Chapter 6

"You look like a thief who doesn't know what she’s trying to steal."

​I froze, my hand hovering inside the open, glowing cavern of the Sub-Zero refrigerator. A cold draft washed over my bare ankles. I didn't need to turn around to know Damien was standing in the archway of the kitchen. His voice had that low, gravelly weight it always carried when he hadn't slept, a sound that used to feel intimate but now felt like a warning track.

​I slowly stood up straight, a plastic container of leftover truffle fries from the restaurant delivery tucked under my arm. "I was looking for the milk."

​"With a box of cold potatoes?"

​"They were on the same shelf." I finally turned to face him, leaning my lower back against the marble counter.

​Damien had changed out of his suit. He was wearing a pair of dark cotton trousers and a black crewneck sweater with the sleeves pushed up to his elbows. His hair was slightly messy, a rare departure from the sleek perfection he presented to the boardrooms. He looked human. He looked like the man who used to stay up with me until dawn, arguing over the acoustics of concert halls.

​"You always did raid the kitchen when you were anxious," he said, walking into the room. He didn't ask for permission. He just moved into my space, his bare feet making no sound on the hardwood floor.

​"I'm not anxious. I'm hungry."

​"Lie to the reporters, Ellie. Don't lie to me." He reached past me, his forearm brushing against my waist as he pulled a bottle of white wine from the built-in chiller. "You’ve been pacing the east wing for three hours. The floorboards in the hallway are old."

​"If they're old, you should hire a better contractor to fix them," I snapped, trying to ignore the sudden spike in my pulse. The heat from his body was working against the chill of the refrigerator, trapping me in a narrow pocket of air that felt way too small.

​Damien let out a short, dry sound that was almost a laugh. He set the wine bottle on the island and reached into a drawer for a corkscrew. "I like the character of old floors. They tell you exactly where people are hiding."

​"I wasn't hiding."

​"You were." He drove the screw into the cork with a smooth, practiced twist. "You’ve been hiding since four o'clock this afternoon."

​He extracted the cork with a soft pop that sounded incredibly loud in the midnight quiet of the penthouse. He didn't look at me as he poured the pale yellow liquid into two crystal glasses. He didn't ask if I wanted any. He knew I did. Wine was the only thing that could dull the sharp edge of the reality I had signed myself into.

​I took the container of fries and dumped them onto a porcelain plate, setting them on the kitchen island between us. "If I was hiding, it’s because your penthouse feels like a museum. I’m afraid if I touch the wrong vase, an alarm will go off and Marcus will appear with a non-disclosure agreement."

​"The alarms only go off if you try to leave through the service elevator," Damien said, sliding a glass of wine toward me. "And Marcus doesn't do night shifts anymore. He’s too expensive."

​I picked up a cold fry and bit into it. The truffle oil was rich, but it tasted like cardboard in my mouth. I took a sip of the wine to wash it down. It was crisp, expensive, and hit my empty stomach like a warm wave.

​"You haven't changed your wine taste," I murmured, staring into the glass.

​"I don't change things that work." Damien picked up a fry, his long fingers looking entirely out of place against the fast-food snack. He ate it slowly, his eyes never leaving my face. "Why didn't you eat the dinner I ordered?"

​"Because I don't like being managed, Damien. You ordered the salmon because you remember I had it at that charity dinner three years ago. You think that because you remember a detail, it gives you a right to dictate the menu."

​"I ordered the salmon because you were pale and you needed protein," he said, his voice dropping an octave. "You think everything I do is a tactical maneuver, Ellie. Sometimes a piece of fish is just a piece of fish."

​"Not with you." I leaned forward, resting my elbows on the island. The distance between us was barely two feet now. The amber pendant lights hanging over the counter reflected in his irises, turning them a deep, unreadable gold. "With you, everything has a metric. The dress, the car, the press conference. Even this. We’re sitting here pretending to have a normal conversation, but tomorrow morning you’re going to look at the analytics of that Times article to see if our 'chemistry' drove the stock price up."

​Damien set his glass down. The heavy crystal made a dull thud against the quartzite. The silence that followed was instant, dropping over the kitchen like a heavy curtain. He didn't blink. He just stared at me, his gaze locked onto mine with an intensity that felt like a physical hand gripping my jaw.

