His eyes, My face

Elliott

The place was quiet. Not the eerie kind of silence, but the sort that makes you pause, glance behind you, and wonder what secrets hide in stillness.

I stood by the window, watching the trees outside sway like dancers moving to music only they could hear. It had been three days since I agreed to Damien’s proposal. 

Though one major reason I accepted was to invest in the rumor people had gathered against him. 

Maybe he was never what he was assumed to be.

So it was three days of polished floors, soft-footed maids, and silent men in tailored suits who barely acknowledged me. 

Three days of learning that, no matter how many people worked here, Damien himself remained a puzzle I couldn’t stop studying. 

He wasn’t cold, not exactly. Polite, always. Controlled. Like everything he said had been pre-approved. Like nothing about him was unintentional. 

But that was totally different from how he treats others. He was known so well for his ruthless face. No smile. Just eye contact. He hardly speaks and when he does. It shakes the wall.

Curiosity ate the best of me. I wanted to understand why he is cruel and brutal towards people.  But with me... it felt different. 

He was off from what others assumed he was. Did he know my major task and why I accepted the job?

I noticed how he paused longer when we spoke, how his gaze lingered just a moment more, this he never did to that lady who I snapped them both with at the conference. 

How, when handing me a file, his fingers brushed mine—softly, deliberately. He could’ve just set it on the desk. But he didn’t. Were those touches accidents? Maybe. Or maybe I was reading into something that wasn’t there. 

Maybe the thought that he wasn't straight had taken a bigger passion from me.

Still, the way he looked at me sometimes made it hard to breathe. 

That morning, he’d called me into his office. I expected some talk about upcoming shoots or maybe a lecture on conduct—but found him leaning back in his chair, eyes distant, fingers drumming softly on the desk I’d just polished yesterday.

“You’re adjusting well,” he said when he noticed me. I nodded, keeping my tone neutral. “Trying to.”

He tilted his head, studying me. 

“You don’t seem like someone who just ‘tries.’ You seem like someone who adapts.”A compliment? Maybe. I wasn’t sure what to make of it. 

But the warmth in his voice stirred something in me. I sat where he gestured, waiting for whatever business had brought me here. 

But for a while, he said nothing. Just watched me like he was trying to read a language written across my skin. Eventually, I broke the silence. “Is there something specific you needed me for?”

He blinked, like I’d pulled him out of a dream. His lips curved, almost into a smile. “Not particularly. Just wanted a... moment.”

A moment?

He must’ve heard the confusion in my silence because he cleared his throat and reached for a file. “Never mind. I do have a few assignments for you.”

The rest of our conversation returned to safe ground—photoshoots, design briefs. But even then, he kept glancing at me when he thought I wasn’t looking. 

Like he was searching for something. Like I was supposed to know what it was. I didn’t. By evening, golden light spilled across the hallways, throwing long shadows over the marble floor. 

I carried a few design drafts back toward the room he’d given me to work in. As I passed the tall windows and the sweeping staircase leading to the east wing, something tugged at me.

I hadn’t explored that part of the mansion—Damien had told me it was outside my duties. But curiosity has never really been a rule-follower. A door at the far end of the hall stood slightly ajar. 

I was about to keep walking when something caught my eye—paint. Soft strokes of color near the edge of the frame. I paused, glanced around. No footsteps. No voices. Just silence and shadows.

I pushed the door open just enough to peer inside.

And froze. The room was bathed in natural light, dust motes dancing through it. Easels stood at angles, some with canvases half-covered, others fully exposed.

Portraits.

All of the men. Each painted with such intensity it made my chest tighten. Their eyes told stories—grief, yearning, quiet vulnerability. And in all of them, there was something familiar. Not their faces, but their emotions.

I stepped closer to one in the corner, where the light pooled just right. A man with tousled dark hair, a hand pressed to his chest like he was holding in something too heavy to carry.

It felt like Damien’s style. His precision. His melancholy. Then I saw the canvas beside it.

Unfinished. The paint was still wet. The figure’s face wasn’t complete, but the shape of the shoulders, the curve of the lips, the arch of the brow...

It looked like me.

Or someone close enough to make my stomach twist.

I stepped back. My brain scrambled, questions spinning too fast to catch. Why was I in a painting? 

Who painted these? Why was this room hidden?

Was Damien the artist? I didn’t have time to figure it out. A floorboard creaked behind me. My blood ran cold. I gripped my camera tighter.

Then came the voice—low, smooth, and laced with tension. “Is someone there?”

Damien.

I didn’t move. Just held my breath and slid behind the open door, heart hammering so hard I thought it might echo in the quiet. He couldn’t see me. Not here. Not in this room I was never supposed to enter.

If he found me... I didn’t want to think about what came next. Damien ever discovered I found this. … No! He can't spare my life. Not for a moment to rethink. Not the fear that I may expose it to the world.

Could he ever spare me?

One….. two….. three

The door cracked open. My heart jerked,sweat filled my dopamine. I was peeling already on my trousers.