Chapter 23 Emma
Chapter twenty-three
Emma
The city bled past the windows in streaks of light—amber streetlamps, red taillights, the occasional neon glow of a bar sign or bodega. Damien's hand rested on my thigh, warm and steady, his thumb tracing absent patterns against the fabric of my dress.
Vivian's words rattled around in my skull like loose marbles—protocols and rituals, kneeling and braiding, the way she'd served me tea with both hands like it was muscle memory.
"So." Damien's voice cut through the quiet, his thumb stilling. "What did you and Vivian talk about?"
I glanced at him. His attention stayed fixed on the road, but there was a tightness around his mouth that hadn't been there before.
Damien Holt was nervous.
"Wouldn't you like to know," I teased, letting the silence stretch long enough to watch his grip tighten on the steering wheel.
"We talked about... things," I offered, deliberately vague.
His jaw ticked. "Things."
"You know. Girl stuff."
"Emma."
"What?" I turned in my seat, tucking one leg beneath me so I could face him properly. "We compared notes. Swapped stories." I let a wicked grin spread across my face. "Compared dick sizes."
The car swerved.
"What?"
"Relax." I laughed, grabbing the door handle for balance. "I'm kidding. Mostly."
"Mostly?" His voice pitched higher than I'd ever heard it.
"You won, if that helps."
He smirked, familiar arrogance sliding back into place. "I knew I would."
I swatted his arm. "Your ego is exhausting."
"You love it," he teased, grinning.
I shook my head, turning back toward the windshield.
"We talked about protocols," I offered. "What they were. What they looked like for her. For you two, back when you were together."
His thumb resumed its slow circles on my thigh. "And?"
"And..." I chewed my lip, trying to organize the tangle of thoughts still spinning through my head. "She told me about the clothes. How you picked them out for her every morning."
He nodded slowly. "I did."
"You do that for me too."
"I do."
A small smile curved my lips. "I knew it was one of the rules—you told me at the collaring. But I didn't realize. Hearing Vivian describe it..." I trailed off, searching for the right words.
"Context matters," he said quietly. "A rule on its own is just a rule. But when you see how it fits into the larger picture..."
"It becomes something else," I finished.
"Yes."
The chaos of the hospital, the merger, the exhaustion that had seeped into both of us like groundwater. The clothes had been the one constant—every morning, something laid out for me, chosen with care. Even when everything else had fallen away.
Such a small thing, but it had survived all those days.
"She mentioned other things too," I continued. "Asking permission before leaving the house. The way she texted you—lowercase i, uppercase You." I paused. "The braiding."
His hand stilled once again.
"She told you about that."
It wasn't a question.
"Yes."
Damien flipped his blinker on, pulling into an empty grocery store parking lot, and parked the car. The engine ticked in the sudden silence.
"Wha—?"
"Sorry, but this conversation needs more focus than I could give while driving."
My heart stuttered. "Okay..."
He shifted in his seat, one arm draping over the steering wheel as he studied me with an intensity that made me want to squirm.
"The braiding," he started. "It wasn't about the hair."
"I figured that much."
"It was about transition." He searched my face, looking for understanding. "Taking her from the outside world—the stress, the noise, the expectations—and bringing her into our space. My space. The braid was the vehicle. Something physical to anchor the mental shift."
Like he was preparing me for something sacred.
"She said you'd whisper things to her," I said quietly. "Affirmations. Reminders about safewords."
"Yes." No hesitation. No embarrassment. "I needed to know she was present.
That she understood what we were about to do and that she had the power to stop it at any moment.
" His gaze dropped to my collar, then back up.
"The ritual was as much for me as it was for her.
A way to check in. To make sure I was worthy of what she was about to give me. "
The vulnerability cracked me open, jealousy slithering in. His hands in her hair. His mouth at her ear. Words that should have been mine.
"The things I said to her aren't the same things I say to you."
I blinked. "What?"
"I know what you're thinking. I can see it." A sad smile tugged at his mouth. "You're picturing it. Me with her. And you're wondering if everything I whisper to you is recycled. Words I've used before."
"What I had with Vivian was real," he continued, "but it was structured.
Practiced. The affirmations were about safety.
Grounding. Preparation for a scene." He reached for my hand, fingers interlacing.
"The things I say to you—when I call you love, when I tell you you're beautiful, when I tell you how proud I am of you—that's not protocol, Emma. That's not ritual."
His thumb traced across my knuckles.
"That's us."
"I didn't realize how much I needed to hear that," I admitted, the words washing away the image of Vivian kneeling at his feet.
"It's not the same," he said firmly. "Not even close."
I exhaled slowly, letting the reassurance settle into my bones.
"Did you..." I swallowed. "Would you want to do that with me? The braiding, I mean. Or something like it?"
"The ritual itself? Or the protocols in general?"
I shifted in my seat. "I don't know. Vivian made it sound like it was something you needed. Not just something you liked."
He went quiet. Doubt started to creep in—maybe I'd pushed too far.
