Chapter Eleven
CADEN
Ilay in my bed, warmed by Kamiyah’s body heat. A weighted silence surrounds us as if she’s holding back so much. I’ve given her time without pressure and a safe place to confide in me and I sense she wants to.
The silence settles into a soothing hum and I stare at her, immersing myself in the sounds of her breathing and the soft rustling of the silk around our feet.
It feels like an eternity since Priscilla visited my home, yet it’s only been over a week.
And from multiple conversations with my lawyer, the woman isn’t backing down from her greedy hold on Kamiyah.
I just wish this battle wasn’t happening days before Christmas—the time she needed to be at her sister’s bedside.
She just looks up at me with those storm-gray eyes, full of guilt and humiliation and something rawer. “I’m sorry,” she says, closing her eyes. “I shouldn’t have dragged you into—”
“Honey.” My voice cuts through her rambling. “Look at me.”
She does.
“Your aunt has no power here,” I say. “Not in this space. Not with me.”
Her breath trembles. “I wish I was strong enough to stand up for myself, but I’m grateful you defended me the way you did.”
“I will always defend you,” I say. “I’m not going to let someone terrorize you.”
Something flickers across her face—something warm and pained.
I turn onto my side, propping myself onto my elbow to study her with an intensity that makes her fidget. “Tell me about your aunt,” I say quietly. “All of it.”
Kamiyah swallows. Hard. Then she begins.
“After my parents died, she quickly gained conservatorship over us. I suspect it wasn’t difficult since she was the named guardian in my parents’ will. Plus, with my own guilt for causing the accident and Anna’s condition—Priscilla was awarded conservatorship,” she says.
I knew she blamed herself for distracting her father as he flew the plane but I’d hoped she’d forgiven herself.
“But lately she’s been… repositioning things. Quietly. Legally. She wants control of the trust before my twenty-fifth birthday.”
“You’re a threat.”
She nods. “On my next birthday a bigger portion of the trust gets released. But the conservatorship is completely void when I’m married.”
“That explains Damien’s involvement.” I blow out a breath. “And why she’s insisting on you giving her guardianship of your heirs.
“But your lawyer is right, Caden. Even with me taking control of my family’s fortune, Priscilla has control of Anna.“
Anger simmering hot and low in my chest.
Kamiyah’s eyes glisten. “I’ve complied with everything she’s asked, even leaving you four years ago… But now I see that I’ve only confirmed her sentiments that I’m too weak to handle my own affairs.”
I exhale slowly, because the idea of anyone calling Kamiyah weak is infuriating.
“She thinks I’m fragile,” she continues. “But I’m not. I’m just—” Her voice falters. “—alone. And she knows that makes me easy to manipulate.”
“You’re not alone anymore.” I cup her cheek. “I understand what it means to lose something you can’t get back.” I grit my teeth, memories slamming into me.
The hospital monitors.
The stillness.
The funeral.
The screaming silence after.
“I know.” Her voice softens. “I read everything I could find about you online. You stopped going to holiday events. You stopped talking to anyone. You disappeared into business and kept the world an arm’s length away.”
Her gaze holds mine—steady, gentle.
“I know what grief looks like,” she says. “I grew up with it.”
“Kamiyah—”
She lifts a hand, stopping me. “I’m not prying. I’m just explaining. You’re powerful, yes. And ruthless, sure. But you’re also… decent. You don’t destroy people for sport. You don’t take more than you give.”
A humorless laugh escapes me. “Most people would disagree.”
“I’m not most people,” she whispers.
Silence stretches—thick and charged.
Her eyes drop to my hands, then back up. “You would protect our child with everything in you. I know that. So if someone is going to father my baby—real or pretend—why not someone who would treat them like a miracle instead of leverage?”
The words hit like a blow.
Precise.
True.
Unavoidable.
“Kamiyah,” I say quietly, gravity pulling me toward her.
She rises onto her elbow too—closing the distance without realizing she’s doing it.
