Trapped In The Billionaire’s Name

CHAPTER 9

Damian's POV

I didn't sleep well.

Not because of Celeste, though that was there, a cold and methodical anger I was keeping on a very short leash until I knew more. But because of Reina. The specific kind of sleeplessness that comes not from worry but from a mind that keeps returning to a person the way a tongue returns to a sore tooth. Involuntary. Persistent.

I kept thinking about the way she'd said “I'm used to that” when I told her I didn't like her carrying things alone. No self-pity in it. No bid for sympathy. Just a fact she'd long since made peace with that I hadn't been able to make peace with on her behalf.

That was new. Caring about someone's past hardships as a personal inconvenience to me.

I was in the office by six. Lena was already there, which meant she'd either never left or she'd received an alert that required early intervention.

"You look like you didn't sleep," she said.

"Good morning, Lena."

"The dissolution filed clean. No press picked it up yet." She handed me a tablet. "Celeste called your assistant twice yesterday afternoon. She wants a family dinner Sunday."

I kept my expression neutral. "Tell Elena to confirm it."

Lena looked at me over her glasses. "You hate family dinners."

"I know."

"The last time you attended one voluntarily was your father's birthday in 2021."

"Lena."

"Confirming," she said, and walked out.

I sat down and spent thirty minutes doing what I should have done two years ago when Julian first raised his suspicions — pulling everything I could find about Celeste's activity during the three weeks I was unconscious. Quietly. Through channels she didn't know I had access to.

What I found in the first hour was enough to make my jaw tight for the rest of the day.

---

Reina texted at noon.

Not about dinner. Not about anything personal. A link to a published study on pediatric ward funding models in mid-size hospitals, with a single line beneath it.

*"The methodology section is relevant to your foundation restructure. Thought you'd want it."*

I sat with my phone for a moment.

She'd remembered. A thing I'd said once, briefly, in the middle of a conversation about something else entirely, and she'd filed it away and come back to it twenty-four hours later with something useful attached.

I typed back: *"You researched this for me."*

*"I had fifteen minutes between patients. Don't make it a thing."*

*"Too late."*

A pause. Then: *"How's the quiet investigation going."*

Not a question — a check-in. Direct and practical, which was so entirely her that I felt something pull tight in my chest.

*"Early. I need more before I move."*

*"Good. Patience."*

*"You're coaching me."*

*"Someone has to."*

I looked at that for longer than was professionally appropriate. Then I put the phone down, picked it up again, and typed: *"Are you free Thursday evening."*

The response took a few minutes. Long enough that I registered the wait, which was irritating because I didn't wait for things.

*"I have a shift until seven."*

*"Eight o'clock then."*

Another pause.

*"This isn't very 'think about it' behavior from me."*

*"No,"* I typed. *"It isn't."*

*"Fine. Eight."*

I put the phone down and got back to work. But the thing that had been sitting in my chest since last night settled into something that felt less like tension and more like direction. Like a compass finding north.

---

Thursday came.

She was already outside when the car arrived, which told me she'd timed it to avoid the moment of being picked up — the dependency of waiting. I noticed these things about her. The small structural choices she made to maintain her own footing. I didn't comment on them. I just adjusted around them, and the adjusting felt less like strategy and more like wanting to.

She got in. Dark coat, hair down. She smelled like something clean and faint and I did not let myself think about it.

"Where are we going?" she asked.

"Not a restaurant."

She looked at me.

"I wanted to show you something," I said. "You can tell me if it's too much."

She held my gaze for a moment, reading me the way she did — that particular attention that felt like being seen by someone who was actually looking. "Okay," she said.

We drove uptown. When the car stopped she looked out the window at the building and then back at me.

"This is a hospital," she said.

"The Harlow Foundation owns the top two floors. It's been sitting as office space for three years because the board couldn't agree on use allocation." I paused. "I've been thinking about converting it to a pediatric research and care unit."

Reina was very still.

"I looked at the funding study you sent," I said. "The methodology maps almost exactly to what this building could support. Thirty beds, minimum. Outpatient capacity. Research partnership with three universities if we structure it right."

"Damian." Her voice was quiet.

"I'm not doing this because of you," I said, which was partially true. "I'm doing it because it's the right use of the asset and I've known that for two years and haven't pushed hard enough." I looked at her. "But I wanted you to see it. Because you'd understand what it could be better than anyone I know."

She looked back at the building. I watched her face — the composure still there but something moving underneath it, something she was deciding whether to let out.

"How many kids are on the waitlist at your hospital right now," I said.

"Forty-seven," she said immediately. "Eleven critical."

"That's what I thought."

She turned to me. And for the first time since I'd met her the careful distance in her eyes was completely gone — not replaced by softness exactly, but by something open and unguarded and entirely real.

"You're making it very hard," she said quietly.

"I know," I said. "I'm doing it on purpose.”