The Don Thought I'd Stay

Chapter 3

Damian actually showed up the next night.

I had an emergency surgery come up, which kept him waiting downstairs for over an hour. He didn't rush me. He just opened the car door when I came down. "Hungry?"

For a moment, I even felt a little guilty.

The car had barely pulled up to the restaurant when his private phone rang.

He didn't answer the first time.

The second time, it was Nicolò. "Boss, Miss Costa is having a panic attack. She's locked herself in the bathroom. There's a gun in there."

Damian paused for a moment. He told Nicolò to send the doctor and the female bodyguard in first.

The person on the other end said something else.

Finally, he turned to me. "I'll go check on her. An hour, tops."

I looked at the two place settings laid out at the table inside. "Do you really have to go?"

"Her father entrusted her to me on his deathbed."

It was still the same line.

I nodded. "All right."

He squeezed my hand. "Wait for me."

I waited until nine. Then ten. Then eleven‑thirty.

When the waiter asked for the third time if I wanted him to clear the place setting across from me, I said, "Yes, take it away."

At 12:17 AM, Damian sent a message.

Damian: She took a sedative and just fell asleep. Don't wait up for me tonight.

A minute later, Sofia sent a photo.

Damian's face wasn't in it. But a man's hand was visible by her bedside, wearing the black mechanical watch I had given him.

The caption read: Thank you for always coming.

The next morning, Damian came back with my favorite breakfast. His eyes were heavy with exhaustion. "I'm sorry about last night."

I didn't press him. I only asked, "Will this happen again?"

He didn't answer.

The silence was its own answer.

The hardest part was never the lies.

It was that every word he said was true. He really hadn't touched Sofia. He was genuinely fulfilling a dead man's last wish. And he did care about me.

But when you put all those truths together, they still formed a marriage that kept asking me to step back.

That afternoon, I accepted a position with an international medical organization for trauma relief on the northern border.

I still hadn't signed the divorce papers.

I just left myself a way out.