It’s scary. It’s real.
I sleep.
Morning finds me back in the east suite, tucked under the duvet.Damien must’ve carried me to bed after I’d fallen asleep.
The light slicing through the blinds is winter-pale, a shade between pearl and steel.
I stretch and yawn, then notice the box on the desk.
Matte white. Red ribbon. I get up and walk over to it. His precise handwriting is on the card.
For your hands, for your heart.
I slide the ribbon free and lift the lid. Inside, nestled in tissue, is a sewing machine.
It’s solid and beautiful. All clean lines and quiet power. There’s a pack of feet—walking foot, zipper foot, buttonhole foot—each in its own tiny case like jewelry. Extra bobbins. Needles in every gauge I could want. A proper lamp with a flexible neck. A tailor’skit that doesn’t play—shears with a true bite, chalk that won’t ghost, glass-head pins in a tin that clicks shut with authority.
My eyes sting with tears of joy. I press my palm to my mouth and breathe through it. He saw this part of me,reallysaw it. He fed it instead of starving it. That’s… not nothing.
My stomach growls, loud enough to make me laugh and wipe my eyes at the same time. My appetite is back. I slip into a robe, tie the red ribbon around my wrist—habit, comfort, who knows—and pad barefoot down the hall toward the kitchen, following the smell of coffee.
I find him there, sleeves rolled, trying to negotiate a skillet and an espresso machine that looks like it requires a pilot’s license. The kitchen is a landscape of good stuff: eggs, a plate of fruit cut with soldier-like precision, bacon, a variety of whole wheat and multigrain breads.
He looks like a billionaire cosplaying “guy who cooks sometimes,” and it’s adorable as hell. Also, hot. He glances up when I enter, a small check of my bandage, then my face, my feet on the tile. His mouth quirks up at the corner, like he knows something I don’t.
“May I?” I ask, touching two fingers to the whisk.
“Please,” he says, stepping back. “Cooking’s never been my thing.”
I rescue the eggs, adjust the heat, and get a pancake batter going in a second bowl. He takes the bacon off the fire and sets it on a paper towel covered plate with care that makes me smile. We fall into a rhythm that surprises both of us. He passes me the salt without me asking. I lean aside just as he reaches for the spatula. He slides a hand to my hip to keep me steady while he leans past,and I don’t jump, I melt. A small shoulder bump earns me one of his side glances that makes me feel like a teenager again.
“You were about two seconds from scrambling the pan,” I tell him, tipping the skillet to let the eggs gather.
“Delegation is a core competency,” he replies.
“So is not burning breakfast.”
He smirks, that sexy little smile that undoes me every time.
When the food’s ready, we take plates to the island and eat standing up. He watches me, a warm expression on his face, making sure I’m fed. Today feels different. Today feels like care, not command.
“Too fast?” I ask, halfway teasing, halfway not.
“No,” he says. “I’m just making sure you’re satisfied.”
I continue eating. He looks relieved.
“I feel something for you,” he says.
No preamble. No hedging. He just places it in the air between us, simple as a butter knife.
“It’s deeper than I’ve let myself feel before,” he adds after a beat. “I don’t know what to do with it.”
He doesn’t reach for me. He doesn’t try to sugarcoat it. His eyes stay steady, and I can see signs of how this admission scrapes.
“I’m not a good man,” he continues. “I’ve admitted that to you. Monster is not an unfair word.” His mouth twitches like he hates the taste of it but says it anyway. “You’re—” He searches, fails, tries again. “You’re light. You don’t deserve the weight I carry.”
I don’t rush in with comfort. I don’t argue him into a saint he isn’t. I step forward and put my palm flat on his chest, right over his heart. The beat is slow. Honest. Real.
