Arrival Day

The Aquila Yacht — Aegean Sea, Greece

The boat ride to Paros was supposed to be relaxing. 

That was what Draco had said while shoving tickets into Enzo’s hand two nights earlier with all the emotional warmth of a government official issuing a parking fine.

“Try not to start any problems before the wedding week begins.” 

Which was a fascinating request coming from Draco Malfoy considering the man spent most of his adolescence being a public nuisance at best.

At the time, Enzo assumed the warning was unnecessary. 

Then he arrived at the private marina in Mykonos and saw you standing near the dock in a pale sundress and oversized sunglasses looking unfairly gorgeous at ten o’clock in the morning. 

Suddenly, Draco’s concerns felt significantly more reasonable. 

Enzo slowed for half a second. 

Not enough for anyone else to notice. Years of networking events, interviews, sponsorship deals, and public appearances had taught him how to keep his expression under control. From the outside, he looked perfectly relaxed. Confident. Unbothered.

Internally, however, things were already going spectacularly wrong.

Two weeks had passed since he’d last seen you at Draco and Hermione’s engagement party, which should’ve been enough time for the shock to wear off. It should’ve been enough time for him to stop thinking about the way you’d looked across a crowded room and for whatever strange hold you’d always had over him to finally loosen its grip.

Instead, seeing you again felt like being hit directly in the chest.

You looked up from your phone the moment he approached, and your expression remained completely neutral as your gaze settled on him. For some reason, that felt worse than if you’d slapped him across the face.

Anger he could work with, because hatred at least required emotion.

Indifference, however, was an entirely different problem.

“Berkshire,” you greeted.

The familiar irritation in your voice settled somewhere dangerously close to relief, and Enzo hated how quickly he recognized it. A decade had passed, yet he still knew the difference between your genuine annoyance and the version you performed for everyone else.

“Sweetheart.” 

Your eyes narrowed immediately. 

There it was again. That tiny spark of irritation you never quite managed to hide around him, the same one that used to appear whenever he pushed your buttons just to see your reaction.

Merlin, he’d missed that.

“You’re late.”

Enzo glanced at his watch before looking back at you. “I’m three minutes early.” 

“As I said,” you said flatly. “Late.” 

A laugh escaped him before he could stop it. Some things, apparently, never changed, and for the first time since arriving, he found himself genuinely grateful for that.

The yacht itself was absurd. 

Sleek, oversized, and aggressively ostentatious in a way only Draco Malfoy could justify without shame.

White leather seating curved across the upper deck. Champagne chilled in silver buckets beside trays of fruit nobody actually intended to eat. Somewhere below, soft music drifted through hidden speakers, blending into the sound of water against the hull.

Enzo barely noticed any of it. 

Because you were sitting across from him.

Because sunlight kept catching in your hair. 

Because apparently ten years hadn’t improved his self-control whatsoever. 

Which was unfortunate. 

Particularly because he’d spent the last decade becoming very good at pretending he had some. 

Professionally speaking, life had worked out rather well. 

After Hogwarts, he signed with Puddlemere immediately, spent three years becoming one of the league’s most marketable players, and then somehow found himself turning into the exact kind of businessman he used to mock. 

He built a life around investments, brand partnerships, property developments, and an honestly ridiculous amount of money. His mother liked to remind him regularly that he’d become respectable, which Enzo personally viewed as a rather unfortunate character flaw. 

The worst part was that he was actually good at it. The Berkshire Group had offices in London, Milan, and New York now, and his face appeared in magazines more often than he cared to admit. Half the wizarding world seemed convinced that he had his life perfectly together. 

The joke, of course, was that none of them knew a thing. 

Because despite the career, the money, and the women, there had always been one person he couldn’t quite forget. 

Unfortunately, that person was currently sitting twenty feet away glaring at him over a pair of sunglasses. 

“Are you going to stand there staring at me all morning or did you plan on actually sitting down?” 

Enzo dropped into the seat across from you with a lazy grin. 

“It wasn’t an invitation.”

“When has that ever stopped me?” 

“You’re an absolute pain in the arse.” 

“I missed you too, love.” 

The boat eased away from the dock, the marina shrinking in the horizon as the sea opened up in slow blue stretches.

Enzo stretched his arms across the back of the seat while watching you pretend to read. 

Pretend being the key word there. 

You hadn’t turned a single page in nearly five minutes. 

“You know,” he said conversationally, “most people would consider this romantic.” 