We stop inches apart.
Her breath brushes my throat.
Mine stirs the wayward curls framing her face.
Everything in me goes tense and painfully aware.
“You shouldn’t be this close when we’re having such a serious discussion,” I murmur.
“Why?” she whispers.
“Because I can’t think when you do.”
Her eyes widen, pupils darkening. “Then maybe don’t think.”
“Honey,” I warn, voice rough.
She takes a single, reckless scooch closer, until her chest brushes mine, barely there, a whisper of contact—but enough to ignite every nerve in my body. Her voice trembles. “I’m tired of being too afraid to take what I want.”
I lower my head, lips a breath from her temple, inhaling her. “And you think I’m safe?”
“No,” she whispers, shivering. “I think you’re dangerous. But not to me.”
My hands hover at her hips, fighting the instinct to pull her in.
“You have no idea what you’re doing,” I breathe. “Or what a siren you are.”
“I do.” Her eyes search mine, soft and desperate. “I’m asking you to save my future. And maybe… maybe I’m asking you to save me.”
Her voice cracks on the last word.
Something inside me snaps—quietly, irrevocably.
I lift a hand to her jaw, tracing the line of her cheek with slow, aching restraint. She melts into the mattress, eyes fluttering shut, breath catching. My forehead lowers toward hers—slow, uncontrollable—until our skin grazes, until her breath mingles with mine.
We hover there, suspended, trembling on the edge of something we can’t undo.
“Honey,” I whisper, “This isn’t just a fake engagement anymore. Not for me. Do you understand?”
Her fingers brush my wrist, feather-light but burning. “I do and I want this.”
My eyes close, a low groan escaping me. “You’re going to ruin me.”
“Maybe,” she whispers. “Maybe I already am.”
And kiss her.
From the moment her mouth met mine, something inside me settled with a clarity I hadn’t felt in years—as if every truth I’d buried, every feeling I’d forced into silence, rose to the surface and shaped itself into the press of her lips.
I kiss her slowly, deliberately, letting her feel the promise I’m making.
The kind of kiss that said I’m allowing her to walk away this time.
That she isn’t alone in this fight, or in the wanting that had been building between us since the moment she stepped back into my life.
Her fingers curled into the back of my neck, pulling me impossibly closer, and the soft sound she makes against my mouth unravels the last of my restraint.
I cup her face, deepening the kiss with a reverence I don’t bother pretending I don’t feel—because we both knew this is no longer about convenience, or strategy, or anything that could be faked.
When I finally drew back, just enough to feel her breath against my lips, the truth settle between us—unspoken, but solid as a heartbeat.
Her eyes lifted to mine, wide and shining, and I saw it there: the same shift happening inside her.
The same surrender to something neither of us planned but both of us crave.
I rested my forehead against hers, breathing her in, letting the warmth of her settle through me like gravity.
“Yeah,” I whisper against her mouth, letting my thumb trace her jaw in a slow, intimate stroke.
“I’m done pretending you don’t belong to me.
” And she didn’t say a word—she didn’t have to.
The way she leaned into me, soft and certain, was her answer.
Her agreement. Her declaration. An unspoken yes that tightens in my chest and tells me with absolute certainty that whatever this is becoming… she wants it just as much as I did.
Her voice is a whisper. “And…the baby?”
My eyes darken. “We can negotiate that,” I murmur, “after I’m done saving you.”
Her lips part and I almost kiss her again.
Almost.
But then, my phone vibrates sharply on the night stand and I ease out of her embrace to glance at the screen.
It’s my lawyer.
Three missed calls.
One text message.
“What does it say?”
I read it. Then look at her slowly. Her aunt isn’t backing down. And she isn’t bluffing. I meet Kamiyah’s gaze, the air thick between us.
“Your aunt,” I say, voice low and dangerous, “just announced she’s filing for an emergency amendment to your conservatorship tomorrow.”
“What does that mean?”
“I don’t know, but we’re not waiting to find out.”