Chapter 31 #2
I looked at Jennifer again. She'd moved to the window, staring out at the city.
"Bring coffee," I said. "The good kind."
The line went dead.
Jennifer turned from the window. "Is he scared?"
"Terrified."
She grinned, sharp as razor blades. "Good."
Thirty aching minutes later, footsteps carried down the hall.
I didn't have to look. The cadence of his stride. The air, tilting toward him.
And then the murmur—
Elion's staff greeting the CEO of Falkirk like royalty come to collect.
His responses were polite but clipped.
I stayed where I was—perched on the edge of my seat, hands clasped in my lap, trying not to vibrate out of my own skin.
Jennifer straightened in her chair, squaring her shoulders like a general preparing for battle.
A soft knock.
"Come in," Jennifer called.
The door swung open.
Damien filled the doorway, coffee carrier balanced in one hand.
Suit immaculate. Posture flawless.
Every inch the billionaire CEO the world believed in.
But his face—the corner of Jennifer's lips twitched—the fear there clear.
"Ms. Capolli." He stepped inside, letting the door close behind him. "Thank you for agreeing to meet with me."
Jennifer studied him with a long, unblinking stare.
"Sit down, Damien." She gestured to the empty chair beside me. "We have a lot to discuss."
He set the coffee carrier on the edge of Jennifer's desk, selecting a cup and sliding it toward her.
"Oat milk latte. Two pumps vanilla."
Jennifer's brow arched. "How did you—"
"Emma mentioned it once." He pulled a second cup free and handed it to me—chai, extra hot, the way I always ordered it—before taking the last one for himself. Black coffee. No frills.
He lowered into the chair.
The confident CEO. The boardroom shark.
Titles shedding—
one by one—
until only his name remained.
Damien.
His gaze fixed on Jennifer, as if she held his fate between her hands.
Jennifer let the silence lengthen—a tactic, clean and calculated, letting the other side unravel in the quiet.
Damien didn't move.
Didn't blink.
He simply waited.
He knew the game, wrote the rules, destroyed others with the same look.
Finally, the battle broke. Jennifer leaned forward.
"Let me be clear about something, Damien.
" Her voice was cool. Controlled. "I'm not here as your ally.
I'm not here as a neutral party. I'm here as Emma's friend.
The person who's watched her work herself to the bone for years building something she believed in.
" She paused, letting the words land. "And you put all of that at risk. "
"I know."
"Do you? Because from where I'm sitting, it looks like you made a series of catastrophically selfish decisions and dragged Emma into the fallout."
Damien didn't look away. "You're right."
"I—" Jennifer stopped, her head tilting. "What?"
"You're right," he repeated. "Every word.
I made selfish decisions. I lied to my board.
I used Davidson as a scapegoat. I put Emma's career, her reputation, her company at risk because I was too afraid of losing her to think about the consequences.
" He set his coffee down, untouched. "I'm not here to defend any of that. I can't."
Jennifer studied him, recalculating.
"Then why are you here?"
"Because Emma trusts you," he said, steel creeping into his voice. "And I need you to understand that I would burn my entire world to the ground before I let anything happen to her."
"Pretty words," she scoffed.
"They're not words." Fierce conviction hardened his expression.
"I falsified the audit to protect her. I've spent weeks watching Nathan Bell circle her like a vulture, knowing that if I intervene too directly, I make things worse.
I've had to sit in boardrooms and pretend I don't notice the way he looks at her, the way he talks to her, because she asked me to let her handle it.
" His hands curled into fists on his knees.
"Do you have any idea how hard that's been?
Trusting her to fight her own battles when every instinct I have is screaming at me to destroy him? "
Jennifer looked at me. I gave her a small nod.
This is him. The real him.
She turned back to Damien, reluctant respect forming beneath her scrutiny.
"Nathan suspects the audit discrepancies," she said. "Emma told me. What's your plan if he finds proof?"
"He won't."
"You sound confident."
"The original documents were destroyed. The only copies that exist are the ones Falkirk's board approved. There's no paper trail."
"There's always a paper trail."
"Not this time."
She fixed him with a glare before reaching into her desk, slamming a stack of papers onto the surface.
Elion's audit.
"You were saying?"
The color drained from Damien's face.
"I'm the head of strategy, Damien." Jennifer's voice was ice. "Did you really think I wouldn't keep copies of our own financials?"
Damien didn't move.
Didn't speak.
His gaze locked on the stack of papers—
a loaded gun.
Steady.
Aimed.
Waiting to fire.
"I've had these since before the merger closed," Jennifer continued.
"I pulled them the week the Davidson breach happened.
And then I watched you stand in front of a room full of people and call them forgeries.
" She leaned forward. "So let me ask you again, Damien.
What's your plan when someone finds proof? "
The silence stretched so long I thought it might snap.
Then Damien exhaled slowly, and when he looked up, fear had been replaced by determination.
