My bedroom is exactly what you'd expect from a man who has everything and feels nothing.
Minimalist. Expensive. Cold.
King-sized bed with Italian sheets. Floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking Central Park. Abstract art that cost six figures and means nothing to me. Everything in shades of gray and black, because apparently that's what successful men are supposed to want.
Aria stands in the doorway, taking it all in. I watch her face, trying to read what she's thinking.
"It's exactly like I imagined," she finally says. "Empty."
The word hits harder than it should.
She walks to the window. Looks out at the view that's supposed to make me feel powerful. "You know what's funny? I used to fantasize about this. About seeing where you lived. Meeting your friends. Being part of your real life." She turns back to me. "You never let me in. Not once. We spent six months together and I never saw your home."
Because this was never meant to be shared. Because letting her in would've made it real. Would've made what I had to do that much harder.
"Aria—"
"What did I tell you to call me?" Her voice is sharp.
"Ms. Sterling."
"Better." She sits on the edge of my bed. My bed. Like she owns it. Which, technically, she does now. "Take off your jacket."
My hands move to my jacket before my brain catches up. Years of following orders from my father, I guess. Obedience is muscle memory.
I shrug it off. Drape it over a chair.
"The tie too."
I loosen it. Pull it over my head. My fingers feel clumsy, like I've forgotten how to undress myself.
"You're nervous." It's not a question.
"Wouldn't you be?"
She considers this. "When you seduced me, were you nervous? When you were extracting secrets from pillow talk, when you were destroying my father's company—were you nervous then?"
"Every day." The words escape before I can stop them. "I was terrified every single day."
Her eyes narrow. "Terrified of what? Getting caught?"
"Terrified of falling in love with you."
The confession hangs in the air between us. I shouldn't have said it. Shouldn't have given her that ammunition.
But it's true. God help me, it's true.
"You have a funny way of showing love." Her voice is bitter. "Destroying everything someone cares about. Disappearing without explanation. That's not love, Damien. That's terrorism."
She's right. Of course she's right.
"The shirt," she says. "Take it off."
"Aria—"
"Ms. Sterling. And that's not a request."
I unbutton my shirt slowly. Each button feels like peeling away armor. By the time I slip it off my shoulders, I feel more exposed than I have in years.
She doesn't move from the bed. Just watches me with those green eyes that used to look at me with wonder and now look at me with calculated coldness.
"You work out," she observes. "You didn't used to. Not like this."
I didn't. I started after she was gone. After Marcus Kane's funeral. Needed something to do with the guilt, the self-loathing. Turned out lifting weights until my muscles screamed was easier than thinking about what I'd done.
"Guilt makes you do strange things," I say.
"So does revenge." She stands. Walks toward me. Stops about two feet away—close enough that I could reach out and touch her, far enough that I know I'm not allowed to. "Tell me what you did."
"You already know what I did."
"I know the facts. I want to hear you say it." She crosses her arms. "I want you to confess. Detail by detail. Every lie you told. Every secret you stole. Every moment you chose ambition over humanity."
This is the real torture, I realize. Not physical pain or sexual humiliation. This. Being forced to look at my own actions without the comfortable distance of time or rationalization.
"I was hired to get close to you," I start. My voice sounds hollow. "My father's firm—they identified Kane Tech as vulnerable. Good technology, but your father was too trusting. Too ethical. They needed someone on the inside."
"So they sent you."
"So they sent me." I swallow hard. "I researched you for three weeks before Vegas. Knew your schedule, your interests, your favorite books. The conference wasn't an accident. I engineered the meeting."
Her jaw tightens but she doesn't interrupt.
"That first conversation—I'd practiced it. Knew exactly what to say to make you laugh, to make you feel seen. The kiss outside the hotel, that was..." I stop. Can't quite say it.
"Calculated," she finishes. "Everything was calculated."
"Not everything." I look at her finally. Really look at her. "The kiss wasn't supposed to feel like that. You weren't supposed to—" I break off again.
"I wasn't supposed to what?"
"Matter." The word comes out barely above a whisper. "You weren't supposed to matter."
She laughs. It's a sharp, cruel sound. "But I did. And you destroyed me anyway. Keep going."
I force myself to continue. "I dated you for six months. Got you to trust me. Every time we were together, I was listening. Cataloging. You'd mention a client meeting and I'd report it. You'd tell me about a new security protocol and I'd pass it along. You gave me everything I needed to dismantle your father's entire operation."
"And you took it." Her voice is steady but I can see her hands trembling. "You took it and you sold it and you disappeared."
"I didn't want to disappear." This is dangerous territory. Admitting this. "I wanted to run away with you. I had this fantasy where we'd just leave—go to some island somewhere, start over, pretend none of it happened."
"But you didn't."
"But I didn't." Because my father reminded me what was at stake. My mother's medical bills. The promises I'd made. The fact that I was already too deep to back out without consequences. "Three days before your father's company collapsed, my father called me. Told me it was time to close the deal and disappear. I said no."
Aria's eyes widen slightly. This part she doesn't know.
"I said no," I repeat. "I told him I was out. I'd give back the money, face whatever consequences came. I couldn't do it to you."
"But you did do it."