You stared at him.

“Most people haven’t sustained severe brain damage from years of playing Quidditch.”

“Cruel.” 

“Accurate.” 

Enzo grinned despite himself.

The truly deranged part was that every insult out of your mouth only made him want to grin wider. 

Ten years ago, you would’ve blushed after saying something like that. 

Now you looked him dead in the eye like you genuinely hoped the sea swallowed him whole. 

Fucking hell. 

That really shouldn’t have made him so goddamn hard.

The breeze shifted across the deck, tugging loose strands of hair across your face. Without thinking, you tucked them behind your ear while reaching for your drink, and the simple movement hit Enzo with an uncomfortable rush of familiarity.

You used to do that while studying.

Whenever you got frustrated with an essay or lost in thought over a textbook, your fingers would automatically brush your hair back in the exact same way. It was such a small thing, the kind of detail nobody should reasonably remember after so long, yet Enzo remembered it instantly.

Bollocks.

He looked away first, pretending to focus on the sea stretching endlessly around him. Unfortunately, that strategy had never worked particularly well where you were concerned. Before long, his gaze gravitated toward you instinctively.

“You’re staring again,” you said without looking up from your book.

“I’m appreciating the scenery.”

“The sea’s behind you.”

A grin tugged at the corner of his mouth.

“I wasn’t talking about the sea.”

Slowly, you lowered the book into your lap and fixed him with a look that suggested you were reconsidering the moral dilemma of casting an unforgivable curse.

“You’ve got a truly inspirational lack of shame, Berkshire.”

“I prefer persistence.”

“You’re exhausting.”

Enzo rested an arm across the back of his chair, completely unbothered by the insult.

“You used to like me.”

“That was before my frontal lobe developed,” you replied smoothly. “People grow.”

Christ.

The worst part was that he genuinely couldn't tell whether he wanted to laugh or drag you into the nearest empty cabin. Possibly both.

Enzo pressed a hand dramatically against his chest.

“You’re genuinely vicious now.”

“No,” you corrected calmly. “Now I just say it out loud.”

The smile on his face faltered slightly.

Most people would've missed the implication entirely, but Enzo didn't.

A decade ago, you used to soften your opinions around him. You used to bite back comments and let things slide, always worried about hurting someone's feelings. Now you looked him directly in the eye and said exactly what you thought.

Something sharp twisted low in his stomach before he shoved the feeling aside.

“What’s the point of attending a wedding if you’re not willing to have a little fun?”

You took another sip of champagne.

“I’m here to support my friends, not sleep with anything that has a pulse.”

“I’m perfectly capable of doing both.”

“Only because you’re physically incapable of keeping it in your pants.”

Enzo smiled slowly.

“You think about my pants a surprising amount for someone who allegedly hates me.”

Your expression remained perfectly composed.

“I’ve already seen what’s inside your pants and it's hardly worth revisiting.”

His cock twitched instantly.

Bloody hell.

There was honestly something deeply wrong with him.

Any normal man would've found your constant insults concerning. Enzo found them outrageously arousing. It was genuinely fucked up.

Even when you were younger, you had always been funny beneath the softness. Most people only saw the sweet girl who followed rules and minded her business, but Enzo remembered the muttered comments during class that used to catch him so off guard he'd nearly spit pumpkin juice in Professor Flitwick's face more than once.

Most people never noticed that side of you.

Enzo always did.

Which was exactly the problem.

Your phone buzzed against the side table between you, pulling him from his thoughts. You glanced down at the screen and immediately looked annoyed, which naturally made him interested.

Before you could stop him, Enzo leaned forward just enough to read the messages lighting up your screen.

GINNY: Please shag someone this week. Mione and I are begging.

HERMIONE: Mattheo asked about you earlier. I think you two would really get on.

GINNY: Forget about getting on. You need to get on him. Riddle is hot, rich, and emotionally intelligent. The man is right up your alley, babe.

Enzo leaned back in his chair with a low whistle, the kind that suggested he was already far too entertained by something he absolutely shouldn't have been entertaining himself with.

“Emotionally intelligent,” he repeated. “Bit insulting to the rest of us, honestly.”

You reached for your phone at once, clicking your tongue in annoyance. “Were you raised in a barn?”

“A mansion, actually.”

“You nosy, insufferable prick,” you said with a glare. “You can’t read people’s private messages.”

A shiver ran down his spine at the scorching insults.

