All Chapters of The Alpha Who Saved Me : Chapter 11 - Chapter 17

I know something has changed before he tells me anything.It is Friday morning and Damien has been at the kitchen table since before I woke up which is not unusual — he is always at the table before I wake up, always already inside his work day by the time I come out with my hair still flattened on one side and my sketchbook tucked under my arm. But this morning is different. This morning the files on the table are spread wider than usual and his coffee cup is full and untouched which means he made it and forgot it and that has never happened before. Not once in the six days I have been here. Damien Cole does not forget things.He is reading something on his laptop with his chin resting on his closed fist and his eyes moving slowly across the screen and his face is doing something I have not seen it do before.It is not angry. Anger would be easier to read, easier to categorize, easier to know what to do with. This is colder than anger. This is the expression of someone who has found

We move the table every morning now.It has become a routine the way routines form when two people share a space long enough — not discussed, not agreed upon, just something that started happening and kept happening until it had the weight of habit. By the time I come out of the bedroom Damien has already pushed his chair aside and cleared the kettle from the edge of the counter and there is a rectangle of bare floor waiting in the middle of the kitchen like a small stage that neither of us has named.We have been at this for three days.I am learning things about my body that I did not know before. That my left side is faster than my right. That I hold my breath when I am concentrating and that holding my breath makes me slow. That my first instinct when something comes toward me is still to make myself smaller even after everything, even after three days of standing my ground, the old reflex is still there underneath the new one like handwriting that has been written over — visible

I negotiate for three days before he says yes.Not aggressively. Not the way I argued about going back to my apartment, with heat and raised voice and hands pressing flat on tables. This time I am strategic about it because I have spent nine days in this apartment learning how Damien Cole is put together and I understand now that the direct approach works for some things and not for others and Priya coming here is one of the others.So I mention it on Monday in passing, casually, the way you mention something you are not particularly invested in. I say Priya is worried and a short visit might help and then I let it sit and I go back to my drawing.On Tuesday I mention that Priya knows how to be discreet and has known about Daniel's behavior for longer than anyone and is therefore not a security risk. I say it while I am making tea with my back to him. Then I let that sit too.On Wednesday morning I sit across from him at the breakfast table and I look at him directly and I say, "I nee

The hallway is very quiet."I'm not telling you this because I think you don't know," Priya continues. "I think you see more than you let on. I'm telling you because I need you to hear me say it directly." Her voice doesn't waver. It is the voice of someone who has rehearsed this not because she is nervous but because she wanted to get it exactly right. "If you hurt her. If you let her start to trust something and then you take it away or you disappear or you decide this was professional and nothing more after it has already become something more — I will find a way to make that cost you something. I don't know exactly how yet but I am resourceful and I care about her more than I care about being reasonable."Silence.Then Damien says, "I know."Not dismissive. Not amused. Just two words that land with weight because of the way he says them — like he has already had this conversation with himself and reached the same conclusion."Good," Priya says."For what it's worth," he says, and