When The past chose us.

The Question He Won't Answer.

Chapter 3

Serena — first person.

“What does that mean?”,Serena asked.

Serena hadn't intended to confront Damien,she had come to his office with one purpose: deliver the revised presentation and discuss the Whitmore proposal. But the image on his computer screen refused to leave her mind. Twice that morning she had seen her surname—Hart—on a confidential compliance file, and the way Damien had hurried to hide it both times made it impossible to dismiss as coincidence.

Before she could stop herself, the question slipped out.

She asked what the compliance flag meant.

For a fleeting moment, Damien's composure cracked,It wasn't obvious enough for most people to notice, but Serena saw it. Something flickered in his expression before years of discipline buried it again. When he answered, his voice was calm, almost detached, explaining that every employee went through routine compliance screening. Sometimes surnames matched people who had previously dealt with Blackwood Holdings. Most of the time,it was simply a false positive, he assured her.

She asked what happened the rest of the time.

His answer came without hesitation.

"It doesn't concern you."

The words were polite but final, closing the conversation before it could truly begin.

Serena wanted to argue,every instinct urged her to demand the truth. Damien wasn't behaving like a man dealing with an ordinary administrative error,his guarded answers, the hurried way he'd hidden the file, and the tension she kept catching in his eyes all suggested there was something far more significant beneath the surface.

But then she remembered her father.

The previous evening, when she had casually mentioned Blackwood Holdings, his expression had changed in a way she couldn't forget. It hadn't been anger or surprise,It had looked like someone unexpectedly confronted with a memory they had spent years trying to bury.

That memory stopped her from pushing any further.

Reluctantly, she let the subject drop and redirected the conversation to work.

As they reviewed the Whitmore presentation, the atmosphere slowly shifted. Damien challenged every recommendation she made. Every slide, every headline, every strategic decision was met with another question. Why structure the presentation this way? Why soften certain risks? Why lead with emotion instead of numbers?

At first, Serena questioned herself. She worried she wasn't meeting his expectations. But as the discussion continued, her confidence returned. Instead of defending herself nervously, she began defending her ideas because she genuinely believed they were the strongest solutions.

To her surprise, Damien never dismissed her opinions,he inspected them relentlessly, and also listened to her. Whenever she justified her reasoning well, he accepted it without letting pride get in the way.

Somewhere during the endless revisions, Serena realized she had stopped feeling intimidated.

Instead, she found herself arguing with him,the realization surprised them both.

Damien eventually observed that she argued like someone accustomed to being underestimated. The remark caught Serena off guard;she couldn't decide whether it was criticism or praise, but something in his expression suggested it was the closest thing to a compliment he knew how to offer.

For the first time that day, the tension between them eased.

The conversation became less about hierarchy and more about collaboration. Together they reshaped the presentation until it was stronger, sharper, and more better than either of them had imagined at the beginning of the morning.

When they finally finished, Damien quietly approved the revised deck and instructed her to send it to the client before the afternoon deadline.

The assignment was complete.

Serena packed her laptop, relieved that the difficult meeting had ended far better than she had expected.

She reached the office door.

Then she stopped,curiosity won.

Turning back, she carefully spoke the words that had been sitting in the back of her mind ever since seeing the compliance report.

"My father's name is Richard Hart."

She watched Damien closely.

"Does that mean anything to you?"

Time seemed to stop.

The silence that followed lasted only a heartbeat, but it stretched endlessly between them.

Damien's expression remained controlled, yet Serena saw something pass across his face before he buried it. Recognition, Surprise,Perhaps even concern.

It disappeared almost immediately, replaced by the calm professionalism he wore earlier.

— ✦ —

“No,” Damien said– too fast,too flat, his knuckles right where they've gone still against the desk and she knew with absolute certainty that he was lying.