Damien had built his empire on discipline.
Focus. Precision. Control.
Today, he had none of it.
"Sir?"
He didn't respond.
The skyline outside his office blurred into nothing as his mind replayed a single image Helen against the wall. Breath uneven. Eyes defiant. Lips parted just slightly.
He exhaled sharply.
Focus.
The quarterly projections sat open on his desk. Numbers he normally memorized in seconds swam meaninglessly before him.
"Helen."
He muttered her name under his breath before he could stop himself.
"Sir?"
This time the voice cut through.
Damien blinked and looked up to see his assistant, Marcus, standing across the desk, tablet in hand, expression carefully neutral.
"You've asked me to repeat the same numbers three times."
Damien straightened slightly. "I heard you."
Marcus raised an eyebrow. "With respect, you didn't."
Silence.
Damien's jaw tightened. He hated inefficiency. He hated mistakes.
He hated distraction.
And yet all he could see was the way she had almost walked toward him… and then stopped.
Almost.
That almost was driving him insane.
"Is something wrong?" Marcus asked cautiously.
"No."
Too quick.
Marcus studied him. He had worked for Damien long enough to recognize subtle shifts. The unreadable stare.
The distant gaze. The slight tension in his shoulders.
"You're… elsewhere," Marcus said carefully.
Damien leaned back in his chair, expression smoothing into something colder. Controlled.
"I'm exactly where I need to be."
Marcus didn't look convinced.
"Cancel the afternoon meeting," Damien said suddenly.
Marcus blinked. "The meeting with the investors?"
"Yes."
"That's unlike you."
Damien's gaze sharpened.
"Are you questioning me?"
"No, sir."
Good.
Marcus hesitated a moment longer. "If this is about the gala last nigh
"It isn't."
Another lie.
His assistant nodded slowly. "Of course."
When Marcus left the office, silence swallowed the room again.
Damien stood and moved toward the window, hands sliding into his pockets.
This was absurd.
He had negotiated hostile takeovers without blinking.
Dismantled competitors without hesitation.
Outmaneuvered men twice his age and three times as ruthless.
Yet one woman saying no almost saying yes had unsettled him.
He replayed it again
Her stepping forward.
Her stopping.
Her choosing herself.
He respected that.
He wanted that.
But more than anything…
He wanted to see what would happen when she finally chose him.
His phone buzzed.
Security update.
Helen arrived at work. Safe.
His jaw tightened slightly at how quickly he opened the message.
This had to stop.
He did not obsess.
He did not lose focus.
It had been two weeks.
Two weeks since the gala. Two weeks since she stepped toward him… and stopped.
Damien hadn't returned to the hotel. Hadn't "accidentally" crossed her path. Hadn't allowed himself the weakness of proximity.
Instead, he left the country the very next morning
Milan. London. New York.
Back-to-back meetings. Contract negotiations. Private acquisitions. The kind of business that normally sharpened him.
But even in boardrooms filled with powerful men, even while signing deals worth millions, she intruded.
A pause in conversation would turn into the memory of her breath catching.
A glass of champagne at a dinner meeting would remind him of her hands holding a tray.
He had crossed three time zones.
And still couldn't escape her.
"Sir?"
Damien blinked. He was back in his office now. Ravello City skyline stretching beyond the glass.
Marcus stood across from him, tablet in hand.
Damien stood, moving toward the window.
"I'm fine," he said flatly
And technically, he was.
He had maintained distance. Maintained discipline. Maintained control.
He had not gone back to see her.
That should have been the end of it.
But distance hadn't weakened the pull.
It had sharpened it.
Two weeks without seeing her smile. Two weeks without testing that resistance in her eyes. Two weeks without knowing if she had thought about him even once.
His fingers curled slightly in his pocket.