MARRIED TO THE DEVIL CEO

CHAPTER SEVEN - UNCLE RICHARD

I wake up to sunlight and the sound of someone humming in the hallway.

For a second, half asleep, I forget where I am. I forget the dress, the vows, the year stretching out in front of me like a sentence I never agreed to serve. Then I see the unfamiliar ceiling, the too big room, my own worn sweater folded on someone else’s dresser, and all of it comes back at once, heavy and immediate.

I’m married.

I’m still furious about it.

I check my phone before I do anything else, the way I’ve checked it every hour since yesterday morning. Nothing from Amelia. I call anyway. Voicemail, same as always. I don’t leave a message this time. I don’t know what’s left to say that I haven’t already said into the silence.

By the time I make it downstairs, dressed and steeling myself for another day in a house that isn’t mine, I can hear voices coming from the kitchen. One of them is Damien’s, flat and even as always. The other is warmer, easy, the kind of voice that fills a room without trying.

I stop in the doorway.

A man is standing at the counter, sleeves rolled up, pouring coffee like he owns the place, which for all I know, he might. He’s older, maybe late fifties, silver at his temples, the kind of face that looks like it’s smiled a thousand times and meant most of them. He notices me before Damien does.

“There she is.” He sets down the pot and crosses the kitchen with his hand already extended, warm and immediate. “The famous Ava. I’ve heard entirely too much about you in the last twelve hours, and somehow none of it prepared me.”

I shake his hand, caught off guard by how easy it feels. “I’m sorry, I don’t—”

“Richard,” he says. “Damien’s uncle. Practically his father, if you ask anyone who was actually around for it.” He says this lightly, but something flickers behind Damien’s expression at the counter, there and gone too fast to read. “I raised this one from about seven years old, so please, feel free to hold me personally responsible for anything he does that annoys you. Which I imagine, by this point, is quite a lot.”

Despite everything, I feel the corner of my mouth twitch. “You have no idea.”

“Oh, I have some idea.” Richard grins, glancing at Damien with real affection. “He gets that face from his father. Terrifying man. Brilliant, but terrifying. Damien got the brilliant part and skipped straight past the charm, unfortunately.”

“I’m right here,” Damien says, not looking up from his coffee.

“I’m aware,” Richard says. “I raised you to survive far worse than being talked about in front of your face.”

There’s something disarming about him, something easy that Damien clearly didn’t inherit, or maybe buried a long time ago. I find myself relaxing slightly in a kitchen where I expected to feel like an intruder.

“I heard about your sister,” Richard says, and his voice shifts, gentler now, the humor dropping away. “I’m so sorry, Ava. That’s an unimaginable thing to carry, especially on top of everything else you’ve had thrown at you this week.”

“Thank you,” I say, and mean it, surprised by how much the simple acknowledgment loosens something tight in my chest. Nobody in this house has said it to me quite like that yet. Not even Damien.

“If there’s anything I can do,” Richard continues, “anything at all, resources, contacts, I still know a few people in the department who owe me favors from years back, please don’t hesitate. I know what it’s like to lose family without warning.” Something crosses his face, brief and heavy, gone before I can place it. “I wouldn’t wish that uncertainty on anyone.”

“I appreciate that,” I say, and I do, more than I expect to.

Damien sets down his coffee cup with more force than necessary. “Richard has a board meeting.”

“Right, right.” Richard checks his watch, unbothered by the obvious redirect. “The audit committee wants another update on quarterly compliance, God help us all.” He rolls his eyes good naturedly, already moving toward the door, then pauses to look back at me one more time. “It really was lovely to meet you properly, Ava. Welcome to the family, chaos and all.”

“Thank you, Richard.”

He smiles, warm all the way to his eyes, and disappears down the hall, whistling something under his breath.

The kitchen feels quieter once he’s gone, the easy warmth leaving with him like something the room can’t hold onto without his presence in it.

“He seems nice,” I say, mostly to fill the silence, mostly because it’s true.

“He is.” Damien doesn’t look up from his coffee. “Everyone likes Richard.”

There’s something in the way he says it. Not warmth exactly. Something more careful than that, like he’s choosing each word for weight rather than meaning.

“You don’t sound thrilled about that.”

“I’m not unthrilled.” He finally looks at me, and for a second I think he might say more. Then whatever it was closes back up behind his eyes, the way everything about him does. “He’s been good to me. He’s been good to this company. I don’t know what I’d have done without him after my parents died.”

“But.”

“There’s no but.” His voice is flat again, final. “I just know how much people can hide behind being liked.”

He says it simply, almost absently, like it’s a fact about the world rather than anything close to an accusation. Then he pushes back from the counter, straightens his jacket, and heads for the door without another word, leaving me standing in the kitchen with a half formed thought I can’t quite finish.

I don’t know why the sentence stays with me the rest of the morning.

I only know that it does.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​