Trapped In The Billionaire’s Name

CHAPTER 16

Reina's POV

I told Marco on Saturday, not everything, the legal specifics were still in motion and I wasn't going to hand him information that could move before Monday. But enough. The marriage, Celeste, the deliberate targeting, the endowment. Marco sat at his kitchen table and listened without interrupting, which for Marco meant it was serious because normally he had commentary on everything in real time.

When I finished he was quiet for a full minute.

Then: "She walked into your hospital."

"Yes."

"She looked at you specifically. Studied you for three months. Decided you were someone who wouldn't fight back."

"Yes."

He stood up and walked to the counter and stood there with his back to me for a moment. I let him have it. Marco's anger ran hot and then burned clean and interrupting the process never helped.

"And him," he said, without turning around. "Where is he in all of this?"

"Filing Monday. He has everything he needs."

"That's not what I asked."

I looked at my hands. "Marco."

"Where is he with you, Reina." He turned around. His face was the real face — no deflection, no jokes. "Because you called me on a Saturday to tell me this man is coming to lunch tomorrow and you haven't mentioned a person socially to me in four years. So where is he."

The honest answer was somewhere I hadn't fully mapped yet. Somewhere that felt significant and terrifying in equal measure and kept getting more of both every time I was in the same room with him.

"I don't know yet," I said.

"Does he know that you don't know?"

"He's waiting until Monday. After the filing."

Marco studied me. "And what happens Monday?"

"He wants to talk about what this is."

Silence. Then Marco sat back down, slowly, and looked at me with the expression that meant he was choosing his words carefully.

"You like him," he said.

"Yes."

"Like actually. Not just—"

"Yes, Marco. Actually."

He nodded. Processed. "Is he good to you?"

"Yes."

"Does he listen?"

"He listens better than anyone I've met."

"Does he make you feel like you have to be smaller than you are?"

"No," I said. "The opposite."

Marco was quiet for a moment. "Okay," he said.

"Okay?"

"I'm still going to interrogate him tomorrow." He picked up his coffee. "But okay.”

Damian arrived at noon exactly, not in a suit. Dark jeans, a simple grey pullover, which told me he'd thought about what I said and taken it seriously. He looked different without the armor of the office — not less, just more visible somehow. Like the clothing had stopped doing work and the person was just present.

Marco answered the door before I could get there.

The two of them stood in the doorway for a moment — Marco doing his assessment with the thoroughness of someone who had been the only man in my life for a long time, and Damian meeting it without flinching or performing.

"Marco," Damian said. "Thank you for having me."

"I didn't invite you," Marco said pleasantly. "My sister did. Come in."

I watched Damian process that and decide it was fair. He came in.

The apartment was everything his world wasn't — small, warm, loud with the smell of food and the comfortable disorder of a home that he actually lived in. I watched him take it in without the particular discomfort of someone encountering a different economic register. He just looked at it the way he looked at everything — with attention.

"Sit," Marco said, pointing at the table. "I made food."

"It smells good," Damian said.

"It is good." Marco set plates down. "My mother's recipe. Reina can't cook so she had to learn to eat well wherever she could." He sat across from Damian. "You know how to cook?"

"No."

"Honest answer." Marco served himself. "What do you know how to do besides run a company?"

"Less than I should," Damian said. "More than I knew before the last few weeks."

Marco paused and looked at him. "What does that mean?"

"It means I've spent a long time being competent at things that don't require other people." A pause. "I'm learning that's a limited way to operate."

I kept my eyes on my plate. That answer was going to cost him nothing with Marco and Damian probably knew it, but the thing was — it wasn't strategic. I'd been around him enough now to know the difference between Damian managing a room and Damian just saying something true.

Marco ate. Let the silence sit for a moment. "She told me what happened. What that woman did."

"Yes," Damian said.

"You're filing Monday."

"Monday morning. It's complete."

"And Reina." Marco's voice shifted. "When this is done. What happens to her in your world."

The table went quiet. I looked up.

Damian looked at Marco directly. "I don't know the full answer to that yet. What I know is that she matters to me in a way I'm not interested in minimizing or managing. And that whatever happens, it happens on her terms."

Marco studied him. A long time. The particular assessment of a man who had raised his sister and knew every way a person could be let down.

"She doesn't need rescuing," Marco said.

"I know," Damian said. "She's the most capable person I've ever met. I'm not here to rescue her."

"Then what are you here for?"

Damian paused. Looked at me briefly — just a glance, but it carried everything — and then back to Marco.

"To be worth her time," he said. "That's all I'm working toward."

Marco was quiet. He picked up his fork. Ate.

Then: "You want more food?"

"Yes," Damian said.

Marco served him without ceremony. I looked at my plate and felt something loosen in my chest that had been held tight for a very long time.

Under the table Damian's knee was close to mine. He didn't move it. Neither did I.