All Chapters of Her kiss,His Downfall : Chapter 41 - Chapter 46

The door clicked shut, and Damon just stood there. His hand still on the handle, fingers stiff, like if he let go, everything inside him might spill out.The hallway was empty, quiet, but his chest felt too loud—heart slamming against bone, breath uneven. He backed up until his shoulders hit the wall. He pressed his palms to it like he needed something solid to keep from falling apart.“Fuck,” he muttered under his breath, dragging a hand through his hair. He hadn’t meant to say it. Not out loud. Not to her.I trust you too much.The words replayed in his head like a loop he couldn’t cut. It made his stomach turn. Trust was the one thing he never gave freely, not since he was old enough to understand how people used it against him. And yet, with her—it slipped. It fell out of him like a truth he couldn’t cage.Footsteps. Damon’s head snapped up. Marcus, one of his men, was walking down the hall, holding a file. He slowed when he saw Damon.“You good, boss?” Marcus asked, voice careful

The bed was empty when Ava woke. The sheets beside her were cool, smooth, like Damon hadn’t even touched them after she’d fallen asleep.Her chest pinched. He hadn’t stayed.Dragging herself up, she slipped into a robe and padded downstairs. The house was still, too quiet. No clink of glass, no low rumble of his voice on a phone call. Just silence.On the counter, the coffee pot sat clean. Not even a trace of grounds in the filter. Damon always made coffee, even if he never drank much. Always.Her hand brushed the handle, hesitating.Movement caught her eye—by the door. His jacket was gone from the hook. But his watch lay on the table, the one he never forgot.She picked it up. Heavy. Cold. It still held the faint warmth of his wrist.Footsteps came from the back hallway. Damon appeared, crisp in a suit, tie knotted tight. He froze a beat when he saw her holding the watch.“Forgot something?” she asked, her voice softer than she meant.His jaw ticked, unreadable. He walked over, pluck

The morning felt wrong before Ava even reached Damon’s office. His schedule was usually a fortress of precision—calls blocked to the minute, meetings stacked like dominoes. But when she laid the folder on his desk, he didn’t even glance at it.“Cancel the morning brief,” he said, flipping casually through a sheet of paper.Ava blinked. “Cancel—? Damon, that’s with—”“I know who it’s with.” He didn’t look up. “Push it. This instead.”He slid a different folder toward her. Lighter. Thin. A simple courier request, by the looks of it—deliver sealed documents to an associate uptown.It was the kind of task an intern would handle. Not his executive assistant. Not her.Ava hesitated, her hand hovering over the folder. “You want me to… personally?”“Yes.” This time his eyes lifted, catching hers. His face was neutral, but there was a flicker—something measured, deliberate. “I want you to make sure it gets there. No one else.”The weight of his gaze lingered just long enough to make her throat