Chapter 30

Chapter 30

Harper

The wedding was three weeks away, and the house had turned into a slow, controlled kind of chaos. Flower samples covered the dining table. Lily’s seating chart had expanded to include a second poster board. Somewhere in the mess, Damian and I kept finding small moments to breathe, stealing them between meetings and fittings and Victoria’s occasional, surprisingly gentler check-ins.

I found him in the study late one night, sleeves rolled up, staring at nothing in particular.

“You’re not working,” I said, leaning against the doorframe.

“No.”

“Thinking?”

“Something like that.”

I crossed the room and sat on the edge of his desk, the way I’d taken to doing lately, close enough that our knees brushed. “Want to share?”

He looked up at me, something steady and unguarded in his expression that still occasionally stole my breath. “I keep thinking about what you asked me. In the car.”

My pulse quickened slightly. “About soon.”

“About soon.”

I waited, giving him space to find the words. Damian had never been a man who rushed his thoughts, and I’d learned not to push him toward conclusions before he was ready to reach them himself.

“I spent most of my life believing patience was a virtue,” he said finally. “That waiting for the right moment mattered more than the moment itself. Richard taught me that. Calculate everything. Never move until you’re certain.”

“And now?”

“Now I think I’ve been certain for a while. I just kept telling myself to wait anyway. Out of habit, maybe. Or fear.”

“Fear of what?”

“Of moving too fast and breaking something that finally feels right.”

I reached for his hand, lacing our fingers together the way I had a hundred times before, except tonight the gesture felt different. Heavier. More deliberate.

“You won’t break this,” I said quietly. “I’m not that fragile, Damian.”

“I know that. I think I’m the one who’s scared of moving too fast.”

The admission surprised me, coming from a man who controlled boardrooms and intimidated senators without visible effort. But this, apparently, was different. This mattered more than any negotiation he’d ever handled.

“Then we won’t move fast,” I said. “We’ll just move. Whenever it feels right. No countdown. No deadline.”

Something eased in his expression, tension I hadn’t fully registered until it disappeared. “I like that better.”

“Me too.”

We sat there together for a while, comfortable in the quiet, his thumb tracing slow circles against my hand. Outside, the city hummed faintly beyond the windows, indifferent to the small, significant shift happening quietly inside this room.

“Lily asked me something today,” I said eventually.

“Should I be worried?”

“She asked if I loved you.”

Damian went very still. “What did you say?”

“I told her it was complicated.”

“Is it?”

I considered the question honestly, the way it deserved. “No,” I admitted. “It’s actually the least complicated thing in my entire life. I think I’ve just been scared to say it plainly, in case saying it made it too real too fast.”

“And now?”

“Now I think pretending otherwise is more exhausting than just admitting the truth.”

Damian’s eyes searched mine, something vulnerable and hopeful sitting openly in his expression for once, without the careful control he usually maintained. “Say it, then. Plainly.”

My heart pounded steadily, nerves and certainty tangled together in a way that somehow felt exactly right. “I love you, Damian.”

The words landed between us, simple and enormous all at once. Something shifted visibly across his face — relief, maybe, or joy, or some combination neither of us had words prepared for.

“I love you too,” he said, voice rougher than usual. “I have for a while. Longer than I probably should have without saying it.”

“Why didn’t you?”

“Same reason you didn’t, probably. Fear of making it too real too fast.”

“And now it’s real anyway.”

“Now it’s real anyway,” he agreed, something like wonder threading through the words.

He reached up, brushing a strand of hair from my face, the gesture achingly familiar and entirely new all at once. I leaned into his touch, something settling deep and certain inside my chest, a feeling I’d been circling for months without letting myself land on it fully.

“So what happens now?” I asked softly.

“Now,” Damian said, “we stop calling it slow.”

“And call it what instead?”

“Ready.”

The word settled between us, quiet and sure, carrying none of the hesitation that had colored every conversation like this one before tonight. I smiled, something warm and unguarded spreading through my chest.

“Ready,” I repeated.

He leaned forward slowly, giving me every opportunity to pull away if I wanted to. I didn’t. When our lips finally met, it felt nothing like the reckless night that had started all of this, nothing like scandal or obligation or strategy. It felt deliberate. Chosen. Real, in every sense of the word neither of us had been brave enough to use until tonight.

When we finally pulled back, Damian rested his forehead against mine, both of us breathing unsteadily, smiling in a way that felt entirely new despite everything we’d already built together.

“Three weeks,” he murmured.

“Three weeks,” I agreed.

“I don’t think I can wait that long to marry you again.”

I laughed softly, threading my fingers through his hair. “You already did the hard part. The paperwork’s done. This time we’re just doing it properly.”

“Properly,” he echoed, smiling against my skin as he pressed a soft kiss to my temple. “I like the sound of that.”