Lie To Me In Diamonds

CHAPTER NINE: THE TRUTH IN THE QUIET

Nadia’s brain raced, shock was an understatement to what she was feeling, her hands were shaking uncontrollably, she felt light-headed.

The words didn’t hit her like a slap. They hit her like falling. Like the floor dropping out and there was nothing to catch her except the sound of her own heartbeat.

She didn’t lower the gun.

“What do you….”she straightened and positioned the gun properly, trying her best to maintain her composure”

“Prove it.” Her breathing was hard, she knew he might be telling the truth, she was trying to convince herself that he was lying. Still, she couldn’t shake the feeling from his straight face, she couldn’t shake the feeling that it might be….true?

Damian exhaled. A laugh, but not amused. “You want proof? You kept a spare key to my apartment under the third flowerpot on the left because you said I’d lose mine. You hated coffee after 6pm because it gave you nightmares. You sang to Mateo’s textbooks when he was stressed about finals. Off-key. Every time. He recorded it once.”

Nadia’s throat closed.

“Stop.”

“I can’t,” Damian said. “You asked me to start.”

He took one step forward. Then another. Stopping a foot away. Close enough that she could see the faint scar on his left eyebrow. Close enough that she could smell his cologne.

“We were together for a year” he continued, quieter now. “I didn’t really believe in love because my mother suffered in the hands of my father and when he died, she met someone else and it was worse, and I lost her from the pressure of everything” He breathed hard like the memory haunted him, looking up and blinking his eyes steadily like he didn’t want the tears to fall.

“You had two jobs and night classes because you were finishing your degree too.I pulled up to the coffee shop you worked in one day, for a quick coffee, and I knew then that I’d always want to be around you, your smile, your politeness and how you even went out of your way to assist a woman with her child who would not stop crying, I knew I had to see you again.” He smiled this time.

“It all started then, we got close, and I went straight to what I wanted, to be with you, the year went by fast, we learnt everything about each other, we changed each other’s life and you even had your own coffee shop and a fast growing hotel. We had sex, many times, I was your first, damn I was so proud of you” Nadia’s face flushed, so this was the man she had given her virginity to, she couldn’t stop blushing at the thought of it all, she wondered then, how he had done it, how he had had sex with her and how she responded to him, she made a mental note to remind herself that it was a wrong time to blush.

She swallowed hard then put the gun down

“Go on”

“We talked so much about how we wanted our family to be. It was paradise being with you, Nadia”There was something about the way he said it.

A family.

The word sat wrong in her chest. She didn’t remember wanting kids. She didn’t remember wanting _him_. But her body did. Her body remembered the way her shoulders dropped when he was near.

“Why don’t I remember any of that?”

“Because someone found out about you and didn’t want us to be together, he wanted me to marry someone else instead. He kept making threats and you found out and promised to assist me to get him off our backs” Damian said. His voice went flat.

“You found out he was using my name to move shipments. Dirty money. People. You told me and we were excited to submit those details to the authority. For once I thought we were safe. I knew the time was right, so I planned a proposal. But while waiting for you on the yacht, I got a text saying Mateo was under water under a bridge, somehow he knew you were coming to me. I made a tough choice to stay to propose to you that day or save Mateo. But I knew you would never forgive me if I let anything happen to your brother. So I left and followed the location in the text, and went to save Mateo and rushed him to the hospital”

He swallowed.

“I later found out that was a distraction, he planned it, you were involved in an accident. Icy road. Truck swerved. The car was upside down by the time I got there, I thought I had lost you”

Nadia’s eyes burned. “And you?”

“I was 20 minutes late landing. By the time we rushed you to the hospital, 3 hours later, the doctor reported your condition”.

He ran a hand through his hair. It was the first time she’d seen him look undone. She could see how broken he really was.

