2

CHAPTER TWO

****Liana Pov****

I didn’t sleep.

I stared at the ceiling of the hotel room until morning light bled weakly through the curtains, grey and exhausted, much like me. My mind kept replaying the last few hours — the wake, Ava’s trembling voice, Damien’s eyes when he saw me.

Grief does strange things. It blurs logic and amplifies memory. It brings back ghosts you thought you buried for good.

At six in the morning, I gave up on pretending I could rest. I showered, letting hot water scald my skin, as if it could scrub away the scent of lilies and regret that clung to me.

When I stepped out, I checked my phone. Bad idea.

13 missed calls.

9 messages.

All from work.

And one unknown number.

I opened the first message.

> Ethan: Heard you didn’t go home last night. Let me drive you to the firm today, okay?

The second:

> Ethan: Don’t ignore me, Torres. I need to know you’re alright.

I couldn’t decide if his concern made me grateful or irritated.

Ethan Ward isn’t loud with his feelings. He never confesses. He just appears — quietly, consistently, like gravity. And sometimes, gravity is hard to fight.

I ignored his messages for now and clicked on the unknown sender.

My breath caught.

Damien.

I knew it before I opened it.

> Damien: Thank you for staying with Ava last night. She slept through the night. It helped. Wake continues today at 3. You don’t have to come. But… it would mean something if you did.

No signature. He didn’t need one.

I stared at the message too long, pulse steady and loud in my ears.

I typed I’ll try and hovered my thumb over the send button.

Then deleted it.

Erased the evidence. Closed the message thread like shutting a door I couldn’t afford to open.

---

By eight, I was downtown, walking toward the glass tower that housed Blackstone & Winters, one of the most aggressive and high-profile law firms in the city — and Damien’s direct competitor.

The irony wasn’t lost on me.

Going from my sister’s wake to a courtroom was obscene, but grief doesn’t pause the world. It just forces you to function through a fog.

I stepped in through the revolving glass doors, the scent of polished floors and expensive coffee instantly replacing lilies.

“Torres!” someone called.

It was Jenna, the firm’s most cheerful paralegal, waving a stack of files like flags.

“You good? You look…” she paused, frowning, “…not good.”

“Rough couple days,” I said.

She nodded sympathetically. “Ethan’s losing his mind looking for you.”

Of course he was.

I headed toward my office when Ethan stepped out of the conference room, spotting me instantly. His expression — the relief, the frustration — was unguarded.

He walked up fast.

“Liana.” His voice was low, firm. “You disappeared.”

“I didn’t disappear. I went to a wake.”

He stared, eyes narrowing slightly. “Your sister’s funeral.”

It wasn’t a question.

I stiffened. “How did you know?”

“Public record,” he said simply. Then softer, “And because you matter to me, and I actually notice you.”

I swallowed. Ethan wasn’t cruel, but he was direct. He always said too much without sounding like he said anything at all.

“Did you get any sleep?” he asked.

“No.”

His jaw ticked with quiet anger — not at me, but at whatever hurt me.

“Then you’re not working today,” he said.

“Yes, I am.”

“Liana—”

“No.”

We stared each other down in silence until he sighed, running a hand through his hair.

“You’re impossible,” he said.

“So I’ve been told.”

Something flickered in his eyes — a smile he didn’t let reach his mouth.

“Let’s talk in your office.”

It wasn’t a suggestion.

---

Inside, Ethan closed the door and leaned against it, crossing his arms like he was preparing to interrogate a witness.

“Damien Reid,” he said. “That’s who I saw last night.”

I didn’t blink. “Yes.”

“You never told me you knew him.”

“You never asked.”

“That man is—” Ethan exhaled sharply. “He’s practically a walking power complex with a god complex attached.”

“He just lost his wife,” I said.

Ethan held my gaze. “And you lost a sister.”

Silence stretched.

Personal and professional lines blurred in our world. But this was different. This was intimate. Dangerous.

“What’s his connection to you?” Ethan asked quietly.

A knife of memory pressed into me.

I loved him first.

And then Elise got pregnant.

And I ran.

“He’s my brother-in-law,” I said.

Ethan stared. The realization settled in slow, heavy understanding.

“That’s why you left town two years ago,” he murmured.

I looked away. “It doesn’t matter now.”

