Revenge In A suit & Tie

Juggling Work And Love: Damon Begins To Learn To Prioritize

If you’ve loved someone who carries the world on their shoulders, then you understand the weight of waiting.

That’s what it felt like the first week in our new home - beautiful, beautiful and expansive, filled with light and promise. And yet, even with all the warmth the walls and Damon’s arms filled me with, there was still the hum of distance creeping in at the edges.

I knew he wasn't doing it on purpose, I mean, Damon was a guy who had built empires from sleepless nights. He survived from putting responsibility over the needs of others. But I also knew just how quickly everything else, including us, could be drowned out by that same drive.

It all started small.

The phone buzzing in the middle of dinner. A call that he swore would take TWO MINUTES stretching to TWENTY MINUTES. The way his gaze would sometimes flicker over mine, staring at something sharp and distracted. It was like his mind was halfway across the world, already in some boardroom battle.

At first, I was telling myself not to be selfish. After all, didn't I fight so hard for this man? For this life?

To finally be with him without contracts, lies, or Olivia's shadow between us? Who was I to ask for more - he was already giving me parts of a heart I thought I couldn't have?

But love doesn't erase the agony of absence.

One night, I was curled on the balcony with a blanket around me, staring at the ocean.

The waves moved continuously - crashing, pulling back, crashing, pulling back; a rhythmic cadence unlike anything but Damon always advancing, retreating like a pendulum between power and vulnerability. My phone sat in my lap, silent since that ominous message days ago. Damon had increased my security, had conversations with who he felt were trustworthy, and assured me I was what mattered most, I was safe.

But the words still sat with me.

"You'll never really be free, Sierra."

Maybe that's why the distance I felt growing between us cut deeper than I wanted to acknowledge. It wasn't just about locking the door to feel safe, it was having him here in a whole sense of the word instead of just physically present.

The sliding door behind me opened, and I didn't have to turn to know it was him. I recognized the pattern of his footfall, and could identify the way his presence changed the air around me.

"Hey," he said softly, slipping his jacket onto my shoulders and sitting next to me. His hand skimmed over mine, warm, grounding. "You've been quiet all night."

"I'm fine," I lied, staring out at the horizon.

He tilted his head; he studied me. Damon Vireaux had many talents, but the one I both loved and feared was his ability to see through me. "You're not fine. You're thinking too loud."

I nearly laughed at that, but the laugh fizzled in my throat. "You've been busy," I said instead. "Even here. Even in the supposed promised land.

Something flickered across his face guilt perhaps. He exhaled softly. "I know."

I looked at him then, looked deeply at him. His sleeves were rolled up, his tie was tossed somewhere, and there was still that tightness in his posture, like he was bracing against something we could not see.

The man who had promised me I would never be alone again looked just like someone still a prisoner to an empire.

"Damon," I whispered, "when do we get you? Not the CEO. Not the billionaire. Just you."

The question hung between us, raw and unrefined.

He worked his jaw, looking at our clasped hands. For a while, he didn’t respond. And then finally, his voice was low and rough edged with honesty.

“I don’t know how to stop.”

My chest clamped tightly. “Then, learn. For us. Please.”

The vulnerability in my voice even shocked me. I was not begging I was reminding him of the truth we had fought so hard to embrace.

That love isn’t edified in grand gestures, it is demonstrated in presence. In choosing each other over and over again, even when everyone else in the world is telling you not to.

He raised my hand to his mouth, kissing my knuckles with tenderness that fit me apart inside. “You’re right,” he said quietly. “You’ve always been right about the things I most try to forget.”

I wanted to believe him. But words are easy. It’s the actions that matter.

The next few days stretched out before us, an exercise in patience. Damon tried, I could see him trying. He made time, mornings with me, cups of coffee as if they were ceremonial, the rest of the world forgotten. He turned his phone off during dinner, training himself to sit there through my stories no matter the temptation to check the time.

He even canceled a meeting, which startled his assistant so much that she called him twice to make sure he was serious.

