MARRIED TO MY MISTAKE

Chapter 29

POV: Damian

The rain hadn’t stopped all afternoon. It drummed softly against the windows as the office lights dimmed overhead, casting a golden wash over the room. Most of the team had already left. Only a few remained—scattered figures typing quietly, the hush almost sacred.

Rhea was still at her desk.

Damian noticed her through the glass wall of his office. She was leaning forward, fingers to her temple, scrolling through something with a slow frown. A single lamp glowed beside her, warm against the shadows.

He should’ve gone home.

But instead, he stood there, arms folded, watching her.

She moved differently when she thought no one was looking—slower, less guarded. Sometimes she blinked a few times like she was pulling herself out of somewhere else. He recognized that look. He’d worn it for years.

He didn’t realize he was walking toward her until he was already halfway across the room.

“Still here,” he said quietly, stopping at her desk.

Rhea looked up. “So are you.”

“I couldn’t leave.”

There was a pause.

Something shifted in her expression. Not surprise—just curiosity. She closed the folder in front of her. “Is everything alright?”

Damian looked at the file she had open—numbers, graphs, something with projections. But none of that mattered now.

“Can I ask you something?” he said.

She tilted her head slightly. “Sure.”

“Do you ever feel like no matter how hard you work, there’s someone... watching. Waiting. Ready to tell you it’s still not enough?”

The question seemed to catch her off guard. Her lips parted, but she didn’t speak. Not yet.

“I’ve felt that way for most of my life,” he said. “Since I was a boy, actually.”

He sat down slowly in the chair across from her. He didn’t look away.

“My father—Richard Cole—he had this way of making everything feel conditional. His love, his praise, his time. It was always earned. Never given.”

The words tasted bitter on his tongue.

“I used to try to please him. I’d memorize numbers, study reports, try to be ahead of every question he might ask. I was barely fourteen and already trying to manage portfolios—just to get a nod from him.”

He smiled, but there was no humor in it.

“Every time I did something right, he’d raise the bar. And if I made one mistake—just one—he’d look at me like I’d embarrassed the family. Like I’d failed the Cole name.”

He paused, glancing down at his hands. He hadn’t meant to say this much.

“I used to hear him yelling at my mother behind closed doors,” he said. “Telling her she was soft, that I needed discipline. That she’d ruin me if she kept coddling me.”

Rhea was still, watching him with a quiet intensity.

“She tried, you know. To stay. To protect me. But eventually, she couldn’t anymore. She left one night without saying goodbye. I heard the front door close. I waited hours for her to come back. She never did.”

His voice dropped, heavier now.

“I remember sitting on the stairs, gripping the railing so hard my knuckles turned white. My father walked past me without a glance. Said she was weak. Said I’d be better without her.”

Damian swallowed hard.

“I could’ve followed her. I knew where she was going. But I stayed. Not because I agreed with him. But because I wanted to prove him wrong. I wanted to show him I was stronger than he thought.”

He looked up, finally meeting Rhea’s eyes.

“But it didn’t work. I became what he wanted—cold, precise, in control—but he still never looked at me like a son. Only like a tool.”

The silence between them stretched, thick with emotion.

“I don’t tell people this,” Damian said quietly. “I don’t even know why I’m telling you.”

Rhea’s lips parted, but nothing came out at first. She blinked once. Then again.

Something in her had softened.

Not pity. Something deeper.

“You spent your whole life surviving someone else’s expectations,” she said softly. “That leaves marks.”

He nodded once, a faint crease forming between his brows.

“It’s why I don’t trust easily,” he admitted. “Why I keep people at a distance. There was never anyone safe to lean on. Not really.”

He leaned forward just slightly.

“But lately, I... find myself wanting to trust someone. Wanting to feel like I’m not alone in this building.”

His voice faltered.

“And for reasons I still don’t understand, that someone feels like you.”

Rhea inhaled sharply. Her heart skipped a beat, but she didn’t show it. Not fully. She shifted in her chair, suddenly aware of how small the space between them had become.

He searched her expression.

“And you?” he asked, voice low. “What about your family?”

She hesitated.

Then offered the faintest smile. “Maybe another time.”

He nodded, but the look in his eyes said he’d remember that.

And though she didn’t tell him anything that night, she knew something had changed.

She’d seen the shadow in him. The brokenness.

And for a flicker of a second, she felt something stir she hadn’t prepared for.

Not sympathy.

But connection.

And that... terrified her more than anything else.