

I won’t outgrow it.

That had finally made Sebastian look at him differently, but then came the careful voice again.

The insistence that Nero should not decide anything while hurt.

As though Sebastian had not already decided everything for him.

Nero remembered the humiliation of saying it aloud.

I’m hurt.

He had hated admitting it.

Sebastian had looked more unsettled by those two words than by Nero’s anger.

Perhaps because anger could be dismissed as temper. Pain could not.

Nero had told him the truth after that.

I can’t see you as a friend anymore.

Sebastian had actually looked surprised then, but Nero continued.

We’ll speak when duty requires it. Meetings. Assignments. Public functions. Anything necessary. Outside of that, I think it would be better if we were strangers.

And Sebastian, magnificent bastard that he was, had looked at Nero as though Nero were throwing a tantrum.

You don’t mean that.

Nero’s fingers stopped rolling the pen.

That sentence had done more damage than the rejection.

Sebastian had known him nearly his entire life.

He knew Nero did not bluff.

Yet somehow even then, Sebastian had assumed Nero’s feelings were temporary enough that his decisions must be temporary too.

Even now, Nero remembered the hot burn behind his eyes and the effort it had taken to keep his face still.

Then Sebastian had made everything considerably worse.

You’re an enigma.

Nero’s gaze shifted toward the darkening windows.

There it was.

The secret Hale was currently allowing a royal physician to sell to the highest bidder.

Do you have any idea what that means for someone like me? For this to ever become a real option, I would have to change everything.

Nero had gone completely still.

I don’t want that.

That, Nero could have accepted.

He would not have liked it. He would never have liked it.

But Sebastian was allowed to be afraid of what an enigma could do to another dominant alpha. Allowed to refuse the possibility of becoming something else through a bond that neither medicine nor law properly understood anymore.

Then Sebastian had added the sentence that had turned pain into something much uglier.

No one would want that.

Nero smiled now.

That had been Sebastian’s mistake.

The corridor after the balcony remained unpleasantly vivid.

Sebastian against the wall.

Nero’s hands planted on either side of his head.

The first genuine fear appeared in Sebastian’s face when Nero stopped suppressing enough of his presence to remain comfortable.

You’re insane.

Nero’s mouth curved wider.

That assessment had aged beautifully.

He did not regret frightening Sebastian. Perhaps he should. He did not.

The memory of his own voice came easily.

You call me dangerous, Sebastian, but you have no idea what that word truly means when it applies to me.

Then Sebastian’s pheromones rose instinctively against him.

Dominant alpha against enigma.

Powerful enough to overwhelm almost anyone else.

Meaningless against Nero.

Stay out of my way. Stay out of my head. Because next time, I might just decide to solve the problem myself.

Not his finest romantic moment. Still not the part Nero regretted.

When Sebastian had asked what happened between them now, Nero, still too hurt to risk being the one reaching again, had made pride into a rule.

If you ever change your mind, you come to me.

Sebastian had stared at him.

Nero remembered exactly how steady he had kept his voice.

I made the first move. I’m not making the second.

That was it.

The single genuinely stupid thing Nero had done that day.

At eighteen, it had sounded fair.

Sebastian had rejected him. Sebastian had dismissed him. If anything ever changed, Sebastian would have to be the one to cross the distance between them.

So Nero had waited.

And waited.

And waited.

Seven fucking years.

Nero looked down at the unsigned page on his desk.

Apparently he had expected Sebastian Fitzgeralt, a man who would rather bleed privately than admit he required assistance, to voluntarily walk toward the most emotionally vulnerable conversation of his life.

Brilliant. Absolutely inspired.

Nero laughed under his breath.

He was twenty-five now. Old enough to recognize when a plan had failed.

Old enough to understand that changing the method did not require changing the rule.

And Sebastian had, after all, spent years insisting Nero would eventually outgrow something.

Perhaps it was time to finally prove him right.

Nero had outgrown waiting.

He had not, however, outgrown his pride.

His promise had been very specific.

If you ever change your mind, you come to me.

Nero had said he would not make the second move.

He had never said anything about making Sebastian want to.

His gaze dropped to the report Hale had left behind.

Sebastian would hear about it.

And Sebastian Fitzgeralt, who had spent seven years avoiding every unnecessary conversation with Nero, would suddenly have a very necessary reason to seek him out.

Nero would simply leave the door open.

Sebastian could ignore the information if he wished.

He could decide the matter was none of his concern.

He could continue pretending that the possibility Nero represented was never important enough to think about.

Nero smiled.

Sebastian would do none of those things.

Nero reached for the next document.

He had no intention of breaking his word.

Sebastian would make the first move. 𝘧𝓇ℯℯ𝑤ℯ𝘣𝓃ℴ

Nero was arranging the board for years until walking toward him became the most tempting move Sebastian had left.