The Alpha's Forbidden Pact

CHAPTER 22: NOT A CHILD

I followed him into the hallway before he could reach the stairs.

Damaris stopped when I said his name, but he did not turn around at first. His hand rested on the banister. The line of his shoulders was rigid.

“We are not finished,” I said.

“Yes, we are.”

“No.” I closed the distance until only a few feet separated us. “You do not have to issue an order like that and walk away. Not after what just happened in that study.”

He turned. The control on his face was back, but it looked forced, like something he had pulled on in a hurry.

“I made a security decision. That is the end of the discussion.”

“It is not about security. You pulled Julian off my detail because I was alone with him. Because something happened in that office that you cannot control the way you control everything else in this house.”

“You were gone too long. The Council is already looking at that building. Every extra minute you spent behind a locked door with him made the risk worse.”

“That is the reason you are telling yourself.” I kept my voice steady even though my pulse was climbing. “The real reason is that it was him. Not Theo. Not Kade. Julian. And the thought of me alone with him made you angry in a way that had nothing to do with the Council.”

Damaris’s eyes narrowed.

“You are reading things that are not there.”

“Am I?” I took another step closer. “Every man in this house decides things for me. Kade decides how close he is allowed to stand. Theo decides which truths I can handle. You decide who I am allowed to see, when I am allowed to see them, and how long I am allowed to stay. I am tired of being the only person in my own life who does not get a vote.”

“That is not what this is.”

“It is exactly what this is.” The words came faster now. “You have spent eighteen years treating me like a responsibility that has to be managed. You built rules and distances and walls of other people so that nothing could ever get too close. I used to think it was only protection. I do not think that anymore.”

He was silent. The hallway felt too narrow. Somewhere downstairs a floorboard creaked, but neither of us looked away.

“Be careful what you say next,” he said quietly.

“Or what? Will you add another restriction? Another person I am not allowed to speak to?” I held his gaze. “You watched me walk into that office. You watched me stay there. And when I came home you did not ask what the Council said first. You asked how long I was alone with him. That is not the reaction of a man who is only thinking about security.”

His jaw flexed hard. A muscle jumped near his temple.

“You do not understand what is at stake.”

“Then explain it to me. Or admit that part of what is at stake is the way you look at me when you think I am not paying attention.”

The silence that followed was heavier than the argument. I could hear my own breathing. I could see the exact moment the careful distance he had always kept beginning to crack.

“Theo told me,” I said, softer but no less clear. “He said, You have not looked at anyone the way you look at me since my mother died. I did not want to believe it at first. I told myself he was wrong. Then I watched you in the study today. I watched the way you reacted to Julian’s name. And I stopped being able to pretend.”

Damaris’s hands had curled into fists at his sides. He still said nothing.

“I am not a child you are protecting anymore.” My voice stayed even. “I have not been a child for a long time. I am the woman you want. And I am done acting as if I cannot see it.”

The words landed between us like something that could not be taken back.

Damaris stared at me. Something raw and dangerous moved through his eyes. For a second, I thought he would deny it outright. For a second, I thought he would turn and walk down the stairs the way he always did when a conversation got too close to the bone.

He did neither.

He only stood there in the dim upstairs light, breathing harder than the short confrontation should have required, and let the accusation hang unanswered in the air between us.

I waited.

He did not deny it.

The silence itself became the answer, and it was louder than anything he could have said.