"What do you want?" he asked quietly. "I'll give you anything. Name your price. A position at Falkirk. Stock options. A seat at the table when the dust settles." He spread his hands. "Whatever it takes."
She let him dangle, leaning back in her chair, arms crossed.
"I don't want a damn thing."
Damien blinked. "Excuse me?"
"You heard me. I don't want your money. I don't want a promotion. I don't want stock options or a fancy title or whatever else you think you can buy me with." She turned to me, expression softening. "I want Emma to come out of this unscathed. That's it. That's the only price."
The words settled over the room like a blanket.
Damien stared at her. Jennifer stared back.
"Then we want the same thing."
"It appears we do."
What followed was the most efficient hour of my life.
Jennifer pulled out a legal pad—yellow, college-ruled, the same style she'd used since business school—and started writing.
"First. The relationship." She pointed her pen at both of us. "No more hiding. No more avoiding each other in hallways. Starting tomorrow, you're going to act like two people who are falling for each other. Slowly. Naturally."
"Falling for each other," Damien repeated. "We're already—"
"I know what you already are. The rest of the world doesn't." She scribbled something down.
"Lingering looks. Coffee runs together. The occasional lunch that goes five minutes too long.
Nothing scandalous—just enough that when the official announcement drops, people nod and say I knew it instead of what the hell. "
I looked at Damien. "Agreed."
"Second. HR disclosure." Jennifer flipped to a new page. "You file in three weeks. Not sooner—that looks panicked. Not later—that looks like you were hiding something."
"Three weeks," I echoed. "That's specific."
"It's strategic. Long enough for the 'organic' chemistry to register. Short enough that no one can accuse you of dragging your feet."
"Third." Her pen stopped moving. "Nathan Bell."
The temperature in the room dropped.
"He's going to keep digging," she continued. "Emma said he's been pushing on the audit for weeks. That's not going to stop just because his mentorship ended."
"I can handle Nathan," Damien said.
"Can you handle him without starting a war?" Jennifer's gaze was sharp. "Because right now, you're sitting on a powder keg. One wrong move and the whole thing blows."
Damien's mouth pressed flat, but didn't argue.
"No confrontations," Jennifer said firmly. "No threats. No flexing whatever leverage you think you have on him—not yet. Let him dig. Let him chase shadows. The more time he wastes looking for proof, the less time he spends causing actual damage."
"And if he escalates?" I asked.
"Then we reassess." Jennifer circled something on her notepad. "But we don't fire first. Understood?"
"Understood," Damien and I said in unison.
"Fourth. These." She rested her hand on the stack of original audit documents. "I'll shred them. We'll scrub the servers."
Damien's shoulder relaxed. "Thank you."
"Fifth." Jennifer set her pen down, folding her hands over the notepad. "Emma's board seat."
"Right now, you're vulnerable," she said, looking at me. "You're new. If anyone starts connecting dots—relationship, audit, timeline—they're going to come for your seat first." She turned to Damien. "You need allies on that board. People who will defend her when the whispers start."
"I have allies."
"Then use them. Quietly. Make sure Emma's contributions are visible—documented, praised, impossible to dismiss. By the time anyone thinks to question her qualifications, the record should speak for itself."
Damien nodded. "I can do that."
"Good."
"Sixth—both of you need to stop looking so goddamn guilty all the time. You're crazy about each other. Act like it. The more natural you seem together, the less people will question how it started."
She tore the page from her notepad and slid it across the desk toward us.
A checklist. Neat. Organized. Six bullet points that might just save our careers.
"Any questions?"
I looked at Damien. He looked back.
"No," we said together.
Jennifer smiled—the first real smile I'd seen from her in a while.
"Then let's get to work."
We left Jennifer's office forty-five minutes later, the checklist folded in my pocket.
The hallway was mercifully empty—most of the team had filtered out for lunch or buried themselves in work. Damien walked beside me, close enough that our shoulders almost brushed.
The elevator doors slid open. We stepped inside, and the moment they closed, Damien folded into the wall, hand dragging down his face, the weight finally allowed to show.
"Christ," he breathed. "She's terrifying."
I grinned. "I know."
"I think I respect her more than anyone I've ever met."
"I know that too."
He turned his head, looking at me with exhaustion and tenderness warring in his eyes. "She loves you."
"She does."
"Good." He reached out, catching my hand and threading his fingers through mine. "You deserve people who love you like that."
The elevator hummed around us, carrying us down toward the lobby, toward the car, toward whatever came next.
"Damien?"
"Mm?"
"Thank you." I squeezed his hand, then dropped it quickly. "For showing up. For letting her see you—the real you. I know that wasn't easy."
He was quiet for a moment. Then he tugged me close, pressing a kiss to my temple.
"There's nothing I wouldn't do for you, Emma." His voice was low. Rough. "I thought you knew that by now."
The doors slid open.
The lobby stretched before us—glass and chrome and the muted bustle of midday foot traffic. Harold was waiting at the curb, the car idling in the pale summer light.
Damien and I slid into the backseat.
Side by side.