The fact that he still had the ability to rile you up after all this time genuinely thrilled him.

If he had a mind healer, this would most certainly be the first facet of his dazzling personality a professional would psychoanalyze.

“I absolutely can if you leave them directly in front of me,” he replied without missing a beat.

You stared at him for a long moment, debating several options that would almost certainly ruin the mood and possibly your criminal record, before exhaling and placing your phone back on the table with visible irritation.

“Your friends are right,” Enzo said smoothly, stretching his arm along the back of his chair like he had nowhere else to be and all the time in the world to annoy you. “You do need a good shag.”

“What I need,” you replied sweetly, “is for you to fall overboard.”

“See,” he murmured, as though genuinely considering it, “that one felt hostile.”

“It was meant to.”

His gaze drifted briefly to the water, sunlight flickering across the surface in slow, careless patterns, before he looked back at you again. His expression had shifted slightly, casual on the surface but sharper underneath it.

“Mattheo’s not a bad option though.”

He said it like it was nothing. Like it didn’t matter at all. Unfortunately, it mattered a very concerning amount.

Enzo leaned back further in his chair, settling into something deliberately relaxed. “Too bad he’s not your type.”

Your eyebrows lifted slightly above the rim of your sunglasses. “You don’t know my type.”

“I do, actually.”

You tilted your head, letting the silence stretch just long enough to make him work for it. “Go on then. Enlighten me.”

He tapped a finger lightly against his glass, pretending to think, though the look in his eyes suggested he had already decided long before he spoke.

“Emotionally unavailable,” he said lazily. “Bad at listening. Overconfident. Makes questionable decisions and somehow still expects to be forgiven.”

You held his gaze for a beat longer than necessary.

“That’s not my type.”

“It used to be.”

Your smile was sharp when it came. “How convenient that it also describes you.”

“If the shoe fits, love.”

“Careful,” you said lightly. “Before I throw the shoe directly at your arrogant head.”

“Keep going, sweetheart,” he teased, leaning in just slightly now, eyes bright with it. “I’m so close.”

You wrinkled your nose in disgust. “You’re revolting.”

“That’s not a denial.”

A sigh slipped out of you as you leaned back again, the kind of exhausted patience usually reserved for particularly persistent disasters. “Do you ever get tired of hearing your own voice?”

“No,” he said immediately. Then, softer but sharper in intent, “Do you ever get tired of pretending I don’t affect you?”

The question landed more cleanly than it should have, sharper than you were prepared for.

For just a moment, you hesitated.

Not long—barely enough to register to anyone else.

But Enzo noticed.

He always did.

He shifted forward slightly, elbows resting on his knees now, attention sharpening in a way that made the space between you feel suddenly smaller.

“You always do that,” he added.

“Do what?”

“That thing where you go quiet when I get close.”

Your eyes flicked up, sharper now. “You’re delusional.”

“Maybe,” he agreed easily, though his gaze didn’t move. “But you didn’t answer the question.”

“What question?”

His eyes dropped briefly to your mouth before returning to yours, slower this time, as if he were choosing not to acknowledge it.

“Why Mattheo?”

You blinked once. “What about him?”

“Do you like him?”

The words came too quickly, too cleanly, like he hadn’t meant to let them out that fast. He didn’t like that he’d asked, and he liked even less how much he wanted the answer to be no.

“Why does it matter?” you asked.

“It doesn’t,” he said at once.

Too easily.

He reached for his glass, turning it slowly between his fingers as if the conversation had already lost interest for him, though the tension in his posture said otherwise.

“Just doesn’t strike me as your usual standard,” he added lightly.

Your gaze sharpened instantly. “My usual standard?”

“Mmm,” he hummed. “You’ve never been particularly interested in obvious choices.”

There was a pause then, the kind that tried very hard to pass itself off as casual and failed miserably.

You studied him for a moment longer than necessary. “Are you trying to insult me or Mattheo?”

“Why would I insult you?”

“Because you’re bored.”

“Never.”

You gave him a look that suggested you didn’t believe a single word he had ever said in his life.

He exhaled lightly, as though you were the difficult one in this scenario. “I’m just saying. Riddle seems… simple.”

“Simple,” you repeated flatly.

“Predictable,” he corrected. “A safe option. The reformed bad boy turned charity sweetheart. Very approved by Hermione Granger energy.”

Despite yourself, your mouth twitched like it might have been the start of a smile.

