Trapped In The Billionaire’s Name

CHAPTER 23

Damian's POV

She woke up at six. I was already up, I'd been awake since five, which was usual, but I'd stayed on the other end of the couch rather than move to my desk because I hadn't wanted to leave. That was new behavior I wasn't going to examine too closely.

She came back to full consciousness the way she did everything, quickly, without the disoriented phase most people went through. One moment asleep, the next sitting up and present, my jacket still around her shoulders.

She looked at me. Then at the window. Then back.

"You stayed," she said.

"It's my apartment."

"You know what I mean." She wasn't accusatory. Just precise. "You could have gone to bed."

"I know."

She looked at me for a moment with the morning version of her expression, the composure slightly softer, the careful architecture not yet fully assembled for the day. I was aware that very few people had ever seen this version of her and that I was sitting six feet away from it and needed to not make anything of that in a way that would make her self-conscious.

"I need to go home," she said. "I have a shift at eight."

"There's coffee," I said. "And I can have the car ready in twenty minutes."

She stood, folded my jacket, set it on the couch with the neatness of someone who'd been raised to leave spaces better than she found them. "You slept out here all night."

"I slept fine."

"Damian."

"It wasn't a sacrifice," I said. "I wanted to be in the same room. That's all."

She looked at me steadily. Something in her face was doing the thing where she was receiving something she hadn't expected and deciding what to do with it. Then she picked up her bag and went to the kitchen.

I followed. Made coffee. We stood on opposite sides of the island the way we had the night before but the morning had a different quality — quieter, more unguarded. Like the day hadn't yet required us to be the versions of ourselves we showed the world.

I liked her like this. I liked her every way I'd seen her. But this was something I hadn't expected to get and now that I had it I understood it was the most honest version — the self before the armor.

"The statement," she said. "How many pickups?"

"Forty-something by midnight. Lena's tracking." I poured her cup first. "The framing has shifted. Celeste's piece is being contextualized against the fraud proceedings now. It's reading as it is."

"A distraction attempt," she said.

"Yes."

She wrapped her hands around the cup. "What's her next move?"

"I've been thinking about that." I leaned against the counter. "She has two levers left. The board relationships she's built over twenty years — she'll try to use those to slow the estate proceedings. And Vivienne."

Reina looked up. "What does Vivienne do for her?"

"Vivienne has a history with me that Celeste can use to complicate the public narrative. A discarded fiancée, an arranged marriage document, a new woman — it writes itself into something messy if she pushes it."

"Have you spoken to Vivienne since this started?"

"No."

"You should." She said it directly, no undercurrent in it. "Not for the narrative. Because she deserves to hear the truth from you before Celeste uses her."

I looked at her. "That's a generous position toward a woman who wants me back."

"I'm not worried about Vivienne," she said simply. "I'm thinking about what's right." She met my eyes. "She was with you for two years. She didn't do anything wrong. Celeste is going to tell her a version of this that serves Celeste. You should get there first."

The particular quality of her thinking — it wasn't just intelligence, it was a kind of ethical clarity that ran underneath everything she did. She saw situations completely, including the parts that didn't directly benefit her.

"Alright," I said.

"Today," she said.

"Today," I agreed.

She finished her coffee. Set the cup in the sink. Picked up her bag. At the kitchen doorway she stopped and turned back.

"Last night helped," she said. "Being here. I want you to know that."

"I know," I said.

"I don't say things like that easily."

"I know that too."

She held my gaze for a moment. "You're going to be difficult to get used to."

"You've been managing fine."

"I've been managing by not thinking about it too directly." The corner of her mouth moved. "It's a system."

"Is it working?"

She looked at me. "Less and less," she said. And walked out.

Vivienne agreed to meet at noon.

She was already at the table when I arrived — composed, well-dressed, the particular surface of a woman who had prepared for a difficult conversation and wasn't going to let it show. We'd spent two years together and I knew her tells as well as she knew mine.

"You look well," she said.

"You too." I sat. "Thank you for coming."

"You said it was important." She folded her hands. "Is this about the filing?"

"Yes. And about what Celeste may ask of you."

Something crossed her face. Brief. "She called me Monday."

"I know."

"She was careful about it. Framed it as a concern." Vivienne's voice was even. "She wanted to know if I'd be willing to speak to a journalist about our relationship. The timeline. The proposal that didn't happen."

"What did you tell her?"

"That I'd think about it." She looked at me directly. "I haven't decided."

"I'm not here to pressure you," I said. "I'm here because you deserve the actual story before you make that decision." I paused. "Everything that's on record is true. The marriage document was forged. Reina had no involvement. Celeste targeted her deliberately."

Vivienne was quiet.

"She used our relationship too," I said. "The timing of the proposal — she knew. She moved before I could."

"She didn't want you settled," Vivienne said slowly. "With someone she hadn't chosen."

"No."

Vivienne looked at the table. Something was processing behind her composed expression — not grief exactly, more like the reorganization of a timeline that had just been reframed entirely.

"Were you going to propose?" she said quietly.

Honest question. She deserved honesty. "Yes," I said. "And I think we both know it would have been the right decision on paper."

"And the wrong one underneath," she said.

I said nothing. Because she was right and she knew it and she didn't need me to confirm it.

She was quiet for a moment. Then she looked up.

"I won't talk to the journalist," she said. "Celeste doesn't get to use me."

"Thank you."

"Don't thank me. I'm doing it for myself." She picked up her bag. At the edge of the table she paused. "The nurse," she said. "Reina."

"Yes."

She looked at me with the clear-eyed assessment of a woman who knew me well enough to see past what I showed.

"You look different," she said. "I noticed it the moment you sat down."

I didn't answer.

She nodded once. Like that was the answer.

Then she left and I sat in the quiet of the restaurant and thought about what it felt like from the inside.

Like something true, I thought. For the first time in a long time.