Trapped In The Billionaire’s Name

CHAPTER 6

Reina's POV

I said yes.

Not right there on the pavement. I made him wait until I got home, changed out of my scrubs, and sat with a cup of tea long enough to convince myself I was making a rational decision and not just reacting to the way he'd looked at me when he said “I don't think you want to say no.”

Then I texted him. One word. “Friday.”

His response took four minutes, which told me he wasn't sitting there waiting. He had a life, a company, forty things demanding his attention. But when the message came back it was equally short. “I'll send the address.”

No exclamation. No excessive enthusiasm. Just acknowledgement.

I appreciated that more than I could explain.

Friday came faster than I wanted it to.

I signed the dissolution papers at two in the afternoon in a conference room on the thirty-eighth floor of Harlow Industries. Lena Park slid them across the table with the energy of a woman who had professionally survived worse. His lawyer sat on one side. Mine — Marco's friend from the neighborhood who did mostly property disputes and had never seen a room like this in his life — sat on the other.

Damian sat directly across from me.

I kept my eyes on the document.

He kept his eyes on me. I felt it the entire time — not intrusive, not possessive. Just present. Like he was memorizing something.

I signed. He signed. Lena collected everything with the efficiency of someone who had already moved on mentally.

"That's the legal end of it," his lawyer said.

"Good," I said.

Damian said nothing. When I finally looked up, he was still watching me with that particular stillness, and something in his expression was doing the thing I hadn't figured out how to be immune to yet — open, slightly careful, like he was waiting to see what I would do next.

"Seven o'clock," he said. "I'll have a car sent."

"I can take the subway."

"I know you can." A pause. "Humor me."

I considered arguing on principle. Then I thought about the thirty-eight-floor conference room and the lawyer and the dissolution of a marriage I never chose, and I decided I'd fought enough battles today.

"Fine," I said.

Something that wasn't quite a smile moved across his face.

---

He chose a restaurant that wasn't trying to impress me. That was the first thing I noticed — no chandelier entrance, no sommelier waiting at the door, no space designed to remind you how much everything cost. It was small, quiet, Italian, with low lighting and tables far enough apart that conversation stayed private. The kind of place you went to because you wanted to actually be somewhere, not to be seen.

He was already there when I arrived. Standing, not sitting. He saw me come in and something shifted in his posture — not tension releasing, more like attention sharpening.

"You look—" He stopped himself.

"Go ahead," I said, sitting down.

"I was going to say you look like yourself. Not a compliment that lands well out of context." He sat. "What I mean is — you're not dressed for the room. And I mean that entirely in your favor."

I looked at him across the table. "You researched this restaurant."

"I did."

"You thought about what I would be comfortable with."

"Is that a problem?"

"No," I said, honestly. "It's just not what I'm used to."

He picked up the menu. Set it down again. "What are you used to?"

"People who think paying attention is the same as caring."

His eyes came up to mine. "That's a very specific kind of tiredness."

"Yes," I said. "It is."

The waiter came. We ordered it without performing it. When he left, Damian leaned forward slightly, forearms on the table, and said — "Tell me something true."

I looked at him. "Right now?"

"We signed papers today that ended something neither of us started. I don't want to sit here and talk about the weather."

Fair. I thought about it. "When I was twenty-two," I said, "I failed my first clinical assessment. Not because I didn't know the material. Because the attendant asked me a question and I froze. I went home and didn't sleep for two days. Then I went back and I didn't freeze again." I paused. "Your turn."

He was quiet for a moment. "I haven't told anyone what I actually want to do with the company in three years. Not because I don't trust them. Because I realized at some point that everyone around me has a stake in my answer. So I stopped giving it."

"What do you actually want to do with it?"

He looked at me directly. "Restructure the foundation arm. Stop treating it like a PR budget. Fund things that actually need funding." A beat. "Children's hospitals. That type of thing."

My chest did the inconvenient thing.

"Why haven't you?" I asked.

"Because the board sees charity without return as liability." He paused. "And because I haven't had a reason to push that particular fight yet."

I looked at him across the table and felt something I wasn't prepared for — not attraction, though that was there and I was aware of it at a low and constant frequency. Something more specific. Recognition. The sense of a person coming into focus.

"You're not what I thought you were," I said.

"What did you think I was?"

"A man who'd never been told no and didn't know what to do with it."

Something real moved through his expression. "I was. Three weeks ago."

"And now?"

He looked at me with that steadiness that did something to my pulse every single time.

"Now I'm a man trying to learn what I actually want." A pause. "As opposed to what I've always just taken."

The food arrived.

Neither of us looked at it immediately.