Dinner felt normal. That was the strange part.
I sat across from Damien at the long oak table, eating silently, pretending I hadn't spent half the night staring at that portrait of him, the woman, and the little girl. Pretending I wasn't haunted by the fact that he never mentioned them. Pretending I hadn't felt someone watching me afterwards.
I pushed my food around the plate, barely tasting it.
He noticed. Of course he noticed. But he said nothing.
The silence between us wasn't cold anymore. It felt heavier than that. He let me pretend. I wondered why.
I didn't expect him that night.
When my bedroom door opened, I thought it was Lora bringing another set of towels. I sat up quickly, pulling the blanket tighter around myself.
But it was him.
Damien stood in the doorway for a moment, saying nothing.
Then he stepped inside and closed the door.
I couldn't breathe.
"I can't sleep," he said simply.
I stared at him. Waiting.
"I thought I could."
His voice wasn't like before. It wasn't controlled or sharp. It was raw.
"I thought I could sleep with the past locked away. But I can't."
I said nothing.
He sat on the edge of my bed like it was something he had done before. Like it wasn't strange at all. His shoulders looked heavier tonight, like whatever strength he usually wore was gone.
"I owe you an explanation."
I kept holding the blanket tightly around me, but I whispered, "About what?"
"My family."
I flinched, but I didn't stop him.
He looked down at his hands.
"I was married. Years ago. Her name was Celeste."
The name didn't sound like a secret.
"She and our daughter were everything to me."
He paused.
I felt my heart sink before he even said it.
"They died in a plane crash. A flight I was supposed to be on."
His voice cracked. I felt it more than I heard it.
"I changed my meeting last minute but I had no idea that my life was also about to change"
He looked up, and his eyes weren't cold anymore. They were something worse.
Empty.
"I watched the news from my office. Forty-six passengers. No survivors."
I didn't realize I was crying until I tasted salt.
"I'm sorry," I whispered, my voice breaking.
He nodded once, like it barely mattered anymore.
"I should have told you before."
I reached for his hand before I could think. His fingers were cold. Mine trembled as they wrapped around his.
For a moment, he didn't react.
Then he held my hand back.
Not possessively. Not forcefully.
Just… held it.
"I'm sorry, Damien," I whispered again.
"I know."
Silence filled the room.
I felt it shift.
The distance between us changed.
Slowly, his free hand reached up. He brushed a tear from my cheek with a thumb that hesitated, then moved softly.
And then he kissed me.
It wasn't rushed. It wasn't desperate.
It was slow. Careful. Like he was asking something without words.
When he pulled back, his breathing was uneven.
"I shouldn't."
"Don't stop."
I heard my own voice. Soft but certain.
He kissed me again.
I didn't think. I didn't plan. I just let him.
I let him pull me closer, let his hand move up to cradle the back of my neck. I felt him trembling slightly. Damien Voss was trembling.
His lips grazed my jaw, then my neck.
He stopped suddenly, breathing heavily against my skin.
"Are you okay?" he whispered.
I answered him by kissing him again.
My fingers found the buttons of his shirt, loosening them slowly, carefully. He let me.
His skin was warm under my hands, and when he kissed me this time, it wasn't hesitant.
It was real.
It wasn't passion in the way I remembered from Liam. It wasn't hunger.
It was something else.
Need.
I didn't know who kissed who harder. Or when the kisses became something we both stopped controlling.
I only knew I needed to feel human again.
He made me feel human.
And maybe, for him, I did the same.
We collapsed together, not as lovers but as people who had lost too much.
When it ended, neither of us spoke.
Our breathing slowed. Our bodies touched but our minds did not.
For the first time in weeks, I didn't feel alone.
And for the first time, I wondered if he didn't either.
I didn't fall asleep.
But I let him hold me.
Because we both needed something neither of us could name.
Not yet.
In the quiet hours before morning, long after I thought he was asleep, Damien whispered one sentence I would never forget.
"Everything I lost… I don't think I can lose again."
His voice cracked at the end.
And in that moment, I didn't know if he meant his past.
Or me.