Maybe I'd—
He took a breath. "We already agreed to a few rules, Emma. At the collaring."
"I know, but we never really..."
"No. We didn't." He exhaled slowly. "We had one day. Less than that. And then the leak happened, and Sebastian, and—" He shook his head. "I kept telling myself I'd get back to it once things settled. Once I had the energy to do it properly. But weeks kept passing, and I couldn't—"
"You were exhausted," I cut in.
"We both were." He squeezed my hand. "And I didn't want to add pressure. Not when you were already carrying so much. Not when I could barely keep myself upright."
The last two weeks. The hospital. The merger. The way we'd both been running on fumes.
"The rules I set at the collaring weren't arbitrary," he continued. "The check-ins. The mandatory rest. The honesty about how you're actually feeling—not the corporate mask you show everyone else." He held my gaze. "Those weren't idle ideas. They were what I saw you needed—"
"You mean like the audit?"
The words left my mouth before I could stop them, smashing through the floodgates.
Damien froze. His hand stilled on mine. The final time.
"Emma—"
"You handled that for me, didn't you?" I pressed. "Took care of it so I wouldn't have to. Made decisions about my company without asking. Without telling me."
The accusation sat heavy in the air, the cabin stifling.
Behind the wheel, Damien was ice, but I waited. The pressure in the air rising, threatening to explode.
"Yes," he said at last.
My heart stopped. Flatlined.
"I falsified the audit." His jaw tightened. "I adjusted the numbers to make Elion's financials appear stronger than they were."
The windshield pressed close. Suffocating.
"Elion was in trouble, Emma. Real trouble.
" His voice was steady, but the cadence picked up speed.
"The numbers Gregory leaked weren't lies.
They were the truth. And if Falkirk's board had seen the real figures, the merger would have collapsed.
Elion would have been picked apart by vultures within six months. "
I stared at him, my pulse pounding in my ears.
"You would have lost everything," he continued.
"Your company. Your reputation. All of it—built from nothing.
" His hand tightened around mine. "And it wouldn't have been just you.
Jennifer. David. Kevin. Every single person who trusted you to keep them employed—they would have gone down with the ship. "
"So you lied."
"I protected you." Heat blazed in his eyes. "I looked at the situation, I assessed the options, and I made a call. The only call that kept you and everyone you care about from being destroyed."
"Without asking me." My voice was lethal.
"You would have said no."
The truth of it hung in the air, undeniable.
He was right. I would have refused. Would have insisted on doing things the right way, the ethical way, even if it meant watching Elion crumble around me.
"That wasn't your decision to make," I bit out.
The tension in the car crackled, electric and sharp.
"Emma," he tried. "I made you a promise. We both agreed to this dynamic. You gave me the authority to protect you, even when you couldn't see the threat."
I opened my mouth to argue, but he pressed on.
"I agree I should have told you. Should have explained what I was doing and why." His thumb resumed its slow stroke across my knuckles. "I believed it was my call to make. Whether I was right about that..." He exhaled slowly. "I'm still figuring out."
Doubt. Real and undeniable.
"You wanted someone to catch you. To handle the things you couldn't handle alone.
This is what that looks like, Emma. Even when it's messy.
Even when it's hard." He met my eyes. "But that doesn't mean you don't get to be angry.
Or frustrated. You have the right to all of those emotions. And in turn, I have to bear mine."
"Which are?" I ground out.
He sighed.
"Guilt." The word came out rough. "For not telling you sooner. For letting you walk into Falkirk blind while Nathan circled you like a shark who smelled blood." His hand tightened on mine. "For putting you in that office with him. For what he said to you. What he implied."
My knuckles throbbed with the memory. The raw skin I'd scrubbed bloody trying to wash off the feeling of Nathan's proposition.
I ripped my hand from his.
His face fractured.
"I knew the risk," Damien continued, voice strained.
"I knew giving Nathan that leverage was dangerous.
But I weighed it against losing you entirely—losing Elion, losing everything you'd built—and I made my choice.
" Something glistened in his eyes. "I'd make the same choice again, Emma.
The falsification. Even knowing what it cost you.
Even knowing you might never forgive me for it. "
I'd make the same choice again.
My pulse jolted back to life. Again?
"But the hiding—keeping it from you for weeks while you walked into that building every day—" His jaw worked. "That part I'd do differently. And if you need to scream at me. Hit me. Do both. I would understand. I'd let you stand in front of me and wage war. And I'd take it."
We stared at each other.
The streetlight outside cast shadows across his face, but his eyes—those dark, steady eyes—held nothing but sincerity. Openness. A willingness to receive whatever I needed to give him.
He meant it.
Every word. Every syllable. He would sit here in this empty parking lot and let me rage at him until my voice gave out. Let me beat my fists against his chest until my arms ached. Let me scream and cry and fall apart, and he would hold every broken piece without complaint.
But I was pissed.
I'd make the same choice again.
I needed space.
I needed to think.
"Take me home."