THE SECRET DAMIEN KEPT

Sophia was fastening her earrings when her phone vibrated on the dressing table, and Adrian's name appeared on the screen with a question about where she had been the previous afternoon. Before she could answer, another message arrived from an unknown number with a photograph attached, and the sight of her car parked outside Damien's estate made her fingers tighten around the phone. Beneath the photograph were six words that immediately erased the calm she had been trying to maintain: You should be careful who you visit.

Sophia enlarged the photograph and checked the timestamp twice, wondering how long someone had been watching her without being noticed. She grabbed her handbag and left the room, deciding that whoever had sent the warning had already crossed a line, and Damien was the only person who might understand what was happening.

Damien opened his door before she could knock twice, but the moment his eyes settled on the phone in her hand, his expression changed. He took it from her and studied the photograph in silence, his attention moving between the image and the timestamp before he finally looked at her.

"When did you receive this?"

"This morning."

"Who else has seen it?"

"No one."

Damien handed the phone back. "Good."

Sophia frowned. "Why is that good?"

"Because we do not know who is watching you."

She stepped inside and closed the door behind her, refusing to be intimidated by his guarded expression. "You knew someone might be watching me."

"I suspected."

"You should have told me."

"I told you to stay away from the hospital."

"You never told me someone was following me."

Damien's jaw tightened as he walked toward the window and looked through the curtains. "I did not have proof."

"Now you do."

He turned back to her. "Now I do."

The seriousness in his voice made Sophia lower her phone, but it did not satisfy her. She had come for answers, and she was not going to leave with another warning.

"Who are they watching?"

Damien held her gaze. "Adrian."

Sophia went quiet, because the answer immediately raised another question. "Why would anyone watch Adrian?"

"That is what I am trying to find out."

His phone rang before she could ask anything else, and Damien glanced at the screen before answering in a low voice. He listened for several seconds, then his expression hardened.

"Do not approach him."

He paused before adding, "Find out where the photograph came from first."

Damien ended the call and slipped the phone into his pocket.

Sophia watched him carefully. "Who was that?"

"Someone helping me."

"With what?"

His eyes settled on hers. "The accident."

The answer sent a chill through her because Adrian had never given her any reason to believe there was more to the accident than what the doctors and investigators had already told them. Damien seemed to notice her reaction, but instead of explaining, he stepped closer and lowered his voice.

"You need to go home."

"I am not leaving until you tell me what is happening."

"You are safer knowing less."

"I am already involved."

Damien's expression tightened. "Exactly."

For a moment, neither moved, and Sophia remembered the warning in his voice from the previous day. She hated that the same man who unsettled her could also make her feel protected, and she hated even more that she was beginning to trust him.

"Then tell me enough to protect myself."

Damien's eyes softened. "I am trying."

Sophia left without getting the answer she wanted, but his words followed her all the way to the hospital. Adrian was awake when she entered his room, and he looked up from the file on his lap as she placed her handbag beside the chair.

Sophia noticed the brown folder partly hidden beneath his blanket almost immediately, but Adrian's hand moved over it before she could reach for it. She studied his face and realized that whatever was inside the folder, he did not want her to see it.

"What is that?"

"Nothing."

His answer came too quickly.

Sophia stepped closer. "Then why did you hide it?"

Adrian shifted the folder farther beneath the blanket. "Sophia, leave it alone."

She pulled it free before he could stop her. A photograph slipped from the folder and landed on the bed, showing the wreckage of Adrian's car from the night of the accident.

Sophia picked it up, then noticed a second document carrying the name of a company she had never heard Adrian mention.

"What is this company?"

Adrian's expression changed. "Give me the folder."

"You have been keeping this?"

"Give it to me, Sophia."

She held it against her chest. "You told me the accident was investigated."

"It was."

"Then why are you hiding evidence?"

Adrian looked away, and that small movement told her more than his words could.

"Because there are things you do not need to know."

Sophia stared at him. "That is what Damien said."

Adrian looked back at her.

"You spoke to Damien?"

"Yes."

His expression hardened.

"You know he is investigating the accident."

Adrian remained silent.

"How long have you known?"

"I knew he would eventually start asking questions."

Sophia's eyes narrowed. "Why?"

"Because Damien never believed the accident was what they told us."

She looked at the photograph again, then slowly lowered it onto the bed.

"Did you?"

Adrian lowered his gaze.

"I had doubts."

The admission left Sophia staring at him. She had spent months believing the accident was a tragedy they simply had to survive, yet Adrian had apparently been carrying doubts that he never shared with her.

"Why did you never tell me?"

"Because I did not know who I could trust."

"You could have trusted me."

"I was trying to protect you."

"By keeping me in the dark?"

Adrian reached for her hand, but she pulled it away. His eyes filled with frustration as he leaned back against the pillow.

"Someone knew something before the accident," he said quietly. "I found that document afterward, but I could never prove what it meant."

Sophia looked at the company name again.

"Who was responsible?"

"I do not know."

"But you think someone planned it."

Adrian said nothing, and his silence was enough.

Sophia placed the photograph back inside the folder and slipped it into her handbag. She could see that Adrian was frightened, but his fear no longer made her feel safe because every answer seemed to create another question.

She left the hospital with the folder hidden beneath her arm, and before she reached her car, her phone began ringing. Damien's name appeared on the screen, and she answered immediately.

"Where are you?"

"Leaving the hospital."

"I told you not to go there."

"Adrian had evidence."

Damien became silent.

Sophia stopped beside her car. "You knew about it."

"I knew there were unanswered questions."

"No, Damien. You knew about the evidence."

He did not respond.

Sophia's voice hardened. "How long have you been investigating my husband?"

"Since before I met you."

Her grip tightened around the phone.

"Why?"

"Because I never believed his accident was an accident."

Sophia stared at the hospital entrance, trying to understand how the pieces fitted together. Damien had known about Adrian's accident before she approached him, and now he was warning her about someone watching her.

"Then why did you agree to my proposal?"

The silence on the other end lasted longer this time.

"Because I wanted something."

Sophia's heart sank. "What?"

"The truth."

She closed her eyes briefly.

"So you used me."

"No."

"Then what was I to you?"

Damien's voice became quieter.

"Something I never planned for."

She did not answer because the words carried a meaning neither of them was ready to discuss. The man she had tried to keep at a distance was admitting that his feelings had complicated the arrangement they had promised would remain simple.

Then Damien spoke again.

"There is something else you need to know."

Sophia waited.

"The person behind the accident may have been inside the Vale family."

Her fingers went cold around the phone.

"What?"

"I do not have enough evidence yet."

"But you believe it."

"I do."

Sophia looked down at the folder in her handbag and then toward the hospital room where Adrian remained. Everything she believed about the accident had suddenly become uncertain, and the man she had approached for one desperate reason had been investigating the same secret long before she ever entered his life.

Her voice dropped. "Damien, why did you really come back to the Vale family?"

There was a long silence before he answered.

"That is a question you are not ready to hear the answer to."

The call ended.

Sophia remained beside her car, staring at the darkened phone screen as one thought became impossible to ignore. Her arrangement with Damien had begun with a secret, but she was beginning to suspect that Damien had brought one of his own into it.