“The doctors said retrograde amnesia. Trauma to your temporal lobe. They said don’t stress her. Don’t flood her. Let her heal. So I did. I stayed away for the first month. I paid the bills. I made sure Mateo had tuition. I told myself if you built a life without me, that was better than you building one with the target on your back.”

“Target?”

“Marco’s,” Damian said simply. “You were the only person who had copies of the files. The ones you stole from his office the week before. We never found them after the crash. He thinks you still have them. That’s the more reason I had to stay away, he threatened that what happened was the tip of the iceberg and you were lucky to have survived, if I tried to get involved with you again,it would be you and Mateo. I couldn’t bear the thought of losing you again, so I had to watch from afar, then suddenly, after three months, you left with Mateo and I never saw you again. I later learnt Marco contacted you to work for him, apparently he wanted to push you further away from the life you knew to the one you never imagined, so you would never have any reason to remember me again, imagine my shock when you showed up in my vault. I hoped you would remember me, but you didn’t “

“I took the chance to look for a way to ask you to stay, I cooked up an excuse on the spot for you to stay. Hoping you would remember if we were together”

Nadia blinked. The gun felt heavier.

“So you lied.”

“I omitted,” Damian corrected, and then immediately looked sorry for saying it. “I lied. Every day. I told myself it was protection. But it was cowardice. Because the idea of you looking at me and not remembering why you loved me was worse than you hating me.”

The wind pulled at her hair.

“Did I love you?” she asked. It came out small.

Damian’s eyes flicked to hers. “God, yes. You loved me in that annoying, stubborn way. You argued about everything you wanted to stand for. You left sticky notes on my bathroom mirror. ‘Don’t forget to eat, genius.’ You dragged me to Mateo’s parent-teacher conferences and made me sit in the tiny chairs. You said I needed to learn how to be soft.”

A sound escaped her. Not quite a laugh.

“Was I happy?”

“You were happy,exhausted but happy,” Damian said honestly. “You and Mateo in that tiny apartment. You were proud of it. You said it was the first place that ever felt like yours. I made life easy for you both, you were literally my family, you asked for your own coffee shop and a hotel, we worked towards it, the weight was all on you, but you carried it gracefully. I am still running them, the coffee shop and the hotel ,waiting for the day you would take over it again,they have grown beyond what you think and one of the most successful in New York”

Nadia’s arm was shaking now.

“You should’ve told me.”

“I know.”

“You should’ve let me choose.”

“I know.”

“Then why didn’t you?”

Damian stepped closer. He didn’t reach for the gun. He didn’t reach for her.

“Because I was scared,” he said. “Scared that if I told you, it could trigger something in you, Scared that if I told you and you still didn’t remember, you’d walk away. And I’d have to watch it. Scared that if you remembered,you would go after Marco and that would have been a death sentence”

He paused. “Scared that you’d look at me and see a stranger.”

Nadia looked at him. The man who’d pulled her out of ballrooms and into cars and covered her with his jacket. The man who’d been there for every flashback and never once asked her to remember.

He wasn’t a stranger. Not to her body. Her chest ached in the exact spot where his jacket had been.

The gun lowered another inch.

“I don’t remember you,” she whispered. “But I don’t feel safe with anyone else.”

Damian closed his eyes for half a second. Like that was the only thing he needed to hear.

“Put it down,” he said softly. “Not for me. For you. You don’t have to carry it anymore.”

She did. Slowly. Her fingers uncurled.

Damian took the gun from her hand like it was glass. He didn’t put it away. He just held it.

Then he reached out and pulled his jacket tighter around her shoulders. His knuckles brushed her cheek. He didn’t kiss her. He didn’t hug her.

He just stood there. Close.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “For all of it.”

Nadia nodded once. She couldn’t speak yet. If she did, she’d cry. And she didn’t want to cry,crying made her feel weak.

“Come on,” Damian said. “Let’s go home.”

