Trapped In The Billionaire’s Name

CHAPTER 5

REINA'S POV

The emergency call was a false alarm. By the time I got to the hospital, the situation had already been handled by the on-call team. Dani met me at the entrance with an apologetic grimace and told me to go home. I stood in the parking lot for a moment in the cold, coat buttoned, and thought about the fact that I'd left a dinner I wasn't ready to leave.

I thought about his hand on the table. Close to mine. Not pushing. Just there.

I walked home.

Marco was sitting on my front steps.

This is a thing he does when he's worried about me and doesn't want to say so directly. He shows up with food and acts like it was convenient.

"I brought empanadas," he said.

"It's ten o'clock."

"Empanadas don't have a curfew." He stood and held up the bag. "You went on a date with the billionaire."

I walked past him to unlock the door. "It wasn't a date."

"You wore the black top."

I stopped.

"I texted you this afternoon," he said, following me in. "You didn't answer for three hours. You always answer. So either you were in surgery, which you're not qualified for, or you were somewhere you weren't thinking about your phone." He set the bag on the counter. "How was he?"

I sat down at the table. Thought about how to answer that honestly without giving Marco ammunition.

"Different," I finally said. "From what I expected."

Marco sat across from me. His expression shifted into the one I called his *real face* — no jokes, just attention. "Different how?"

"He listens," I said. "Like actually listens, not waiting for his turn to talk. And he said things that were—" I stopped.

"True?" Marco offered.

I looked at my hands. "Uncomfortably true."

Marco was quiet for a moment. Then: "Reina. Be careful."

"I know."

"No, I mean it. Not because he's bad. I don't know if he's bad. I mean because you don't do this." He gestured vaguely at all of me. "You don't go to dinner with people. You don't think about anyone after you leave them. I can see you thinking about him right now."

I didn't deny it because Marco knows me better than anyone and lying to him is a waste of both our time.

"It's not going anywhere," I said. "We're signing dissolution papers next week."

"Then why do you look like that?"

"Like what?"

"Like someone who just realized a door exists that she didn't know was there." He pushed the empanadas toward me. "Eat. And be careful."

**************

He texted at eleven.

I was in bed, lights off, phone face down, actively not thinking about him. Then it buzzed and I knew before I flipped it over.

"The hospital. Is everything alright?”

Three seconds of staring at it. Then:

"False alarm. Everyone's fine."

The response came fast.

"I'm glad. I was going to sit there until I heard from you."

My chest did the inconvenient thing again. I sat up in the dark and typed:

“You don't have to do that.”

“I know.”

I put the phone down. I picked it up.

“Damian. What is this?"

A longer pause this time. I watched the screen. When it came the message was short and exact, which I was starting to understand was how he operated when something actually mattered to him.

“I don't know yet. But I'd like to find out. If you would."

I sat with that in the dark for a long time. The honest answer was yes. The sensible answer was no. The problem was I'd spent so many years choosing sensibly that I couldn't remember the last time I'd chosen honesty instead.

I put the phone on the nightstand without answering.

I didn't sleep for an hour.

****************

He was outside the hospital on Tuesday.

Not inside. Not at my door. Outside, on the pavement, with two coffees, leaning against a car that cost more than my annual salary with the particular stillness of someone who had decided to be somewhere and was completely at peace with that decision.

I stopped walking when I saw him.

He saw me stop. He didn't move. Just held out one of the coffees.

"I asked Lena what nurses coming off a night shift need most," he said when I got close enough. "She said coffee and nobody talked to them."

"She's right."

"So I won't talk." He offered the cup. "Just this."

I took it. Our fingers didn't touch and I noticed the not-touching with the same sharp attention I would've noticed the touching.

The coffee was perfect. I didn't ask how he knew my order because I suspected he'd found out with the same quiet thoroughness he seemed to apply to everything and I didn't want to examine how that made me feel.

We stood there for a moment. He kept his word and didn't talk.

It was the most comfortable silence I'd had with another person in years.

"The papers are ready," he said finally. "My lawyer emailed me this morning."

"I know. I got the same email."

"End of the week."

"End of the week," I confirmed.

He nodded. I looked at his coffee. "How do you feel about that?"

Loaded question. I answered it honestly because that's the only way I know. "Relieved. And something else I haven't named yet."

He looked at me then. Directly. "Me too."

"Damian—"

"I'm not asking you for anything," he said quietly. "I want to be clear about that. I'm not here to complicate your life or create a situation. I just—" He stopped. Exhaled. And for the first time, I saw something underneath the control — something that was working very hard to stay measured and wasn't entirely succeeding. "I think about our conversations when I'm in rooms full of people and nobody is saying anything real. I think about how you handed me divorce papers in your pajamas and didn't flinch. I think about the way you talked about those kids on your ward." He paused. "I think about you. And I wanted you to know that before we sign anything."

My throat was tight.

I don't do this. I don't stand on pavements at seven AM letting men dismantle my composure with honest sentences. I have a system. Keep the list short. I need less. Hurt less.

But he was looking at me and I was looking at him and the system felt very far away.

"If I let this become something," I said carefully, "and it goes wrong — I don't have a safety net, Damian. I don't have lawyers and assistants and resources. I have my job and my brother and my mother's medical bills and that's what I come back to when things fall apart."

He didn't minimize it. Didn't tell me it wouldn't go wrong. He just listened with that full, focused attention and then said the one thing that actually reached me.

"I know. And you should know that before I walked up to you this morning I sat in my car for ten minutes talking myself out of it."

"What changed your mind?"

He looked at me steadily.

"You deserved to know the truth. You've always deserved more honesty than you got from my side of this." A pause. "Sign the papers with me on Friday. And then let me take you to dinner again. A real one this time. Where neither of us leaves early."

My heart was loud in my chest.

"And if I say no?" I asked.

His jaw tightened slightly. Just enough for me to see that the answer mattered.

"Then I'll respect that," he said. "But Reina….I don't think you want to say no."