Off Limits

Chapter 18: An Old Number

Damian's phone rang with a name he hadn't seen on his screen in over a year, and he stared at it for a long moment before answering, old instinct making his shoulders tense before he'd even heard her voice.

"Vivian," he said, keeping his tone carefully neutral.

"Damian. It's been a while." Her voice carried the same polished, easy warmth it always had, the specific social skill that had made her so effective at every dinner party and charity gala they'd once attended together, back when they were still each other's careful public performance of a happy marriage. "I hope this isn't a bad time. I'm calling about the Whitfield Trust — some of the early investors are asking questions about the original partnership structure, and your name is still attached to several of the documents from back then."

"Send it to my legal team," Damian said. "They can handle the paperwork without needing to loop me in directly."

"I could do that." A pause, deliberate and calculated in a way Damian recognized instantly from a decade of marriage. "Or we could just have lunch, catch up properly, and I could walk you through it myself. It's been a long time since we've talked like actual people instead of exchanging documents through lawyers."

Damian felt his old caution sharpen into something more specific and wary. "Vivian, what's this actually about?"

"Can't an ex-wife simply want to see how you're doing?" Her tone stayed light, but something underneath it had gone considerably more pointed. "I heard you've been seen around the city recently. With someone considerably younger than your usual type, from what I understand. I admit, I'm curious."

There it was. Damian felt the specific, cold recognition of exactly what this call actually was — not business at all, or barely business, dressed up as a pretext for something considerably more personal. "My personal life isn't something we need to discuss," he said, keeping his voice level despite the tightening in his chest.

"Of course not. I'm simply making conversation." Vivian's laugh was light, practiced, giving away nothing. "Lunch, Damian. Thursday. Purely business, I promise, if that's what you need to hear yourself to say yes. I really do need you to look at these documents before the investors escalate this into something more complicated than it needs to be."

Damian weighed the request against every instinct telling him to avoid it entirely, and found, reluctantly, that the business justification was real enough that refusing outright would raise exactly the kind of questions with the Whitfield investors he didn't need complicating an already sensitive deal. "Thursday," he agreed finally. "Business only, Vivian. I mean that."

"Of course," she said, her tone entirely too pleased for someone simply confirming a business lunch, and Damian hung up feeling considerably more unsettled than the conversation's ostensible subject matter should have left him.

He told Elena about the call that evening, watching her expression carefully for any sign of the jealousy or worry he half expected.

"Your ex-wife wants to have lunch with you," Elena repeated slowly, processing it. "And you think it's actually about you and me, not the business thing."

"I think it's both, knowing Vivian. She's never done anything for a single reason in her life." Damian reached for her hand, needing the contact more than he was entirely willing to admit. "I want you to know about it before it happens, not find out about it after. I don't want any more secrets between us than the ones we're already carrying around Sophie."

"I appreciate that." Elena studied him for a long moment, something careful and searching in her expression. "How worried should I be? About her, I mean. Not the documents."

"Not worried," Damian said firmly. "There's nothing left between us except unfinished business logistics and, apparently, her curiosity about my personal life. I have no intention of giving her anything to actually feed that curiosity."

"Okay." Elena nodded slowly, though Damian caught the lingering trace of unease she didn't quite manage to hide. "Just — be careful, Damian. From everything you've told me, she doesn't sound like someone who plays fair when she's curious about something."

Damian pulled her closer, pressing a kiss to her temple, wishing he could offer more certainty than he actually felt about exactly how Thursday's lunch was going to go. "I will be," he said. "I promise you, Elena. Whatever Vivian's actually after, it's not going to change anything about us."

He believed it, saying it. He would think back on that particular confidence, three days later, with the specific bitter clarity of a man who'd badly underestimated exactly how far his ex-wife was willing to go once her curiosity turned into something more deliberate.