The hotel hallway was lit like a runway, but it felt more like a walk of shame or maybe victory, I couldn't tell anymore. Damien's hand brushed against mine as we walked side by side, not touching but not apart either. The scent of him lingered on my skin cedar wood, leather, and something darker. Something that still pulsed between my legs.
No one said a word. Not the concierge who stood a little too straight as we passed. Not the security who averted their eyes like they hadn't just watched the elevator freeze on the fifteenth floor for seven straight minutes. And definitely not Damien.
His jaw was locked in that unreadable way, the mask slipping back into place CEO mode. But I could feel the tension still coiled in his body. His hand flexed at his side like it missed being wrapped around my throat. We reached the suite. He unlocked the door. I stepped in first.
The room was quiet. Too quiet. No champagne. No soft jazz. No staff prepping midnight snacks or floral-scented towels. Just silence. Damien closed the door behind him, clicked the lock, then turned to face me.
I took a step back, but he didn't follow. He just stared like I was something he wanted to devour, and couldn't decide whether to kiss me again or cut me loose.
I broke the silence first. "Are you going to pretend that didn't happen?"
He didn't blink. "It didn't happen."
A slow laugh escaped me, sharp and bitter. "You just fucked me in an elevator, Damien."
He stepped closer. "Correction. I owned you in an elevator."
My breath caught. He didn't stop moving.
"But you're right," he said softly. "It shouldn't have happened."
"Then why did it?"
He didn't answer. I didn't expect him to because Damien Alexander Valerius didn't answer to anyone not even the truth. I turned to walk away, needing distance, needing to remember who the hell I was before he started peeling layers off me like silk but his voice stopped me cold.
"Did you come?" he asked.
I froze.
Slowly, I turned. "What?"
His eyes gleamed. "When I fucked you in that elevator. Did you come?"
My heart thundered.
"I need to know," he said, crossing the space between us in two slow, calculated steps. "Because if you didn't we're doing it again. Right now."
I didn't reply. He reached out, fingers trailing over the strap of my dress again.
"Did you?" he murmured.
I swallowed hard. "Yes."
"Say it."
"I came, Damien."
His jaw flexed. "Good."
He let the strap go and then, just like that, he turned and walked toward the bar, as if we'd just talked about the weather. I stood there trembling, furious and aroused, hating how much power he held and worse, how much I kept handing him willingly.
He poured himself a drink. Whiskey. No ice. He didn't offer me one.
"Go to bed, Isla," he said without looking at me. "We have a breakfast meeting at eight."
That was it. Dismissed. I stormed past him without another word and slammed the bedroom door but I didn't sleep because the truth was… I didn't want the sex to stop. I wanted more and that terrified me more than anything.
I woke up before the alarm. I hadn't slept at all. Hard to tell when your mind spins like a storm you can't escape. The sheets smelled like him expensive cologne and sin and the imprint of what we did still throbbed between my thighs, a raw, pulsing reminder that I'd crossed a line I couldn't uncross. A line I didn't even want to uncross and that was the real problem.
I rolled out of bed, my body aching in the best and worst ways, and padded barefoot into the bathroom. The lights flicked on automatically, too bright, too sterile, too real. I stared at my reflection. My lips were swollen. My neck bore faint marks from his mouth, from his hands invisible bruises from where his control dug into me.
I didn't look like myself and no contract, no rule, no carefully stacked boundary between us could disguise that truth anymore. I showered in silence. Fast. No steam. No illusions. Just hot water and soap and the vague hope it could rinse away whatever hold Damien Valerius had over me but it didn't.
It clung like a second skin. The suite was quiet when I walked out in a soft blouse and skirt, hair pinned up, heels clicking against marble. He was already dressed of course in a crisp black suit and silver tie, reading something on his phone at the bar like the night before hadn't even happened.
No tension. No guilt. No desire. Just Damien. Untouched. Unbothered. Un-fucking-fair. He looked up, eyes sweeping over me once not lingering, not reacting before he slipped the phone into his pocket and gestured toward the door.
"We're late."
"For what?"
"Your first official appearance as my fiancée."
My pulse skipped.
"Public appearance?" I asked, following him out.
He didn't even glance back. "You signed the contract. You knew this was coming."
Right. The contract. The fiction we were both pretending to believe. The lie I was starting to live a little too well.
The car ride to the event was a blur of fast turns and silence, broken only by the distant hum of classical music and the tapping of Damien's fingers on his knee a habit I was starting to recognize meant he was thinking too hard, too fast, about something he didn't want to say out loud.