"Because he told me he'd cut off my mother's treatment." The words taste like ash. "She has MS. Advanced stage. The medication alone costs forty thousand a month. The facility where she lives costs another hundred. Without my father's money, she'd have nothing. She'd—" My voice cracks. "She'd suffer. Slowly. Painfully."
"So you made me suffer instead." No sympathy in her voice. "You made that choice."
"I made that choice." I can barely look at her. "I told myself I'd make it quick. Clean. That I'd disappear and you'd be angry but you'd move on. I didn't know—"
"You didn't know my father would kill himself?" Her voice is deadly quiet now. "You didn't think about the consequences beyond your own comfortable guilt?"
"I thought about it every day." I'm shaking now. Can't stop. "I went to the funeral. Stood in the back. Saw you there in that black dress, looking like you'd been hollowed out. I wanted to run to you, to explain, to—"
"To what?" She's close now, so close I can see the gold flecks in her green eyes. "To apologize? To ask for forgiveness? What exactly did you think would happen, Damien?"
"I don't know." I'm breaking. Can feel it happening. "I just know that I've regretted it every single day. Every deal I've made since then feels poisoned. Every success feels empty. I can't sleep without seeing your face. I can't—"
"Stop." Her hand comes up. Not to touch me, just to halt the words. "You don't get to make yourself the victim. You don't get to feel noble because you have regrets."
She's right. God, she's right.
"On your knees."
I blink. "What?"
"You heard me. On your knees." When I don't move immediately, she adds, "Unless you'd prefer I make that phone call?"
I sink to my knees on my own bedroom floor. The carpet is soft. Expensive. Somehow that makes this more humiliating.
She walks around me slowly. Circles like a predator.
"Do you know what the worst part was?" she says. "Not the company failing. Not even my father's death, though God knows that nearly destroyed me. The worst part was believing you loved me. That's the thing I can't forgive."
"I did love you." My voice is rough. "I do—"
"Don't." The word cracks like a whip. "Don't you dare say you love me. Love doesn't destroy. Love doesn't choose money over someone's life. Love doesn't disappear."
She's standing in front of me now. I'm on my knees looking up at her, and the power dynamic couldn't be clearer.
"Beg me," she says.
"What?"
"Beg me for forgiveness. Beg me to make this easy on you. Beg me to show you mercy." Her eyes are hard. "Because that's what I did, Damien. I begged the universe for mercy. I begged God to make it not true. I begged for you to come back. So now it's your turn. Beg."
My pride wars with desperation. Loses.
"Please." The word sounds foreign in my mouth. "Please, Aria. Ms. Sterling. Please forgive me. Please make this stop. Please—"
"Please what?"
"Please tell me how to fix this. Tell me what I can do to make this right. I'll do anything. Give you anything. Just please—" My voice breaks. "Please stop looking at me like I'm nothing."
She crouches down. We're eye-level now. Close enough that I can see the tears she's refusing to let fall.
"You want to know how to fix this?" Her voice is soft. Dangerous. "You can't. Some things can't be fixed, Damien. Some damage is permanent. But you're going to try anyway. For twenty more nights, you're going to give me everything. Your pride. Your control. Your dignity. And maybe—maybe—by the end of it, we'll both be able to move on."
She stands. Steps back.
I'm still on my knees, still shirtless, still completely at her mercy. And humiliatingly, despite everything—despite the shame and the guilt and the fear—I'm aroused. My body betraying me even as my soul is being flayed open.
She sees it. Of course she sees it.
"Pathetic." But there's something in her voice. Not quite satisfaction. Not quite disgust. Something more complicated. "You're turned on by this. By being on your knees. By giving up control."
I don't deny it. Can't deny it.
"Maybe that's what you wanted all along," she continues. "Someone to take the responsibility away. Someone to punish you so you don't have to punish yourself."
She's not wrong. God help me, she's not wrong.
"Stay there," she commands. "On your knees. Don't move until I'm gone. Don't touch yourself. Don't do anything. Just kneel there and think about what you've done. Think about the nineteen more nights you owe me."
She walks to the door. Pauses. Looks back.
"Twenty nights left, Damien. And I've barely started."
Then she's gone.
I stay on my knees because she told me to. Because I'm too broken to do anything else. My bedroom feels different now. Violated. She's been here, marked her territory, claimed it as hers.
Nothing's mine anymore. Not my home. Not my dignity. Not even my own body, which is still responding to the memory of her proximity, her power, her complete dominance over the situation.
I don't know how long I kneel there. Ten minutes. Twenty. An hour.
Eventually I stand. My knees ache. My pride aches worse.
I walk to the window where she stood. Look out at Central Park, at the city that used to feel like mine.
Twenty more nights.
Twenty more chances for her to break me down piece by piece.
And the worst part—the absolute worst part—is that I deserve every second of it.
My phone buzzes. A text from her.
Good boy. See you tomorrow night. 7 PM. Wear a suit. We're going out.
I stare at the message. Going out means public. Means witnesses. Means whatever she has planned, she wants an audience.
I should be terrified.
Instead, all I feel is anticipation.
Because for three years I've been drowning in guilt. And Aria's offering me something I didn't know I needed: penance.
Twenty more nights of it.
I can survive twenty more nights.
I have to.