She grabbed Damian’s hand and pulled him into a hug, a tight hug as tears the tears she was trying to surpress streamed down her face. She wanted to squeeze herself against him, she wanted him to feel like he was not alone. Damian hugged her back, for the first time in two years, he felt a sense of comfort.

---

The ride back was quiet.

No sirens. No shouting. Just the road and the soft hum of the engine. The two SUVs followed at a distance, but they didn’t crowd us.

Damian drove. His hands didn’t tap the wheel this time.

Nadia stared out the window. The city blurred past. She kept thinking about flowerpots and sticky notes and tiny chairs.

Damian put the car in park but didn’t get out.

“You don’t have to decide anything tonight,” he said. “About us. About Marco. About me.”

He looked at her finally. “But I’m not lying to you again. Ask me anything. Anytime. Even the ugly parts.”

Nadia nodded. He reached for the door handle.

“Damian?”

“Yeah?”

“Did I pick the flowers?”

He smiled. Small, real. “White lilies. You said they were dramatic and you liked that about them.”

He helped her get out of the car. Nadia was lost for words, she couldn’t wrap her head around everything that had happened in the last 3 hours . She walked silently into the hotel, feeling weak to her knees. Damian was behind her, walking silently till they got to the elevator, like he didn’t want the noise of his shoes to trigger something in her.

When she reached her room, she stopped by the door.

“I can take care of myself, Damian, for once, please don’t worry about me” Her response was confirmed when she heard the sound of his shoes retreating and something inside her broke further, she had wanted him to insist on staying, to open the door and tell her to take a shower and get in bed with him, while he cuddled her to sleep. But at the same time, she wanted to process everything Damian had said, she needed to breathe, she needed to… get herself together.

She pushed her door open, stripped and went to the bathroom, walking like she was lifeless, she ran water into the big white tub and got in, time slipped away and meant nothing. She didn’t know how long she sat there, her head resting against the tub,all she knew was, but the time she got out, the hot water was almost cold.

Her body felt like jelly. She came out of the bathroom and pulled a night dress out of her gigantic wardrobe, slipped it on without care and let herself fall to the floor, she stayed curled up as she buried her face in her palm. She tried hard to bring the memories back, but they kept slipping away.

She didn’t sleep.

How could she?

The word sat on her tongue all night. _Fiancée._ Mateo, In love with Damian, they built a life together.

Four hours passed. At 4:17am,Outside, the city was still dark.

Nadia pressed her forehead to her knees further . And then it hit her.

The wave.

She couldn’t remember his laugh. She couldn’t remember the first time he said her name like it meant something. She couldn’t remember the way she would have said Two years of her life. Gone. And the man who’d lived them was right outside her door, probably lying down in his spacious room or sitting outside the hotel room because he didn’t want to leave her alone.

The sob ripped out of her before she could stop it. Ugly. Raw.

“I’m trying,” she whispered to no one. “I’m trying so hard.”

Another sob. “Why can’t I remember?” She screamed out loud, her ears throbbed with how loud she screamed.

She didn’t hear the door open.

But she felt the air shift.

Warmth. The scent of him

Damian was on the floor in front of her in a few minutes seconds. He was in a navy green long sleeve and ash sweatpants.

He didn’t ask if she was okay. He could see she wasn’t.

“Nadia,” he said softly.

“How did you know I was crying?”

“I was just outside the door, I was scared you would do something unpredictable to yourself”

She looked up at him, eyes red, cheeks wet. “I don’t remember,” she choked out. “I’m trying, Damian. I’m sitting here trying to pull something, anything, and there’s just... white. And it’s so frustrating. How did you do it? How did you wake up every morning for two years knowing I was out there and I didn’t know you?”

Her voice broke.

“How much did it hurt you?”

Damian’s jaw clenched. For a second he looked like he was going to do what he always did — go stoic, go Agent Gray, hold it together.

Then he didn’t.

He reached out and took her face in both hands. His thumbs brushed the tears away, but more kept coming.

