"Which are?" I ground out.
He sighed.
"Guilt." The word came out rough. "For not telling you sooner. For letting you walk into Falkirk blind while Nathan circled you like a shark who smelled blood." His hand tightened on mine. "For putting you in that office with him. For what he said to you. What he implied."
My knuckles throbbed with the memory. The raw skin I'd scrubbed bloody trying to wash off the feeling of Nathan's proposition.
I ripped my hand from his.
His face fractured.
"I knew the risk," Damien continued, voice strained. "I knew giving Nathan that leverage was dangerous. But I weighed it against losing you entirely—losing Elion, losing everything you'd built—and Imade my choice." Something glistened in his eyes. "I'd make the same choice again, Emma. The falsification. Even knowing what it cost you. Even knowing you might never forgive me for it."
I'd make the same choice again.
My pulse jolted back to life.Again?
"But the hiding—keeping it from you for weeks while you walked into that building every day—" His jaw worked. "That part I'd do differently. And if you need to scream at me. Hit me. Do both. I would understand. I'd let you stand in front of me and wage war. And I'd take it."
We stared at each other.
The streetlight outside cast shadows across his face, but his eyes—those dark, steady eyes—held nothing but sincerity. Openness. A willingness to receive whatever I needed to give him.
He meant it.
Every word. Every syllable. He would sit here in this empty parking lot and let me rage at him until my voice gave out. Let me beat my fists against his chest until my arms ached. Let me scream and cry and fall apart, and he would hold every broken piece without complaint.
But I was pissed.
I'd make the same choice again.
I needed space.
I needed to think.
"Take me home."
Chapter twenty-four
Damien
"Take me home."
Three words. Flat. Final.
I pulled back onto the road without argument, the grocery store parking lot disappearing in the rearview. My hands gripped the wheel at ten and two.
I kept waiting for something—a sob, a scream, even the sharp inhale that came before tears. Something I could respond to. Something I could fix.
But Emma stared out the passenger window, her reflection a ghost against the glass.
Say something. Please.
Traffic lights blurred past. Red. Green. Red again. The city moved around us like nothing had happened, oblivious to the fact that my entire world was ripped apart at the seams.
"Emma." Her name came out rough. "Are you okay?"
She didn't answer.
