MARRIED TO MY MISTAKE

Chapter 26

POV: Damian

Damian sat at the head of the long conference table, eyes sharp, expression unreadable. The room was full. Legal, PR, strategy leads. Everyone was here for one reason—the Camden merger update. Eight months of delicate maneuvering, missteps, red tape, and brutal late nights had led to this phase.

Rhea sat two chairs to his right, her laptop open, a neat folder of annotated reports by her side. Her posture was steady. Composed. But he could feel the tension radiating off her.

She was ready for a fight.

He didn’t know why he noticed these things. The way she tapped her thumb against her notebook when she was calculating fast. The way she stilled completely when she sensed someone about to interrupt her. The way her eyes darkened when she knew she was right.

Damian blinked and focused.

Harold Tannen, one of the older board members, adjusted his glasses and cleared his throat. “I still don’t understand why Blackwell’s leading strategy on this. She’s been here what—eight months?”

The air changed.

Rhea didn’t flinch. She turned her head slightly, waiting.

Damian felt it before he thought it. A slow burn in his chest.

He leaned forward, voice calm, cold. “Because she’s the only one in this room who predicted Camden’s Q2 shift before it hit. She’s the one who caught the clause in the Alverton contract that would’ve cost us five million. She’s the one who ran the simulations no one else thought to model.”

Harold raised a brow. “Still. It’s a lot of responsibility for someone so—”

“Careful, Harold,” Damian cut in, sharper this time. “If you have a problem with my decisions, take it up with me. But if you question her place here again, do it with facts. Not assumptions.”

The silence that followed wasn’t loud. It was deep. Settled.

Harold backed down, muttering something under his breath and looking away.

Damian didn’t look at Rhea. He couldn’t. He didn’t want to see whatever expression was on her face right now. Grateful? Angry? Confused? He wasn’t sure he could handle it.

The meeting moved on, but his focus had already splintered.

Why did he do that?

He didn’t plan to defend her. He hadn’t rehearsed it or even realized what he was about to say. It had just happened. Instinct. Like the part of him that usually watched and calculated had taken a backseat for a moment, and something else—something more impulsive—had taken over.

By the time the meeting ended, he barely remembered what had been agreed on. People left one by one, collecting laptops and papers. Rhea stayed back a moment longer, organizing her notes.

He stood, pretending to check a message on his phone.

She passed by him without a word, but their eyes met for the briefest second.

And that second stayed with him for the rest of the day.

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Back in his office, Damian stood by the window, staring down at the floor below. His office overlooked the team level. From here, he could see every desk, every movement. Most of the floor was quiet. People were still in post-meeting conversations or at lunch.

Except for her.

Rhea was at her desk, completely still, scrolling slowly through a report on her screen. Her brows were furrowed just slightly. Her hair was pulled back today, but a few strands had come loose. She pushed one behind her ear as she focused, completely unaware that anyone was watching her.

Damian watched her for longer than he should have.

What was it about her that made him do things without thinking?

He had seen brilliance before. Ambition. Loyalty. Ruthlessness. But none of it had ever gotten under his skin like this. Rhea had all of it—yet something more. She challenged him. Disarmed him. She didn’t try to please him or impress him. And she never backed down. Not when he was cold. Not when he was unfair. Not when others questioned her.

She just held her ground.

And maybe that was what bothered him the most.

Because now he was realizing how much he liked it.

He turned away from the window and dropped into his chair, rubbing a hand over his face.

It was getting harder to pretend he didn’t care. Harder to hide the way his eyes always found her first in a room. The way her voice lingered in his head long after meetings ended.

This wasn’t part of the plan.

He wasn’t supposed to feel anything.

Not for anyone.

Especially not for her.

And yet, there was a quiet part of him—buried beneath years of structure and control—that found a strange comfort in her presence. In the silence they sometimes shared when they worked late. In the brief moments of tension that melted just a little too slowly.

He picked up a pen and clicked it twice before setting it down again.

This had to stop. Or at least slow down.

But when he glanced back toward the window, his eyes immediately searched for her desk.

She was still there. Still working.

Still completely unaware of the storm she had stirred inside him.

And Damian, for all his logic and restraint, couldn’t look away.