“It matters to me.”

The sincerity caught me off guard.

“Ethan—”

He stepped closer, eyes intense. Ethan was never dramatic physically, but when he wanted you to hear something, he moved into your space.

“You don’t have to pretend you’re fine,” he said. “Not with me.”

My breath came tight. Close, too close. And the worst part is… a part of me wanted to lean into him. Into safety. Into distraction.

But there was another pair of eyes inside my head.

Damien’s.

Dark and broken and wanting.

I steadied my voice. “I’m here to work.”

“So am I,” Ethan said. “And I’m assigning myself to stay on your cases today.”

“You don’t have to babysit me.”

He gave a humorless smile. “Oh, trust me. It’s not babysitting. It’s protecting my best attorney from making reckless decisions because of grief.”

I hated that he wasn’t wrong.

Before I could respond, Jenna burst in without knocking.

“Breaking news,” she said breathlessly. “Damien Reid is downstairs.”

My heart stopped.

“What?” I whispered.

Ethan’s expression went ice cold. Slowly, he uncrossed his arms.

Jenna continued, oblivious to the tension exploding in the room. “He’s in the lobby. Asking for Attorney Torres.”

Everything inside me turned to liquid heat and panic.

Ethan’s jaw flexed so hard I heard his teeth grind.

“Absolutely not,” he said quietly. “He does not get to walk in here and—”

The door opened again.

And Damien Reid stepped inside.

Tall. Controlled. Dressed in another black suit, tie straight this time, eyes storm-dark and locked on me like I was the only person in the room.

Ethan moved in front of me instinctively. A protective wall.

Damien’s voice was calm, but the calm that comes before something breaks.

“Liana. We need to talk.”

Ethan answered before I could speak.

“We’re in the middle of a workday. And this is not your turf, Reid.”

Damien ignored him completely, gaze never leaving mine.

“Ava woke up calling your name,” he said. “She’s asking if you’ll come today.”

My throat tightened painfully.

The room shrank. The air thickened. Ethan’s presence at my front, Damien’s at my back — heat and cold, past and future, want and restraint.

“What do you want from her?” Ethan demanded, tone low and dangerous.

Damien finally turned his eyes on him. A slow, assessing look. Like two predators circling.

“What I want isn’t yours to decide,” Damien said.

“And where she works isn’t yours to invade,” Ethan shot back.

Their voices were controlled, but only barely. Civil enough not to get security involved. Sharp enough to draw blood.

I stepped between them, pulse hammering.

“Stop. Both of you.”

Damien’s eyes returned to me instantly, focus razor-sharp. Ethan’s softened, just slightly.

“I’ll go,” I said quietly. “To see Ava.”

Ethan’s jaw dropped. “Liana—”

“I have to,” I said, meeting his gaze steadily. “She’s my family.”

Ethan swallowed something bitter. A muscle jumped in his cheek.

Damien’s shoulders loosened, just a fraction.

“I’ll be waiting downstairs,” he said, voice low.

He left the room with the force of someone used to getting what he wants eventually. Even if it takes years.

The door shut.

Silence.

Ethan stared at me like I had just signed a contract written in blood.

“You’re walking into something you might not walk out of,” he said.

I tried to smile. It came out twisted. “I already did once.”

“This time,” Ethan murmured, stepping closer, “I’m coming with you.”

---

In the elevator down to the lobby, my reflection stared back at me in the mirrored walls — pale, composed, lying to itself.

Ethan stood beside me, hands in his pockets, jaw still tight. He didn’t speak. He didn’t need to. The tension said enough.

The doors slid open.

Damien was waiting.

He turned when he heard us, eyes flicking from me to Ethan, reading everything between us in half a second.

“Ready?” he asked, voice controlled, but something in it betrayed relief.

I nodded.

Ethan spoke for me. “We’ll take my car.”

Damien’s brow lifted slightly. “We?”

The single word was a challenge.

“Yes,” Ethan said. “We.”

And I knew then —

This wasn’t just grief anymore. Or family. Or overdue closure.

It was a collision course.

Between two men who had no idea how much damage I could cause just by walking back into Damien Reid’s life.

The past had been patient.

The future was impatient.

And I was caught between both, heart splitting cleanly down the middle, wondering which side would break me first.