He looked at me finally. "You'll stay close to me. Smile. Speak only when spoken to. You're here to be seen, not heard."
My jaw clenched. "Right. Because I'm a trophy."
His lips twitched, not quite a smirk. "No. You're the illusion of something I can't have."
I blinked. "What the hell does that mean?"
But he didn't answer. Just turned his head to look out the window again, shutting me out with a quiet so complete it felt like punishment. The event was at a private gallery all glass walls and sharp suits, curated to intimidate.
Damien owned the room before we even walked in. People turned. Murmured. Cameras flashed and then their eyes found me his fiancée. His chosen one. The mystery woman they hadn't seen in any magazine, hadn't googled, hadn't dissected in fashion columns.
I didn't exist until he made me real. Until he claimed me. He held my hand like it meant nothing. Like it didn't tremble inside his. We moved through the space like chess pieces, stopping only when it was strategic. I was introduced to board members, clients, rivals all with tight smiles and calculated nods. And all of them looked at me like they were trying to decode the secret of my existence.
"Isla, this is Marcus Hwan," Damien said at one point, his grip subtly tightening on my waist as the man kissed my knuckles too slowly.
"I've heard so much about you," Marcus said with a sly smile.
"All lies, I'm sure," I replied with a polite smirk.
Damien's hand slipped lower, resting on the small of my back. Possessive. Subtle. But deliberate. Marcus glanced at it. "You're a lucky man."
Damien's eyes didn't leave mine. "I know."
The moment passed but the tension didn't. Hours later, we were finally alone again. The car doors closed. The engine started. And the city lights turned into streaks against tinted glass.
"You played your role well," Damien said quietly.
I bit back the retort. "That's what you paid me for, isn't it?"
His jaw twitched.
"I didn't pay for what happened in that elevator."
My chest tightened. "Then stop acting like you regret it."
"I do regret it."
The words cut sharper than I expected.
"Because it was unprofessional?" I asked.
"Because it was real," he said.
Silence fell like a dropped knife. I turned away, staring out the window even though all I saw was my own reflection this new version of me. Dangerous. Desired. Used.
"You can stop this, you know," I said after a while. "Let me go. Find someone else to wear the ring and play your game."
"No," he said instantly. "No one else touches you."
I faced him, heart pounding. "You can't have it both ways, Damien."
"I will have it both ways," he growled. "Because I bought both ways. The contract. The performance. The sex."
My breath caught.
"And if I decide I want more?" I whispered.
He didn't blink. "Then you'll have to survive it."
Back at the suite, I walked ahead of him, heading straight for the bedroom. This time, he followed. No words. No excuses. Just tension stretched tight enough to snap. He shut the door behind us. Stared at me like I was his next mistake. I turned to face him.
"You regret it?" I asked again.
His hand reached out. Tangled in my hair. Fisted it gently.
"No," he said hoarsely. "I regret not doing it sooner."
Then he kissed me. Hard. Hungry. Like regret was just another lie.
His mouth was a contradiction punishment and apology wrapped in heat and I let him have me again. There, against the door of the suite he owned, under lights he didn't turn off, in a life I didn't belong to. For those minutes, those greedy, gasping, shattering minutes... I didn't care. When Damien kissed me like that, I didn't feel like a contract.
I felt like a fire only he could put out. He didn't undress me delicately. He peeled me open like a secret he couldn't wait to spill, his fingers rougher this time, his mouth hungrier, his hands not asking but taking and I gave every part of me.
Every moan, every scratch, every plea until I was nothing but skin and surrender. After, I lay across his chest, breath shaky, skin damp, heart traitorous. He didn't speak. Didn't move but his hand was in my hair, stroking once, twice…then still. thought maybe, just maybe, that meant something.
I almost whispered "What are we doing?" But I didn't because I didn't want the answer.
I woke again hours later alone. The sheets were cool and his scent lingered like smoke. A note sat on the nightstand, scrawled in ink that looked too controlled for someone who touched me like that:
8:30 AM Conference room. Look like a CEO's fiancée, not a scandal. I stared at the paper, rage rising hot in my throat.
Not "good morning." Not "last night meant something." Not even "thank you." Just instructions. Orders. An identity. I wasn't sure which stung more the arrogance or the accuracy.
I arrived downstairs ten minutes late, on purpose. Hair curled. Red lips. Fitted black dress that hugged like a dare. His jaw twitched the moment he saw me.
"You're late," he said, voice flat but eyes alive.
"You said look like your fiancée. I assumed that came with fashionably late."
"You assumed wrong."
I smiled sweetly. "Then dock my fake salary."
