Velvet & Dagger Chapter 5: Flames in the Hidden Garden

By steamystoriesbysarahstormverified

Flames in the Hidden Garden On their last day together before he rides to war, Lorenzo finds Isabella in the overgrown palazzo garden. What begins as a desperate farewell becomes an afternoon of raw, urgent intimacy—worship turning to hunger beneath the pomegranate tree and beside the fountain. He asks her to marry him that night and ride south with him. She refuses: a secret wife who may soon be a widow would still belong to Venice and her cousin. She will wait. Win the war. Come back alive. Then she will leave everything and follow him. They part at dusk. Neither knows they were watched. By nightfall a letter reaches the Council of Ten, and Lorenzo rides toward battle with her taste still on his tongue and her promise burning in his blood. War waits. So does she.