You Chase Love, I Build My Empire

Chapter 2

Damien had a girl by the hand, guiding her through the doorway with the kind of gentleness I used to take for granted. He crouched down to change her shoes, and just like that, I became the third wheel in my own living room.

I let myself really look at her. Her skin was smooth and glowing.

She glanced at me with timid eyes. The moment Damien stood up, she edged half a step behind him.

Damien led her straight over to me and shot a look at the pie sitting on the table.

"I told you not to eat day-old pie," he said, frowning. "Why didn't you toss it?"

I wanted to tell him the truth, that he'd stood in pouring rain in a long line for that pie, and I couldn't bring myself to throw it out.

Before I got the chance, he kept going. "The rain's coming down hard tonight, and my car isn't downstairs. Bianca's just going to have to crash here for now."

I stayed quiet.

My silence seemed to please him. He reached into his suit jacket and pulled out a ring, like he was handing me some kind of reward.

"Bianca went out in the storm to pick this up for you. I told her not to bother, but she was worried you'd be upset waiting. Lucky for us, you're the understanding type."

So she could brave the downpour to drive ten miles out to my studio for a ring, but couldn't manage the mile back to her own place alone.

I sat on the couch with my face blank as a wall. Damien walked Bianca straight into the bedroom we used to share.

The living room dropped into dead silence. I could hear my own heartbeat skipping and stumbling, my breath coming in short, ragged bursts.

Damien wasn't wrong about one thing. Day-old pie really did make a person sick.

I pushed myself up on unsteady legs. Once I was sure no strange sounds were drifting from the bedroom, I knocked on the door.

Damien had changed into loungewear. Bianca sat obediently on the bed, wearing the matching set I'd bought for him and me.

The second Damien caught my pale face, his brow pulled tight.

He asked me what was wrong.

"Damien, my stomach's killing me," I got out. "Could you maybe..."

He scooped me up around the waist and carried me back to the couch, easing me down into a more comfortable position.

"It was the shrimp one, wasn't it?" he said, words tumbling out fast. "Your stomach's always been sensitive. Day-old seafood is no joke."

He tore into the medicine cabinet in a panic, fumbling through bottle after bottle, but nothing he pulled out was the right one.

I stared at his crouched back, my mind drifting somewhere far away.

'Damien, you didn't come home alone, but I could still bring myself to forgive you,' I thought bitterly.

Cold sweat broke across my forehead. From the bedroom, Bianca's voice drifted out, soft and breathy. It could have been a gasp or a moan.

Damien shot to his feet and bolted for the bedroom. His house slippers tripped him up halfway there, but he didn't even pause to right himself.

He asked Bianca what was wrong, his voice tight with worry. The exact same tone he had been using on me a moment ago.

I dropped my gaze to the bottle of stomach medicine lying beside the open kit, the one I always took.

He had clearly dug it out, only to leave it lying on its side. No one cared.

The bedroom door stood wide open. From where I stood, I watched Damien lift the hem of Bianca's nightgown and rub slow, gentle circles into her stomach.

"Feeling any better, baby?" he murmured.

Bianca shifted under his hand and let out a small whimper. "I'm a lot better now. I just don't know if Olivia is still mad at me.

"I thought she really wanted those rings, that's why I went out in the rain to get them. I had no idea the storm would get this bad."

Her voice grew quieter with every word, but I caught every syllable.

"If Olivia doesn't want me here, I can just go home by myself. I really don't want to come between the two of you."

Her voice came out sweet and small, laced with just enough hurt to twist the knife.

Damien melted on the spot.

He smoothed the hair back from her face. "She's fine. Don't worry about her."

Bianca's soft laugh cut clean through the muffled thunder outside the window.

"Thank you for taking care of me, Damien. I feel so much better now. Why don't you go check on Olivia?"

Damien hesitated for half a beat. Then he bent down, pressed a soft kiss to her forehead, and told her how thoughtful she was.

I lowered my eyes and refused to watch him turn back toward me.

In a haze, I caught the shape of him stooping down and picking the bottle of stomach medicine off the floor.

He held it out to me. I didn't have the strength to lift my hand. Something close to impatience hardened across his face.

From the bedroom, Bianca's voice floated out again, soft and coaxing. "Damien?"

Damien tossed the stomach meds onto the couch without looking. The bottle smacked my knee, and a low grunt slipped out of me.

He turned and dug carefully through the medicine cabinet, pulling out a heating pad and a bottle of Midol.

This was the first time he'd ever set foot in a kitchen, and it was to fix Bianca a cup of hot chocolate.

Back when I used to get cramps, he'd brushed off hot chocolate for pain as nothing but marketing nonsense, claimed it didn't help one bit.

Then he pulled up a cooking app and walked himself through making Bianca a bowl of chicken noodle soup.

It hit me, the memory of last year, when I'd been burning up with fever and couldn't keep anything down. I'd been pulling an all-nighter on design revisions and asked him for a bowl of soup.

"Soup won't help if you've got no appetite anyway," he'd said with a shrug. "Besides, I wouldn't know the first thing about making it."

I'd agreed with him at the time. There was no reason for him to learn his way around a kitchen for me. As long as one of us could cook, we'd be fine.

Turns out the proud rich boy was perfectly capable of getting his hands dirty in a kitchen. Just not for me.

I drifted off in a haze. When morning came, I opened my eyes to find Bianca staring down at me with a playful little grin.

"Oh, you're awake." She tilted her head. "Damien just called. He wants you at the office, like, now. Everyone's swamped over there, so don't go slacking off on us, okay?"