“And you think I don’t like safe options?”

Enzo’s eyes flicked to you immediately, sharp and instinctive, before he forced them back into something more casual.

“I think you get bored easily,” he said.

You leaned back into your chair, watching him over the rim of your sunglasses. “You think a lot of things about me.”

“I have to,” he replied. “You don’t exactly volunteer information.”

“That’s because it’s none of your bloody business.”

A pause settled between you again, heavier this time, though neither of you acknowledged it for what it was.

Then Enzo exhaled, lighter again, as if he hadn’t just been watching you a second too closely.

“So. Mattheo?”

You let out a long sigh. “Why do you care?”

“I don’t,” he said immediately.

Then, almost as an afterthought, he added, “I just don’t want you stuck talking to someone who can’t keep up.”

You looked at him for a long moment, expression unreadable, before shaking your head slightly.

“You’re not subtle, Berkshire.”

Enzo smiled. “I’m not trying to be.”

And somehow, annoyingly, he looked completely convinced of that.

“You’re annoying when you smirk like that,” you informed him.

“You’re beautiful when you’re mean to me.”

Your expression shifted, just slightly, the kind of flicker most people would miss entirely.

Enzo didn’t.

Of course he didn’t.

The problem with knowing someone at sixteen was that parts of them stayed carved into you permanently. Tiny things. Little reactions. Habits. Expressions. 

He still knew exactly when you were uncomfortable. 

Still knew when your sarcasm sharpened because you were deflecting. 

Still knew the difference between your real smile and the practiced polite ones. 

And apparently that knowledge was going to kill him someday. 

“I heard about Daphne,” you said casually, like you were commenting on the weather rather than casually dragging his entire recent romantic history into the Mediterranean sunlight.

Enzo blinked once, slow and deliberate, the kind of pause that usually meant he was deciding whether to lie, deflect, or make a joke.

“What about her?”

You shrugged one shoulder, gaze fixed far too carefully on the horizon, where the sea met the sky in a line so clean it almost looked staged. “Nothing. Just heard you broke up.”

That earned you a longer look.

Enzo studied you properly now, not the lazy, half-interested attention he usually gave the world, but something sharper underneath it. Your voice had been steady, your posture controlled, your sunglasses angled just enough to hide your expression.

Calm. Deliberate. Entirely too casual.

He knew you well enough to know it was anything but.

“You sound curious,” he said lightly.

“You sound defensive,” you shot back without missing a beat.

A faint smile tugged at his mouth. “Why did you bring her up?”

“I can’t imagine it would be fun running into your ex-girlfriend at a wedding,” you replied, still not looking at him. “Small island. Limited escape routes. Emotional entanglements everywhere.”

Enzo let out a quiet hum, leaning back in his chair like the entire conversation was mildly entertaining rather than slightly disarming. “Hmm. I’m having loads of fun with you right now.”

“I’m not your ex.”

No.

You were something far worse.

You definitely weren’t Daphne.

And that was the problem.

Because Daphne had been clean lines and polished expectations. She had been the kind of relationship that made sense on paper, the kind his mother approved of immediately and his social circle nodded at without question. She was elegant dinners, planned appearances, and conversations that never accidentally spiraled into anything too real.

She also had expectations Enzo had never quite managed to meet, the kind that required a level of certainty he’d never been especially good at offering.

It had ended quietly, almost politely, with all the correct words said in all the wrong emotional places—which, in hindsight, was probably the most damning part of it.

“So,” you said after a beat, shifting the weight of the conversation before it could settle too heavily, “what exactly happened between you two?”

“I don’t want to talk about Daphne.”

That, of course, made you look at him differently.

One brow lifted slightly as you finally turned your head toward him. “So she did break your heart.”

Enzo gave a small, noncommittal shrug, eyes flicking briefly back to the water as though it held something more interesting than the conversation. “Something like that.”

“I didn’t even think you had a heart to begin with.”

That made him huff a laugh despite himself.

“I think you think about me more than you care to admit.”

You didn’t even blink. “I think you flatter yourself constantly.”

“That’s because I’m very flattering.”

You rolled your eyes and leaned further back into the lounge chair, letting the sun catch the edge of your sunglasses as the wind shifted around both of you. For a few seconds, the conversation eased into silence, the kind that wasn’t quite comfortable but wasn’t quite tense either.

It hovered somewhere in between, fragile and unclaimed.

Then suddenly, horribly, something clicked in Enzo’s head.

