đź“– The Billionaire's Dark Secret
Chapter Five – Temptation and Shadows
Zoey couldn't sleep that night.
Back in the guest room Damian had given her, she tossed beneath silk sheets, every flicker of candlelight replaying in her head. The voices. The shadows. The way Damian's hand had seemed almost… monstrous.
Her phone buzzed on the nightstand with missed calls from her sister. Zoey ignored them, staring at the ceiling. She should leave. She knew she should. Any rational person would grab their bag, call a cab, and never look back.
But when she closed her eyes, it wasn't fear that filled her chest. It was him. Damian. The impossible power in his voice, the restrained heat in his gaze, the way he'd shielded her without hesitation.
No one had ever made her feel like that.
She hated herself for it, but the truth was undeniable: Zoey Hart was tempted.
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By morning, the mansion was unnervingly quiet. Zoey found her way to the breakfast room, where sunlight spilled across polished marble. Damian was already there, dressed in another immaculate suit, as though the night before had never happened.
"You didn't sleep," he observed, his tone more statement than question. His eyes scanned her face, lingering on the faint shadows under her eyes.
Zoey lifted her chin. "Hard to sleep with… whatever that was going on in your library."
A muscle in his jaw ticked, but he didn't answer. Instead, he set down his coffee cup and leaned forward.
"Zoey," he said, her name rolling off his tongue like a warning and a caress all at once, "you should go home. Today."
Her heart sank at the command. "You want me gone?"
"I want you safe." His voice was steel wrapped in velvet. "And staying here is the opposite of that."
Zoey's throat tightened. "Safe from what? You? Or the things that whisper in the dark?"
For the first time, Damian's carefully built composure cracked. His eyes—God, his eyes—flared with that impossible light again, molten gold beneath the surface.
"Both," he admitted, his voice low, dangerous, but tinged with something else. Regret.
The silence between them stretched, charged. Zoey should have been terrified, but instead she leaned in, drawn like a moth to flame.
"Then why did you invite me here?" she whispered.
Damian's lips curved into something that wasn't quite a smile. "Because I am a selfish man, Miss Hart. And the moment I saw you… I forgot what I am."
Her breath caught. His words landed like a confession, raw and heavy. For a dizzy second, the world narrowed to just the two of them—the sunlight, the tension, the magnetism pulling her closer.
But before she could respond, the chandelier above them flickered violently. Every lightbulb burst at once, shattering glass raining down like crystal rain.
Zoey cried out, ducking instinctively. Damian moved faster than humanly possible, pulling her against his chest and shielding her completely.
Her heart pounded against him as the storm of glass ended. When she dared to look up, his arm was still locked around her, his face far too close. She could feel the unnatural heat of his body, the unsteady rhythm of his breath.
And in his eyes burned that inhuman glow—unmasked this time, undeniable.
Zoey's voice trembled. "Damian… what are you?"
He held her gaze, and for a long, terrifying moment, she thought he might tell her the truth.
Instead, his grip tightened once more before he let her go. His face shuttered, every vulnerable crack sealed shut.
"Someone you should never have met," he said, stepping back into shadow.
And with that, he left her standing in the ruined breakfast room, glass crunching beneath her heels, her heart caught between terror and desire.
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