CHAPTER THIRTEEN: A ROOM WITH A VIEW
MAYA
Success looks different when you're not constantly proving your worth.
Three weeks after leaving my job, I landed a consulting contract with a women-led tech startup in Madrid. I didn't take it to impress anyone. I took it because it scared me just enough to feel like growth. And because they didn't care who I was dating.
Damian had insisted on coming along under the guise of a 'personal vacation' but really, I knew he just didn't want to miss the look on my face when I stepped into something I earned for myself.
The hotel suite had a view of the city like something out of a painting. Orange rooftops. Endless sky. Cobbled streets lined with flowers. I stood at the balcony rail and breathed it all in.
Damian appeared beside me, his shirt unbuttoned, coffee in hand. "Told you Madrid would suit you."
I turned to him. "It's not just the city. It's the fact that I got here without a title next to your name."
"You always could," he said. "You just forgot."
That afternoon, we walked the city like we weren't recognizable sunglasses, low hats, hand-in-hand like a cliché. We laughed over shared pastries. He took pictures of me pretending to be dramatic on the steps of an old cathedral.
No one whispered. No one stared. No one knew our names.
It felt like freedom.
That night, he took me to a rooftop garden lit with string lights. The table was set for two. The skyline glittered. And the wine was chilled.
He poured us both a glass and held mine for a second too long.
"You know, I've had a hundred of these dinners," he said. "But none of them felt like a beginning."
I tilted my head. "And this one does?"
He smiled. "Yeah. Because I'm not just celebrating you. I'm celebrating the fact that you still let me stand next to you."
My heart did that thing it always did around him flutter, pause, then soar.
We danced slowly under the lights. No music. Just the sound of the city below, and the quiet space between our breaths.
"You scare me," I admitted.
He leaned in. "Why?"
"Because this feels like everything I didn't believe I deserved."
He kissed the tip of my nose. "Then let's build a life that reminds you every day you do."
Two days later, I stood on a small stage, speaking to a room full of brilliant women in tech about self-worth, reinvention, and walking away from things that shrink you.
They clapped. Some cheered. One woman cried.
And when I looked toward the back of the room, Damian was there. Quiet. Hands in his pockets. Pride written all over his face.
He didn't save me.
He witnessed me.
And that, I realized, was the most romantic thing of all.
The next morning, I woke to find Damian on a video call, his expression unusually soft.
"Say good morning properly," came a voice clear, teasing, and refined.
I leaned into the screen to see a woman with silver hair in a silk robe, sitting regally in a sunlit parlor.
"Grandma," Damian said, with a boyish smile I'd never seen before. "This is Maya."
"Ah," she said, scanning me with curiosity. "The woman who makes my grandson fly across continents and miss board meetings."
I laughed nervously. "Guilty."
She leaned closer. "Tell me do you love him?"
My cheeks warmed. "Very much."
"Good," she said. "Because he's too powerful for his own good. He needs someone who keeps him grounded. Someone who isn't afraid to say no."
I smiled. "I've got that part covered."
She nodded with a regal air. "Then welcome to the madness, dear. You'll need tea. And patience. And probably a good therapist."
Damian groaned. "Grandma, really?"
But I was already laughing. Because in her blunt way, she'd just said what I'd quietly hoped for all along.
That I was seen. And I was in.
The twist would come later.
But for now? I was living in the sunlight.
And for once, not afraid of the shadow it might cast.