And yet, the pull between us still existed. I could feel it with the way his eyes sometimes darkened with unspoken apprehension, the way his fingers slammed against the desk at the first hint of uncomfortable silence. This was a man engaged in an internal battle about himself as much as he was fighting for us.

One evening, it all came to a breaking point.

I awoke in the middle of the night and my husband's side of the bed was empty. Panic overwhelmed me. Then I saw the faint glow of light creeping out from underneath the study door. I quietly walked down the hall, the cold floor sending chills through my feet, and stood in the doorway.

There he was.

My husband. My lover. Bent over his cluttered desk at two in the morning with little paperbacks strewn around him, a landline cell size phone that was pressed to his ear while he muttered something about contracts. His tie was undone and limp, his shoulders were rigid. He hadn't even noticed me.

An ache I was all too familiar with folded around my chest. I could have walked away. Pretended I hadn't seen.

But it was all the pretending that had killed me before pretending to be okay when I was breaking. Pretending to be loved, when I was just tolerated. Not again. Not with him.

"Damon."

He stopped moving. Slowly, his head turned. When his eyes met mine, I saw how exhausted he looked.

Though below that, I saw something else - fear.

"Sierra," he said, in a softer tone now. Almost guilty. "I didn’t mean to wake you."

"You didn't wake me," I whispered, "You walked out on me."

The silence that followed was unbearable. I stepped into the room, and wrapped my arms as tightly as I could across my chest. "Is this how it's always going to be? Me here, waiting while you chase the next crisis? Because, I can't," I said.

My voice cracked, but I pushed the words out of my mouth anyway. "I can't keep loving someone that is not here. Not really."

He ran a hand through his hair, and I could feel the frustration radiating off him. "This is who I am, Sierra. This is who I am. I built everything on this, on never stopping, on never letting go."

"Then what are we?" I cried. My cheek was hot and wet from the tears that were forming in my eyes. "A break between meetings? A luxury you can’t afford? Because I didn’t marry a company, Damon.

"I married you." Hearing those words hit me like a brick. I could see it in how his shoulders dropped, in how his mask finally cracked just enough to see the boy behind the suit, that I once knew, that I once loved.

He took those three long strides to me then. His hands cupping my face, his rough palms pressed against my wet cheeks. "You're not a pause.

You're the only thing that matters. I just... I don't know how to put it down without losing everything I worked for."

"Maybe it's not about putting it down," I murmured, my fingers squeezing around his wrists, "maybe it is just learning how to hold me at the same time."

His eyes closed, and when they opened again, I saw it - the choice.

He pulled me against him, his embrace tight, desperate. "Then I'll learn. God help me, I'll learn. Because I would rather lose every deal, every contract, and every dollar than lose you."

I clung to him, trembling with hope, hoping there was a shred of truth that he meant it. That he could truly find balance between the empire, and the love he claimed.

Because I couldn’t stand the idea of losing him to shadows that I had not the strength to fight.

We stood there, nervously breathing into each other, until he finally coaxed me back to bed. This time he laid down beside me without his phone in his hand. He kept his arms around me. He steadied his breathing with mine until I fell asleep beside him.

For the first time, I thought maybe we would win the fight.

But hope is a fragile thing.

The next afternoon, as Damon put down his phone to help me arrange flowers in the kitchen a small, trivial thing that felt monumental, I caught the glimmer of something on his screen before it finally faded. A message.

I shouldn’t have looked. But my eyes were drawn to the words anyway, sharp and cold.

“He can’t protect you forever."

My stomach turned over violently, my coconut vase slipping from my hand and smashing into pieces on the kitchen floor.

Damon was on me in an instant, his hand steadying mine, his voice urgent. “Sierra? What happened?"

I stared at the phone, my heart banging in my throat. Whoever was sending these messages would never stop.

And suddenly, balancing work and love wasn’t the only battle Damon would have to fight.

Just as Damon begins to prioritize Sierra and prove he can balance love with his empire, another anonymous threatening message arrives shattering Sierra’s fragile sense of safety all over again.