The corner of his mouth twitched. Not a smile . The meeting was full of men who wore power like cologne and women who smiled with their teeth clenched. Damien didn't introduce me to anyone. He didn't need to. They all already knew who I was or thought they did.
Valerius's woman. The one who landed the impossible ring. The one who could ruin him with a whisper. The way Damien's hand occasionally brushed my lower back? It wasn't protective. It was possessive like he was warning the room that even if I was a pawn, I was his pawn. And anyone who touched me wouldn't walk away clean.
After the meeting, as the board members filtered out, I leaned into him, lips near his ear.
"Do they know it's fake?" I asked.
His jaw clenched. "No."
"Do they care?"
"No."
"Do you?"
He turned to me slowly, eyes unreadable.
"I care that they believe it."
"That's not what I asked."
"I know," he said quietly. "But it's the only answer I can give."
We walked back to the car in silence again this time, he opened the door for me. I didn't thank him.
Back at the suite, I went to the bedroom and packed a bag. Not to leave. Not yet but to remind myself that I could. That I wasn't his possession no matter how deep he was inside me, no matter how many nights he made me forget where I ended and he began. He found me there, folding a black lace bra I knew he liked.
"You're not leaving."
I didn't look at him. "Did I say I was?"
"You packed."
I zipped the bag. "Because I wanted to remember I still had a choice."
He moved closer. Too close.
"I don't want to own you, Isla."
"Funny," I said, looking up. "You act like you already do."
He stepped back. That shook him more than it should have.
"I don't want to hurt you," he said finally.
"But you will," I replied.
We both knew it. We just didn't know how soon.
He didn't follow me when I left the room. Maybe that was his form of mercy. Or maybe it was punishment. I wasn't sure anymore. I sat on the edge of the second bedroom the one I hadn't touched since the night I moved in staring at the clean sheets, the untouched wardrobe, the sterile perfection of it all.
A fake life to match our fake engagement but nothing about Damien felt fake when he was inside me. When he whispered filth against my skin. When his eyes darkened like he wanted to consume me. That part the lust, the obsession that was real. Too real and that was the danger.
By evening, the tension between us was thick enough to cut. He emerged from his office, sleeves rolled up, the line of his jaw locked tight. He didn't say anything at first just poured two drinks and held one out. I took it because I wasn't stupid enough to face him sober.
He leaned against the edge of the bar, eyes on mine. "Tell me what you want, Isla."
I snorted. "You wouldn't give it to me."
"Try me."
"I want to know why you're doing this."
He didn't blink. "Doing what?"
"This." I gestured between us. "Fucking me like I'm everything and then treating me like I'm nothing."
His jaw twitched.
"You think I don't see it?" I went on, bitter now. "That your hands can't stop touching me but your heart won't come close?"
A pause.
Then, "I never promised you my heart."
"No," I said quietly. "But you act like you already broke it."
Silence. Then he downed his drink in a single swallow.
"I warned you from the start," he muttered.
"No," I said, stepping closer. "You handed me a contract and thought that would be enough to protect you. But you're not safe, Damien. Not from me."
His eyes flared. "That a threat?"
"It's a fact."
And then I kissed him. Hard. Reckless. Daring him to feel something. He responded like a man unravelling. We didn't make it to the bedroom. The hallway became the battlefield my dress shoved up, his shirt half-unbuttoned, our mouths warring between pain and passion and still, he didn't say my name.
Later, when our bodies lay tangled on the cold floor and I stared up at the chandelier that glittered like judgment, I finally asked the question I'd been choking on.
"Have you ever been in love?"
He was quiet for a long time.
Then: "Once."
I rolled to my side. "What happened?"
"She chose someone safer."
"Did you love her?"
He looked at me then really looked.
"I thought I did."
"And now?"
He didn't answer and maybe that was the answer. I left him there on the floor and took a shower so hot it nearly scalded. When I emerged, a fresh robe clung to my damp skin, my hair twisted up like armour. Damien was sitting on the edge of the bed, still shirtless, hands clasped between his knees.
"I'm not him," he said.
It took me a second to realize he meant someone else. Someone from my past.
"I never said you were."
"But you look at me like you're waiting for me to turn into him."
"No," I whispered. "I'm waiting to see if you'll turn into someone worse."
His shoulders tensed.
Then, in a low, tired voice, "I already have."
That night, we didn't touch. We slept on opposite sides of the bed like strangers pretending not to miss each other. Like lovers pretending they never burned and as the city lights bled through the windows and his breath slowed beside me, I realized the scariest part wasn't that he could hurt me.