Chapter 15 – The Kiss That Wasn't Supposed to Matter
The morning began with a bang—literally. A clatter of pots echoed from the mansion's kitchen, followed by shrieks of laughter. Someone had attempted pancakes, and judging by the faint scent of smoke curling down the hall, someone had failed miserably.
I dragged myself out of bed, still buzzing from last night's hallway encounter with Dante. The memory replayed in my head like a broken record: his voice low and rough, his body close enough to ignite sparks, the almost-kiss that had nearly undone me.
Almost.
The word tormented me. Almost was safe. Almost was survivable. Almost didn't leave scorch marks on my heart.
But almost also left me lying awake half the night, staring at the ceiling, replaying the way his gaze had burned into mine.
I shook the thought away and headed downstairs. Today was a new day. A new challenge. A new chance to reassert control over my emotions before the producers sniffed out weakness like blood in the water.
Unfortunately, the producers were two steps ahead.
"Good morning, contestants!" boomed a too-cheerful voice over the loudspeakers. Everyone groaned in unison. The voice continued, syrupy and cruel. "Today's challenge is one for the romantics at heart. You'll be performing scenes—scripted moments of passion! Think soap opera. Think drama. Think sparks."
My stomach dropped.
"Each of you will be paired up," the voice went on mercilessly. "Lines will be provided. Props, too. The audience loves authenticity, so make it convincing."
And then came the kicker: "Oh, and some scenes may involve… a kiss."
A ripple of whispers surged through the contestants like an electric current.
I froze. My pulse drummed. Because there was only one person in this house the producers would pair me with if they had even a shred of dramatic instinct.
Sure enough, minutes later, the assignments arrived.
Scene Partners: Alexis & Dante.
I groaned into my script packet. Of course. Fate, or reality television producers, had a twisted sense of humor.
Dante glanced at me from across the room, holding his own packet, one brow arched in that infuriatingly smug way that made my blood boil and my stomach flip at the same time.
When our eyes met, his lips curved just slightly—not a smirk, not exactly, but close enough to make me want to throttle him. Or kiss him. Both felt equally dangerous.
We were given twenty minutes to rehearse in the garden, which was laughable because neither of us was remotely focused on lines.
"This is ridiculous," I muttered, pacing with the script clutched in my hands. "They're literally forcing us to humiliate ourselves on camera."
"Speak for yourself," Dante drawled, lounging against a stone bench like he'd been born to star in a romance drama. "I think I've got the tragic leading man thing down."
"Tragic, yes. Leading man? Debatable."
His grin widened, infuriatingly charming. "Admit it, Harper. You're just nervous about the kiss."
Heat shot up my neck. "I am not nervous."
"Sure you aren't."
"I'm not!"
"Your ears are turning red."
I pressed my palms against them, scowling. "It's the sun."
"There's no sun," he pointed out. "Cloudy day."
I resisted the urge to throw my script at his head. Instead, I stalked back to the bench, plopping down with exaggerated defiance. "Let's just rehearse before I decide to improvise and stab you with a prop sword."
He chuckled, flipping open his script. "Romantic and violent. That's our brand."
Our scene was painfully cliché: forbidden lovers torn apart by circumstance, reuniting under moonlight for one last goodbye. It ended, of course, with a kiss.
I skimmed the lines, groaning. "Who writes this stuff? 'My heart has always belonged to you, and no cruel twist of fate can change it.'"
Dante leaned closer, his voice dropping an octave as he read his line. "Then let me prove it, with one final kiss."
A shiver darted down my spine. I hated that it did. I hated that hearing him say the words, even half-teasing, made the air between us shift, heavy with possibility.
I shoved the script back at him. "Stop saying it like that."
"Like what?"
"Like you mean it."
His eyes locked on mine, all humor gone in an instant. "What if I do?"
The world tilted. My throat tightened. Before I could answer, the loudspeaker summoned us back for filming. Saved by the bell—or doomed by it.
The garden had been transformed into a set, complete with fake moonlight, plastic ivy, and an ominously waiting camera crew. A director in a headset waved us into position.
"Remember," she chirped, "big emotions. The audience eats that up. And the kiss—lingering, but tasteful. We don't want a soap opera brawl, we want a moment."
My stomach plummeted.
Dante and I took our places. The cameras rolled.
"Action!"
We moved through the lines like marionettes, voices pitched for drama, every syllable exaggerated. But then something shifted.
Dante's gaze softened mid-speech, and suddenly he wasn't reciting lines anymore. He was looking at me—not as a scene partner, not as a contestant, but as Alexis. The girl he once knew. The girl who had almost kissed him in a hallway last night.
My pulse raced. My words faltered, nearly tripping over themselves.
And then came the final line. His line.
"Then let me prove it, with one final kiss."
He stepped closer. Slowly. Deliberately. The world narrowed to the inches between us, the thundering of my heartbeat, the heat of his body drawing nearer.
I knew it was scripted. I knew the cameras were watching. I knew this wasn't supposed to matter.
But when his hand brushed against my cheek, gentle, steady, every thought scattered.
His lips touched mine.
Soft. Warm. Unscripted in its intensity.
The set dissolved. The cameras disappeared. There was no audience, no game, no sabotage. Just him. Just us. And the fire that had always been there, buried under years of anger and denial, now blazing to life.
I melted into the kiss before I realized what I was doing, my fingers curling against his shirt, holding on like I'd forgotten how to let go.
He kissed me back with the same urgency, the same barely restrained hunger, like he'd been waiting years for this exact moment.
It lasted seconds, maybe longer. I lost track of time entirely.
When we finally broke apart, my lungs burning, the silence was deafening.
The director squealed into her headset. "Cut! Perfect! That was magic!"
Magic.
I staggered back, heart racing, lips tingling, mind reeling.
Dante's expression was unreadable. Too many emotions flickered across his face—relief, longing, fear. And something else, something I didn't dare name.
I opened my mouth to say something, anything, but words abandoned me. All I managed was a shaky breath.
He looked at me like he wanted to say something too, but instead, he turned away, running a hand through his hair as if to break whatever spell had just been cast.
The crew cheered. The director gushed about "chemistry." Contestants whispered behind their scripts.
But I barely heard them.
Because I knew, in the pit of my stomach, that this kiss hadn't been acting.
And that terrified me more than anything.
Later, when the cameras were down and the crew dispersed, I found myself alone on the back patio, staring at the stars. My lips still tingled. My heart still raced.
This wasn't supposed to happen. Not here. Not now.
And yet, as much as I tried to convince myself it was just a scene, just a challenge, one truth echoed louder than all the others:
That kiss had been real.
And I didn't know how to come back from it.
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