Chapter 2- Damien’s POV

I knew he was nervous before he sat down.

Most people were nervous around me. I’d stopped finding it interesting years ago. Nervousness made people stupid and stupid people wasted my time, and the one thing I did not have patience for was the wasting of my time.

I heard it in the way he walked. Slight hesitation at the door. Three seconds longer than necessary before his footsteps crossed the room.

I noticed everything.

People assumed that because I couldn’t see them, I couldn’t read them. That blindness had made me less. If anything it had made me more. Every shift of breath, every pause, every small change in someone’s voice when they were about to lie or collapse under pressure, I caught all of it.

Noah Carter sat down.

He did it without being asked twice. That was mildly interesting.

“You applied for a position requiring full-time live-in availability,” I said. “You’re twenty-three, your last employer was a coffee shop in Queens, and your listed qualification is a literature degree. Explain to me why I shouldn’t end this interview right now.”

A pause. Short. He was pulling himself together.

“Because none of your other assistants lasted longer than a month,” he said. “And I need this job enough to actually stay.”

I let the silence sit for a moment.

“How do you know about my previous assistants?”

“I don’t,” he said. “But a man like you doesn’t

advertise a position as requiring discretion unless something made that necessary. And the immediate start suggests whoever was here before me left without much notice. So either the job is genuinely difficult or you made it that way.”

I said nothing.

He kept going, which was either brave or foolish.

“I’m guessing both.”

I leaned back in my chair.

Seven assistants in three years. Every single one had sat in that chair and performed competence at me, rehearsed answers and careful smiles I couldn’t see but could hear. They lasted anywhere from four days to six weeks. They all left for the same reason.

He was not performing. He was just talking. Like he’d decided somewhere between the elevator and this office that pretending wasn’t going to work and he might as well skip it.

That was new.

“Tell me about your experience with disability accommodation,” I said.

“I don’t have any,” he said. “Professionally. But I’ve been the main caregiver for two people for the last two years so I know what it looks like to manage someone else’s needs without making them feel managed.”

Something shifted in his voice on that last sentence. There and gone in less than a second.

I filed it away.

“I require someone available at all hours,” I said. “My schedule does not accommodate yours. My preferences do not negotiate with yours. You will learn exactly how I move through this space and you will not disrupt it. You will not ask me personal questions. You will not offer your opinions unless I ask for them. You will not treat me like I am fragile.”

“Okay,” he said.

Just okay. No reassurance. No of course not Mr. Cole, absolutely Mr. Cole. Just okay, flat and simple, like I’d told him something obvious.

“You’ll last a week,” I said.

“You said that to the last seven,” he said.

“Statistically your prediction rate on this specific subject is not great.”

The room was very quiet.

I heard his breath. Steady. Slightly too controlled to be natural. He wasn’t as calm as he was performing. But he wasn’t falling apart either. He was holding himself together and doing it well enough that most people wouldn’t notice.

I was not most people.

“The salary is six thousand a month,” I said. “Room and board included. You’ll have Sundays off. If you touch anything on my desk without being asked, you’re gone. If you lie to me once, you’re gone. If you treat me like a charity case, you’re gone. Are we clear?”

“Yes sir,” he said.

“You start Monday.”

Another pause. Shorter this time.

“It’s Monday,” he said.

“I know what day it is, Mr. Carter.”

“Right,” he said. “Sorry. Yes. Okay.”

He stood. I heard him smooth something, his shirt maybe, quickly suppressed.

He was almost at the door when I spoke.

“Mr. Carter.”

He stopped.

“The coffee stain on your left cuff,” I said. “Deal with it before tomorrow.”

“How did you—” he started.

“I could smell it,” I said. “Goodbye.”

He left.

I sat for a moment after the door closed. Quiet. Still.

He hadn’t flinched. Hadn’t over-explained. Hadn’t tried to make me like him. He’d pushed back twice, absorbed everything else, and walked out without falling apart.

Seven assistants.

None of them had done that.

I pulled my phone toward me and told myself the thing sitting in my chest was nothing more than professional assessment.

He would last a week.

I was almost certain of it.