An idea.

The kind that arrived fully formed and immediately felt like a bad decision wearing a charming smile.

He stared at you for half a second too long.

You didn’t notice at first. Or maybe you did and simply chose to ignore it, which was worse.

“We should pretend to date,” he said at last.

For better or for worse, that got your attention.

You went completely still.

Slowly, deliberately, you lowered your sunglasses just enough for him to see your eyes properly. The expression behind them was unreadable in the way that usually meant he had either said something genius or something deeply, irreversibly stupid.

“…What?”

Enzo smiled lazily, despite the fact that his pulse had just decided to accelerate without permission.

“We pretend to date,” he repeated, like it was the most reasonable suggestion in the world. “You get Hermione and Ginny off your back, stop them from trying to marry you off to every man with a pulse on this island. I make Daphne jealous, neither of us look pathetically single, and we both get through the wedding week without being emotionally ambushed at every turn.”

He leaned back like that explained everything.

Which, annoyingly, it almost did.

You stared at him.

Not blinking. Not reacting. Just staring, like you were trying to determine whether he had suffered a head injury sometime between boarding the yacht and this exact moment.

“This is idiotic,” you said finally.

“Probably.”

“It’s manipulative.”

“Definitely.”

“It would never work.”

A beat.

Then Enzo nodded once, as though conceding a reasonable point. “You’re right. We should probably shag at least once if we want it to be believable.”

That earned him a look so sharp it could have cut glass.

Salazar, you were vicious.

He loved every second of it.

Your phone buzzed again before you could respond.

You didn’t even need to look at it to know what it was.

GINNY: If you reject Mattheo without even trying, I’m calling in reinforcements and getting your mum involved.

A long exhale left you as you closed your eyes for half a second, the expression of someone who had just been personally victimized by friendship.

Enzo bit back a grin.

“You’re considering it,” he said, quieter now.

“I’m considering tossing myself off this yacht.”

“Close enough.”

You opened your eyes again and pointed a warning finger at him. “This isn’t real.”

“Obviously.”

“There will be boundaries.”

“How sexy,” he murmured.

“You’re not allowed to flirt with me for entertainment.”

Enzo blinked once, as if genuinely considering the accusation, then smiled slowly anyway. “That’s unfortunate, considering it’s already become my favorite hobby.”

You looked genuinely offended by his existence. 

Which, frustratingly, only seemed to improve his mood.

You hesitated longer than you wanted to admit. Long enough that he could see the exact moment your resistance started to shift, even if you clearly hated that it was happening.

“Fine,” you said at last.

The word landed like a reluctant surrender. Like you were agreeing to something far more catastrophic than it actually was.

Better the devil you know than the devil you don't.

At least, that's what you told yourself.

Enzo had to actively fight the instinct to smile too widely.

He failed slightly.

Immediately, your eyes narrowed. “You look far too happy about this.”

“I’m naturally joyful.”

“You’re naturally irritating.”

“And yet,” he added lightly, “you still said yes.”

That earned him another look.

You stood before he could say anything else, gathering your book and your champagne glass with deliberate composure, like you needed distance to regain control of the situation.

“That’s because watching this inevitably blow up in your face sounds deeply entertaining.” 

“Now, sweetheart,” Enzo drawled. “Is that any way to talk to your loving boyfriend?”

“Fuck off, Berkshire.”

You didn’t even look at him when you said it. You were already standing, already turning away, already walking toward the opposite side of the deck like the conversation had been filed under irrelevant and mildly irritating. 

Sunlight spilled across your shoulders in soft gold as the sea breeze caught the hem of your dress, tugging it just enough to make it look like the ocean itself was trying to keep you there. Enzo hated the ocean for that. It had no respect for boundaries.

He watched you go anyway.

Longer than necessary.

Long enough that it stopped being something he could pretend was casual.

Long enough that it started feeling like he was actively making life choices that would inevitably bite him in the arse in the near future.

You bent slightly to adjust your sunglasses, completely unaware of the absolute collapse happening behind you in real time.

Enzo let out a quiet groan and tipped his head back, staring up at the brutal, indifferent Mediterranean sky like it had personally conspired against him.

Because it had to be illegal, honestly.

The way you could insult him, reject him, walk away from him—and still leave him standing there like an idiot who kept hoping for something he had no real right to hope for, even when he knew better.

He dragged a hand down his face.

Merlin.

He was so fucked.

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