32. Damian
CHAPTER 32
DAMIAN
W e’re still in bed when she says it. The sheets are a mess. Her leg is hooked over mine. Morning light spills across her skin, golden and soft, but her eyes are sharp now and watchful.
“You could have it all back,” Isabelle says quietly.
My hand stills where it’s been tracing circles on her thigh. She’s not wrong. Clara’s message wasn’t just a warning. It was an opening, a door.
Vincent overreached. The board’s angry. Legal is circling. Braithwaite’s about to take a hammer to his glass house, and the world is watching.
If I stepped in now, if I called the right people and pulled the right strings, I could rise from the ashes with more leverage than ever before.
I stare at the ceiling. “Maybe,” I murmur. “But at what cost?”
She shifts, propping herself up on one elbow to face me. “It doesn’t have to be the same as before.”
I glance at her. “Doesn’t it?”
“No,” she says firmly. “You aren’t the same, and you know it. I know it.”
That stops me.
She sits up fully, pulling the sheet around her. “Damian, the man who ran Kincaid Global before would’ve used this moment to burn down every rival, bury Vincent, and crown himself king again, but that’s not who I see now.”
I study her. She’s bare-faced, messy-haired, honest… and more right than I want to admit.
“I gave it up,” I say. “All of it. For you.”
Her brow softens. “And I will never forget that, but you didn’t give it up because you didn’t want it. You did it because you thought it was the only way to prove I mattered.” She touches my chest, right over my heart. “What if there’s another way?”
I exhale, long and slow. “Go back and run it differently, you mean?”
“Together,” she says. “Run it better. Build something that doesn’t just consume. It contributes. You already started with Foundry. You’ve seen what’s possible when your power lifts other people instead of crushing them.”
“You think the board wants that?” I ask, dryly.
“I think they want someone who can keep the company alive,” she says, “and if they’re smart, they’ll realize that the old way is why they’re vulnerable. You’re not the threat now. You’re the cure.”
I go quiet. The truth is… I do miss it sometimes. Not the power. Not the game.
The purpose. The clarity that came from building something bigger than myself.
But this time, we would define what that looks like.
I run a hand through my hair. “If I do this, I won’t compromise.”
She nods. “I know.”
“I won’t sacrifice us. I won’t let it pull me under again.”
“You won’t,” she says. “You won’t go back as the man you were.”
I look at her, and I feel not just strength but direction and hope.
“You’d be there?” I ask. “If I did this?”
“Right beside you,” she says. “To make sure you don’t forget who you are now and to make damn sure they don’t either.”
I laugh, low and real.
God, I love this woman.
“All right,” I say. “Let’s rebuild it.”
Her smile is slow and fierce. “On our terms.”
“Our terms,” I echo.
She climbs into my lap, arms around my neck, and kisses me like she already sees the man I’ll become.
For the first time, I’m not building an empire for power. I’m still building our future.
* * *
Six weeks later, the world still hasn’t figured out what to do with me.
With us.
The press speculates. Investors whisper. Rivals stare from across sleek, glass-towered boardrooms trying to reconcile the version of Damian Kincaid they used to fear with the man stepping back into the game, hand-in-hand with a woman who was never supposed to belong in their world.
But that’s the point. We don’t belong in their world. We’re making a new one.
* * *
The elevator dings on the forty-seventh floor of a Midtown high-rise. I sold the old tower. It had been buried beneath scandal and blood-slicked mergers. This space, though, is ours. It’s light-filled and modern, curated to blend design and business, creativity and power.
The reception area already has the new logo displayed in brushed steel: Kincaid & Sinclair.
No taglines. No corporate clichés. Just our name and our promise.
We walk in together.
Isabelle’s in navy slacks and a cropped cream blazer, her hair twisted up in that easy, elegant way that says “don’t underestimate me.”
The heads turn. Some of the old guard double-take. Others glance at their phones, pretending not to notice, but they do, and we all know it.
She squeezes my hand once and then releases it. “Remember,” she says under her breath. “Don’t be charming. Be impossible to ignore.”
I smirk. “You always did have a thing for the impossible.”
We step into the boardroom.
Clara’s already inside, standing at the head of the table, flanked by the new legal counsel and the interim board. The energy in the room shifts the second I enter.
I let it settle. Then I take my seat. No, not at the head of the table. No rectangular table here. There is no head. It’s a massive circular table. Naturally, Isabelle sits beside me as my equal.
Clara begins the presentation, walking them through our new structure, new philosophy, new ventures, including an incubator program designed to uplift underrepresented founders, an art and tech crossover initiative, and a transparency-first investment model.
When it’s my turn to speak, I don’t recite numbers. I speak vision.
“We’re not here to claw our way back to the top,” I say. “We’re here to redefine where the top even is. Power without purpose is hollow, but when you merge creativity with capital, leadership with empathy… you build something better.”
The room is quiet.
Then a slow nod.
Then more.
I suppress a grin. I’m no longer the man with the biggest portfolio or the most ruthless agenda. I’m the man with the right partner, and that changes everything.
* * *
Later, when the meeting ends and we step into the hall, Isabelle turns to me with that glint in her eyes.
“You like being underestimated, don’t you?” she asks.
I slip my hand into hers. “Almost as much as I like proving them wrong.”
She grins. “Let’s build an empire they never see coming.”
With her beside me, I know we will.