I tipped my head back, blinking fast, pressing the corners of my eyes until the burn receded.
“So please,” he pressed, “let’s go home. You showed your face to your employees. That was brave. But the press—” He shook his head, jaw flexing once. “They’re circling like vultures. And you’re not in a place to face them right now.”
The truth settled inside me with a dull finality.
I wouldn’t survive it.
Not today.
One camera flash, and I’d crack wide open.
I nodded, tension locking my throat.
“Good. Now—” He straightened. “I’m going to walk out there and tell everyone that I need you to come back to Falkirk with me.”
My brow furrowed.
“But really,” he continued, lowering his voice again, “we’re going to watchEclipseand eat chocolate on the couch until the world feels manageable again. Okay?”
The corner of my mouth twitched despite everything. “You’ll hateEclipse.”
He spread his hands, smile climbing slow and warm. “Not if I’m watching it with you.”
The pressure eased—barely—but enough.
I pushed up from my chair on instinct, moving toward the only place in the world that felt remotely safe. My gaze flicked to the windows—the privacy shutters already drawn, the glass walls transformed into something solid and unreachable. A splurge I’d questioned when I first signed the lease. Now? Worth every penny.
Damien didn’t question it. Didn’t hesitate. He simply opened his arms, and I sank into his lap like the movement had been carved into me long before today.
His arms wrapped around my waist. A slow exhale left him as he pressed a slow kiss to the crown of my head. Another followed at my temple. Then one—barely a brush—against my lips, gentle as a secret.
“Thank you,” I whispered, curling against him. His cologne—warm leather, clean citrus—wrapped around me, familiar and steady.
“I’m only doing what I promised.” His voice stirred my hair. “But I need you to trust me more than you did this morning.”
Trust.
The same word that used to feel like daggers splaying my heart wide. A sentiment I’d learned to avoid in childhood, a stance only made worse by the lies that had started all of this in motion.
But now—wrapped in Damien’s arms—it didn’t hurt.
It felt… comforting. Like coming home after a very long trip.
And when I’d nodded—when I’d agreed to leave with him, to let him handle what I couldn’t—it wasn’t because I was his submissive.
It wasn’t only my first real attempt at obedience.
It was the bone-deep recognition that there wasn’t a damn thing I could do except trust him to carry what I couldn’t hold anymore. To handle and protect me from this mess I couldn’t control.
The collar didn’t make me follow him.
The truth did.
“You lean on me,” he continued, no hesitation, no softness diluting the certainty. “That’s the entire point of this. You don’t face this world alone anymore.”
Emotions stirred, rising like a tide I couldn’t stop. Not fear. Not shame.
Something deeper.
