Chapter 38
Damien
“Get out.”
My words are as sharp as razor blades, and I know it, but I don’t care.
“Excuse me?” she asks.
“I said, get out,” I repeat.
A moment later, I hear her heels clicking across the floor and down the hallway to the elevator.
I run my hands through my hair, holding them there on my head for a moment while my eyes dart around the skyline out the window at nothing in particular.
The rapid movement keeps me from getting upset while I throw every wall back into place, this time higher, thicker, harder.
“What was that all about?” Diego’s words are not welcome right now, and I grit my teeth.
“Don’t ask,” I say.
“It sounded pretty heated. Don’t tell me you two are having your first fight.”
The last thing I feel like doing is humoring him right now, but the casual amusement in his voice has me seething. It doesn’t help that my heart is slamming into my chest like a car crash on repeat. I whip around to face him, and my expression knocks the smirk clean off the asshole’s face.
“Jesus, Damien. What happened?” he asks.
I open my mouth to say something, to yell, to get some of the pain out of my chest and into the open, but I don’t know what to say. Because honestly, I don’t really understand what happened.
“She lied to me,” I answer after a moment.
Diego closes the door and crosses the room. “About what?” he asks.
“Everything,” I answer. “She’s our snake.”
I expect him to fly off the handle. To freak out.
Or at the very least, for him to make some kind of expression of surprise.
But instead, Diego just looks lost. “Ellie is the snake?” he asks, and the words come out as if they don’t quite fit.
“You think Ellie is the one Decker sent in to fuck us? The one giving away trade secrets and pulling the dancers and clients out?”
“I don’t think, I know,” I say as I plop down into my chair.
“How do you know?” he asks, taking a seat in front of me. “Did she say that?”
“Of course not. She denied it from top to bottom. But I know she is because it’s the only thing that makes sense.”
In the moments of silence that follow, I stew over it.
The idea of it, of her going behind my back, of working side by side with that joker, of duping me since day one, of possibly still being involved with him while she was involved with me…
I can’t. And the idea of Luca being that man’s son… even worse.
“I think…and I might be over stepping here…it’s the only thing that doesn’t make sense,” he says.
“I think there must be a missing piece here. Someone we overlooked. Someone who is framing her and stringing us along. But the idea of Ellie being the one doing all of this…” he shakes his head. “I don’t buy it.”
I bite my lip and tap my fingers on the table. Maybe he’s right. Maybe I jumped the gun. Either way, I can’t trust her until I’m certain.
“What else?” he asks, and my eyes involuntarily dart up to meet his.
“What do you mean?”
“Come on, boss, you know I know you well enough to sense that something else is off. You’re not just mad; you’re uneasy. What else happened while Ellie was in here just now?”
I almost hate how well Diego knows me. It’s enough that at this point, I can’t lie. That, and the issue is festering in me to the point of driving me fucking insane.
“She said Luca is…” I pause, and Diego narrows his eyes. “Mine.”
With that, his eyes widen. “Your…?”
“Luca is my son,” I repeat.
“Holy shit,” Diego leans back in the chair. “Is it possible?”
I nod once. “It’s possible…”
“Is it true though?” He presses and I pinch the bridge of my nose, squeezing my eyes shut.
“I don’t know. It all came out of nowhere, and I haven’t had two fucking minutes to process any of it,” I snap.
“Alright, new question. How would you feel if it were true?” he asks, and my jaw pulses in the corners.
“Again, I haven’t had time to process.”
“Pour two shots of whiskey,” he says. “While you’re doing that, I’ll give you thirty seconds to process everything. Then, we drink and I tell you what I think.”
I don’t like that Diego is calling the shots right now, but kicking him out would be more work than just putting up with him. For now. Diego swallows the hot bourbon and winces. Then he sucks the air between his teeth and deadpans me.
“You love her,” he says.
“What the f–”
“No, no. I’m not done. I know you said it would never happen. I know you’ve spent a lifetime preventing it from happening. But even dragon scales are penetrable by something. And that someone, Damien, is Annelise Bates.”
“You’re dangerously out of line,” I warn him but Diego is on a roll and I know from experience that unless I am in the mood to take this argument to a physical level (which, I am not) there’s no point in trying to stop him.
“Everyone falls in love, Damien,” he goes on, enunciating every word.
“Nerdy guys, romantic guys, rich guys, poor guys, guys who make pizzas for a living and guys who build empires. Good ones, bad ones, soft ones, tough ones. They all fall in love. You’re not exempt.
It doesn’t work that way. And I know it doesn’t work that way because I see the way you are with her.
You might not get googly eyes or smile more or any of that bullshit.
But the things you do? They’re even more obvious.
You take care of her. You sacrifice time for her.
Prioritize her. You treat her like a queen, something you never do with your personal assistants, boss. ”
“This is crazy,” I shake my head.
“She’s different, and you know it. And I think you know the truth too. You know she wouldn’t betray you. But assuming something like that is easier than admitting you love her. And believing that Luca is Dylan’s is easier than paternal love, that shit’s a wrecking ball to walls like yours.”
Diego stops talking, and I stare at him. For a long, hard minute, neither of us blink. Then, I look away.
“If you’re done talking, I really want nothing more than to be alone right now,” I say. And I wait until I hear his shoes against the tile, taking him further away, before letting my chest deflate.