​The banter was gone. The safe, sarcastic shield we had been using to keep each other at bay had melted away, leaving something raw and vibrating in the space between us.

​"You think I’m looking at stock prices right now?" he asked. His voice was very quiet, very controlled, but there was an undercurrent of something volatile beneath the surface.

​"Aren't you?" I challenged, though my throat felt tight.

​"I’m looking at a woman who would rather eat cold potatoes in the dark than admit she’s terrified of how much she still wants to be here," he said.

​I took a sharp breath, the air catching in my lungs. "I don't want to be here."

​"Then why did you sign the paper?" He stepped around the corner of the island. He didn't rush, but the movement was absolute. I backed up a step, my spine hitting the edge of the counter behind me. He kept coming until he was standing directly in front of me, blocking out the rest of the kitchen, blocking out the whole apartment.

​He reached out and placed his hands on the counter on either side of my hips, pinning me in place without ever actually touching me. The scent of him was everywhere now, that familiar mix of rain and wood that made my head spin.

​"You signed it because your pride was broken, Ellie," he whispered, leaning down until his face was inches from mine. "But your body isn't lying to me. Your pulse is hitting your collarbone like a hammer right now."

​My eyes dipped to his lips, then snapped back to his gaze. The gravity of him was immense, a heavy, suffocating force that pulled at everything inside me. I could feel the heat radiating off his chest, the slight rise and fall of his shoulders. It would be so easy to just lean forward. To let the dress slide off, to let the last four years become a bad dream, to let him take the burden of my ruined career and my empty bank account and dissolve it all in the dark.

​He wanted me to. I could see the hunger in his expression, the dark, possessive need that had driven me away in the first place. He didn't want to just help me. He wanted to consume me until there was nothing left of Ellie Harper but a name on his marriage certificate.

​"Is that what you want to hear, Damien?" I whispered back, my voice trembling despite my best efforts. "You want me to tell you that you won? That you bought me and now you get to own the narrative?"

​"I don't want to own the narrative," he said, his breath warm against my mouth. "I want to know if you're ever going to stop fighting the one thing we both know is real."

​He leaned in a fraction of an inch closer. His thumb reached out and brushed against the side of my neck, right over the frantic jumping of my vein. The touch was like a spark dropped into a dry forest. A violent, terrifying heat flared through my lower stomach, making my knees go weak. I gripped the edge of the marble behind me to keep from falling into him.

​He stayed there for a long, agonizing second, his thumb resting against my skin, his eyes devouring my face. He was waiting for me to break. He was waiting for the surrender.

​With a ragged exhale, I forced myself to turn my head away, breaking the eye contact. My cheek brushed against his sweater.

​"Go to bed, Damien," I choked out.

​The silence returned, but it wasn't quiet anymore. It was loud with the sound of our breathing. For a moment, he didn't move. I thought he was going to ignore my words. I thought he was going to pull me into him anyway, and the terrifying part was that I didn't know if I would have the strength to push him back.

​Then, slowly, the pressure vanished.

​He stood up straight, taking his hands off the counter. The sudden rush of cool kitchen air felt like ice against my skin. I looked up to see his expression had closed off again, the billionaire mask sliding back into place with terrifying efficiency.

​"The car will be ready at nine tomorrow," he said, his voice entirely professional, as if he hadn't just been holding my breath in his hands. "We have the breakfast meeting with the Sterling attorneys. Don't be late."

​He turned and walked out of the kitchen, his silhouette disappearing into the dark hallway of the west wing.

​I sank back against the counter, sliding down until my knees touched the cold floor. I covered my face with my hands, my fingertips still tingling with the phantom sensation of his touch. My heart was still racing, a wild, chaotic rhythm that wouldn't slow down.

​I looked at the two wine glasses sitting on the island, the light catching the crystal edges.

​I had survived the first night. But as I sat alone in the dark, listening to the distant hum of the city sixty floors below, a single, terrifying thought began to take root in my mind.

​What if the most dangerous thing in this apartment wasn't the media, or the contract, or the investors, but the fact that I was already starting to forget why I had ever run away from him in the first place?