Asshole.
Sera appears briefly on the porch, watching like her favorite soap opera is on. Her gaze flicks between us, her mouth tightening knowingly.
I give her a look.
I’m fine.Really.
She raises one brow.
Liar.
Even so, she doesn’t interfere. This is my battlefield.
I walk toward the car, ignoring all the alarms going off in my head. Snow crunches beneath my boots, each step a small declaration:I’m not that girl anymore.
I’m not naive, no longer the silly girl who mistook his interest for anything other than a man reaching for a tool he found useful.
I pass him as I approach the passenger seat’s door, refusing to meet his eyes. His presence presses along my skin like static, like heat from a fire you promised you’d never touch again.
He reaches for the handle at the same moment I do, his gloved hand barely brushing mine, but the contact snaps through me like a spark jumping wires.
He opens the door, steps back, giving me space.
“After you,” he says.
The door shuts behind me with the soft finality of a velvet coffin. Damian slides into the driver’s seat without looking at me, but the air becomes solid and far more alive than my pride allows me to admit.
The city is a blur of bruised neon and winter breath outside the windows. Inside, it’s warm. My palms sweat inside my gloves.
“Congratulations,” he says as we merge into the quiet road, his voice low enough to feel against my skin. “I hear you’ve carved out a niche in my cyber division.” A pause, a ghost of amusement. “Impressive. You learned the language of power quickly.”
The compliment should feel like a medal, but from him it’s a blade dipped in honey. He sayslearnedas though he taught me.
“I picked it up,” I answer, fighting to keep my voice even. “Survival is a good teacher.”
“Yes,” Damian murmurs. “But survival doesn’t grant fluency. You have… an aptitude.”
My pulse jumps. Why does everything he says feel like both praise and provocation? I look out the window to escape the intensity, but the glass only reflects his sharp jaw and angular nose.
The silence stretches like thick, molten taffy around us.
“You haven’t visited the estate in months,” he says, as if the observation is harmless. “Sera misses you.”
“You don’t,” I say before I can stop myself.
His laugh is soft, but it lands like a gloved hand closing around my throat.
“You assume much.”
“You made it easy to assume,” I shoot back. “You walked right past me that night. Didn’t even look.”
He finally turns his head. The streetlights paint his cheekbones gold and shadow, making him look unreal—too sharp for the world, too defined for mercy.
“If I had looked at you,” he says quietly, “I wouldn’t have walked past.”
The admission makes my stomach clench, and something far south of my belly. I hate the feeling. I hate that he can stir it with a single line. I hate that he knows it.
I straighten in the seat, spine rigid.
