✨Chapter Five: Can’t Let You Go
918 Words
AVA
I didn’t sleep that night.
Not after what Celine said. Not after what Damien admitted.
He broke someone once. A woman he claimed to care about. And now I was being pulled into the same gravity well — drawn in by his heat and crushed by his cold.
So I did what I always did when my heart started to forget its armor.
I built walls.
The next morning, I showed up at the office early. Coffee in hand. No makeup. Hair in a low bun. Professional, untouchable.
The whispers started before I reached my desk.
“She came with him last night, right?”
“Did you see the dress?”
“She’s got him twisted around her little finger.”
I ignored them all.
Until he appeared in my doorway.
Damien. Impeccable as ever. Dark suit, darker mood.
“You’re avoiding me,” he said, voice low.
“I’m working,” I replied without looking up. “Isn’t that what you pay me for?”
He stepped into my office, closing the door behind him. “We need to talk.”
“No, we don’t.”
“Yes, we do.”
I stood up, hands clenched at my sides. “You told me not to expect anything real from you. I’m just taking that advice.”
His jaw tightened. “I didn’t mean—”
“You meant exactly what you said. And I get it. You don’t do love. You don’t do commitment. So let’s keep it professional.”
Silence stretched between us. The kind that hurt more than it should have.
“I don’t want professional,” he finally said.
My breath caught.
He stepped closer. “You think I don’t feel this, Ava? That I didn’t wake up all night thinking about how you looked at me before you walked away?”
“I think you’re dangerous,” I whispered.
He reached out, brushing a loose strand of hair from my cheek. “I am.”
I stepped back.
And he let me go.
For now.
---
I avoided him the rest of the week. Took lunch in the conference room. Communicated through email. Answered calls with a tone so flat it could iron shirts.
But I felt him everywhere.
He was in the scent of the cologne on the elevator. In the way my body tensed every time his voice echoed down the hallway. In the heat of memory that came flooding back every time I closed my eyes.
He wasn’t just a mistake anymore.
He was inevitable.
---
Friday evening, I stayed late to avoid him. The office was quiet, the city lights twinkling outside the window like they were mocking me.
I gathered my things and turned toward the door.
Only to find Damien standing in it.
My heart jumped. “Seriously?”
“You’ve been running from me all week.”
“Maybe I have good reason.”
“I never lied to you,” he said, voice controlled but edged with frustration. “I told you who I was. I told you I break things.”
“You think that’s some kind of virtue?”
“No. I think it’s a warning.”
“Then let me go.”
He stepped inside, closing the door. “I can’t.”
My back hit the wall as he moved closer.
“You want me to pretend nothing happened between us?” he asked, voice barely above a whisper. “That I don’t remember the sound you made when I kissed you? That I don’t replay it in my head every time you walk by?”
I shook my head. “Don’t do this.”
“You already live inside my head, Ava. I don’t get to choose. But you do.”
My chest heaved.
He leaned closer. “Tell me to stop. Tell me to walk out of this office and never look at you again.”
I stared up at him, my breath ragged. “I don’t trust you.”
“You don’t have to trust me. Just feel it.”
He reached out slowly — not touching me, not yet — but I could feel the electricity between us like a live wire.
And then…
I broke.
Our mouths met in a clash of hunger and regret. My hands tangled in his shirt. His fingers dug into my hips. It wasn’t soft. It wasn’t sweet.
It was desperate.
We kissed like people drowning.
And for a moment, it felt like we could breathe again.
---
But after, when we pulled apart, the silence between us was different.
Worse.
Damien stepped back, his eyes unreadable.
“Go home,” he said.
I flinched. “What?”
“I need to think.”
He left before I could say another word.
---
DAMIEN
The moment the door shut behind me, I punched the nearest wall.
Hard enough to feel the pain.
Because I wanted her. God, I wanted her more than I’d ever wanted anything in my life.
But wanting her would destroy her.
Like it destroyed Isabelle.
She didn’t know the full story — how dark things really got. How close I came to pulling someone I cared about into a world she didn’t survive.
And Ava?
She was already getting too close to the fire.
That kiss had changed everything.
Because now I knew one thing for certain:
If I couldn’t keep my distance…
I’d have to make sure no one else got close to her either.
- Writer