“Hey,” he whispered. “Breathe. With me.”

She did. Shaky, uneven breaths that matched his.

“I won’t lie to you,” he said, voice low. “It was hell.”

His eyes were red too. She’d never seen him like this. Not even with a gun to his head.

“The first morning after the hospital called me... I went to your former apartment. The one with the white lilies on the table because you said they made it feel like home. The lease was still in both our names. Your toothbrush was still in the cup. Your hoodie was still on the chair.”

His voice cracked.

“I made coffee. Two mugs. Out of habit. And then I stood there in the kitchen for twenty minutes because there was no one to hand the second one to.”

A tear slipped down his cheek. He didn’t wipe it.

“I went to Mateo’s games and sat in the stands alone because that was our spot. Everyone asked where you were. I said you travelled.”

He laughed, but it hurt.

“The nights were the worst. Our bed was too big. I kept waking up reaching for you. And your side was cold. Every single morning for 730 days, Nadia. Cold.”

Nadia covered her mouth. Another sob.

“I didn’t know,” she whispered.

“I know,” he said. “That’s what killed me. You didn’t know. And I couldn’t tell you without putting you in danger. I missed you Nadia, I really did”

He pulled her into his lap right there on the floor. Didn’t care that it was awkward. Didn’t care that she was shaking.

He just held her. Like he’d been waiting two years to do it right.

“I watched you rebuild yourself for three months” he murmured into her hair. “From hospital reports. From Mateo. From across the street sometimes, like a coward. You were so strong. You learned to cook again. You got Mateo through school. You smiled at cashiers. And none of it had me in it.”

His arms tightened.

“When I saw you in that vault during the job... the second I saw your eyes, I knew.”

He pulled back just enough to look at her.

“I would’ve found Marco eventually. I would’ve caught him. But I couldn’t let you slip away again. Not even for a day. So I made something up on the spot. ‘You’re with me now.’ Stupid. Reckless. But it was the only way to keep you close long enough to figure out how to tell you the truth without losing you, again.”

Nadia stared at him. At the man who’d been breaking quietly for two years so she could have peace.

The guilt and the grief and the love she didn’t remember but felt anyway all crashed together.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered.

“For what?”

“For forgetting. For making you go through that alone.” She sobbed loudly this time, making throaty sounds that broke Damian’s heart over and over again.

Damian shook his head. “Don’t you dare apologize for surviving.”

She arched her head up, stared deep into his eyes and kissed him.

It wasn’t planned. It wasn’t soft.

It was tears and desperation and two years of missing.

Her hands fisted in the front of his top. His hands came up to cradle the back of her head. .

She tasted salt. His. Hers.

“Damian,” she breathed against his mouth.

“I’m here,” he said back. “I’ve always been here.”

He stood with her. Didn’t break the kiss. Carried her like she weighed nothing, like he’d done it a thousand times before.

The bedroom was dark. He set her down on the bed gently, came down beside her, and didn’t let go.

They kissed deeply. Slow. Like they had time. Like the world outside the door didn’t exist.

His forehead rested against hers between kisses.

“You don’t have to remember everything tonight,” he whispered.

“I want to,” she said, tears still slipping. “I want to remember loving you.”

“You do,” he said. “Right now. That’s enough.”

His hand found hers. Their fingers laced. He lifted her and placed her on the bed, he hovered over her as he placed kisses all over her. Then he found her soft lips and kissed her like his life depended on it. He wanted her, he had waited 2 years to have her to himself like this again.

“I want you, Nadia,I really…urgh” he was fighting a battle to keep his desires at bay.

“Then have me, Damian. This time no stopping, I want to moan your name again and again, till morning”

“Are you sure about this?”

“I have never been more certain” his lips covered hers again, this time more desperate,she could imagine now the things he would do to her. She shivered at the thought.

And Nadia knew… they both knew, that there was no going back this time.