Chapter 5

Possession

Elena’s POV 

I couldn't breathe.

Damien stood over me, moonlight carving shadows across his face, and I felt like a rabbit caught in a trap. My fingers clutched the silk sheets so hard my knuckles went white.

"Please," I whispered. "Don't."

He tilted his head, studying me. "Don't what, Elena? Don't look at you? Don't want you? Don't claim what's already mine?"

"I'm not yours." My voice shook. "You can't just decide that I belong to you."

"Can't I?" He moved closer, placing one knee on the bed. The mattress dipped under his weight. "You're in my house. In my bed. Wearing the nightgown I provided. Tell me again how you don't belong to me."

I scrambled backward until my spine hit the headboard. Nowhere left to go.

"You're scared," he observed, his voice almost curious. "Why? I haven't laid a hand on you."

"You don't have to." Tears burned my eyes. "You're suffocating me just by being here. By keeping me trapped. By.."

"By wanting you?" He reached out, his fingers hovering inches from my face. Not touching. Just there. A promise. A threat. "By refusing to let you go?"

"This isn't wanted. This is an obsession."

His laugh was dark. "Finally, you're starting to understand.”

"Let me tell you what I know about you, Elena Martinez," he said softly. Dangerously. "You grew up in a one-bedroom apartment in the south end. Your mother worked three jobs to keep you fed. Your father left when you were six—walked out one day and never came back."

My breath hitched. "How do you.."

"You put yourself through community college. Graduated top of your class despite working nights at a diner. You applied to forty-three companies before mine gave you a chance." His eyes never left mine. "You send half your paycheck home to your mother every month. You live in a four-hundred-square-foot studio with broken heating. You own three dresses, two pairs of shoes, and you eat ramen for dinner four nights a week because you can't afford anything else."

Each word felt like he was peeling back my skin, exposing everything raw and vulnerable underneath.

"Stop," I begged.

"Why? Because the truth hurts?" He leaned closer. Still not touching, but so close I could feel his breath on my face. "You've been miserable your entire life, Elena. Struggling. Fighting. Barely surviving. And then I came along."

"And ruined everything," I shot back, anger cutting through my fear. "I had a job. I had dignity. I had.."

"Nothing." The word was brutal. Final. "You had nothing but exhaustion and poverty and the slow death of dreams you couldn't afford to chase."

"That's not true."

"Isn't it?" His hand finally moved, fingers brushing a tear from my cheek. I flinched, but he didn't pull away. "You stayed late every night in my office. Not because I asked you to. Because going home to that empty studio was worse than being near me. You said yes when I kissed you the first time. You fell into my arms like you'd been drowning and I was air."

"Because I was stupid enough to believe you cared!"

"I do care." His thumb traced my jawline. "More than you know. More than you can understand."

"You don't care about me. You care about owning me. There's a difference."

"You need me more than I need you," he said quietly. The words sank into my chest like stones. "Without me, you go back to that studio. That dead-end existence. That life where you're invisible and forgotten. But with me? You're valuable. Important. Mine."

I slapped his hand away, anger exploding through my fear. "You didn't make me valuable. You made me your dirty secret! You made me the other woman. You made me stand up in that cathedral and humiliate myself in front of hundreds of people!"

"I made you unforgettable." His voice rose to match mine. "Every person in that cathedral knows your name now. You're not invisible anymore, Elena. You're the woman who stopped Damien Cross's wedding. You're the woman I chose over a billion-dollar merger. Over my father's approval. Over everything."

"I didn't want that!" I was crying now, hot tears streaming down my face. "I wanted you to love me.”

"This is love." He grabbed my shoulders, pulling me forward until we were inches apart. "You think love is gentle? Soft? Love is fire. Obsession. The inability to breathe without knowing you're mine. Love is standing in front of three hundred people and burning my entire life down rather than letting you walk away."

"That's not love. That's insanity."

"Same thing."

"You ruined my life," I whispered.

"I gave you a life worth ruining." His hands moved from my shoulders to cup my face. "Before me, you existed. Surviving. Now you're living. Fighting. Feeling something real, even if it terrifies you."

"I hate you."

"I know." His lips hovered over mine. "Hate me all you want. It doesn't change the fact that you're mine. That you've been mine since the moment you walked into my office three years ago with your cheap suit and your proud eyes and your determination to prove yourself."

"Damien—"

"Say it." His grip tightened. "Say you're mine."

"No."

"Say it, Elena."

"I won't give you that satisfaction."

"You will." His mouth moved to my ear, his voice dropping to something raw and desperate. "Eventually, you'll stop fighting. You'll realize that everything I'm doing, every cage I build around you, is because losing you would destroy me. And when that happens, when you finally understand, you'll say it willingly."

"Never."

"We'll see."

His hands slid down to my neck, his thumbs pressing against my pulse. Not choking. Just feeling. Counting the rapid beat of my terrified heart.

"You want to know the real reason I walked away from that wedding?" he asked. "It wasn't a merger. It wasn't my father's approval. It wasn't even my reputation."

"Then what was it?"

"Because when I saw you standing there, shaking and brave and ready to ruin everything for me, I realized something." His eyes locked onto mine with terrifying intensity. "I realized I'd rather have you in chains than anyone else free. I'd rather keep you locked in this mansion, hating me, fighting me, than let you disappear into that miserable life you call freedom."

My breath caught.

"That's how much I need you, Elena. That's how far I can proceed with." His voice cracked, just slightly. The first real vulnerability I'd heard from him. "So yes, call it obsession. Call it possession. Call it insanity. But don't call it anything less than complete."

We stayed like that, frozen in the moonlight. His hands on my throat. My tears on his fingers. Our faces were so close I could see the gold flecks in his gray eyes.

"You're a monster," I breathed.

"Your monster," he corrected.

The moment stretched, taut as a wire. His gaze dropped to my lips. My heart hammered. Despite everything, the fear, the anger, the cage, my body betrayed me. I wanted him to close that final distance. Wanted his mouth on mine. I wanted to surrender even though I knew it would destroy what was left of me.

His thumb brushed across my bottom lip.

And then..

A sound shattered the tension. Distant but clear. A woman's voice, shrill and furious, coming from somewhere outside.

"Damien! Damien Cross!"

We both froze.

"What.." I started.

The voice came again, louder. Screaming. "I know you're in there! I know she's in there!"

Damien pulled away from me, his expression darkening. He moved to the window, looking down at the front gates.

"Who is that?" I asked, my voice still shaky.

His jaw clenched. "Vivienne."

The bride. Of course. The woman who'd fainted at the altar.

I slipped out of bed, my bandaged knee protesting, and moved to the window beside him. Down below, lit by the mansion's exterior lights, I could see her. Vivienne Laurent in her wedding dress, the white fabric dirty and torn at the hem. Her perfect hair was falling from its elegant updo. Her face was red with fury.

"Open these gates!" she screamed at the security guards. "Damien! You coward! Face me!"

"You think you can humiliate me?" Vivienne's voice cracked. "You think you can walk away from our wedding and face no consequences? You think you can hide behind your walls with your little secretary?"

"You'll regret this, Damien!" she screamed. "Do you hear me? You'll regret this!"

Damien's hand curled into a fist against the window frame.

Vivienne grabbed the iron gates, shaking them. "I'll make you regret this! Both of you! I'll destroy you the way you destroyed me! I'll take everything from you! Everything!"

Her voice broke on a sob, but the fury didn't leave her face.

"You'll regret this!" she screamed one more time, her voice raw and terrible. "I promise you, you'll both regret this!"