Chapter 48
Chapter forty-eight
Emma
The dress was laid out on the bed when I woke up.
Navy blue. Structured silhouette.
A neckline that said I'm in charge without screaming it.
Next to it sat a small card in Damien's handwriting.
You're going to be incredible today. Wear this and remember who you are.—D
I traced the edge of the card. Butterflies took flight.
He'd already left for the office. Early meetings, he'd said.
Though I suspected he just wanted to give me space.
Space to have my existential crisis in private before walking into a building full of people who were about to learn I was sleeping with the CEO.
Not just sleeping, I reminded myself.
In a relationship.
A real one.
One with pizza nights and his mother's texts and Sunday family dinners.
I touched the collar at my throat.
Not to mention this.
I showered slowly, letting the hot water work out the tension in my shoulders.
Went through my skincare routine twice because I forgot whether I'd already done it.
Stared at my reflection for a full minute.
Dark circles. Cover those.
Hair doing that weird flippy thing. Fix that.
Expression says "about to vomit from anxiety." Work on that.
Thirty minutes of frantic preparation later, I reassessed.
The woman looking back at me belonged in a boardroom.
Wear this and remember who you are.
"I'm Emma Sinclair," I told my reflection.
"And I'm about to walk into Falkirk and tell everyone I'm in love with Damien Holt."
I squared my shoulders.
"And if they have a problem with it, they can kick rocks."
The woman in the mirror smiled back, green-flecked eyes catching the light.
My phone buzzed on the vanity.
Damien: Car's waiting downstairs whenever you're ready. No rush.
Damien: You've got this.
Damien: I'm excited.
Three messages.
Simple. Direct. Exactly what I needed.
I typed a response, then deleted it.
Typed another. Deleted that too.
Finally, I settled on:
Me: See you soon.
I stepped through Falkirk's revolving doors, heels clicking against marble.
Damien waited near the security desk, looking like he'd stepped out of a magazine spread—charcoal suit, crisp white shirt, that undeniable authority he wore like a second skin.
He was talking to one of the security guards, but his dark eyes found mine the moment I walked in.
I crossed the lobby, hyper-aware of everyone I passed.
The receptionist who smiled at me.
Two analysts from the third floor who definitely whispered after I passed.
The maintenance guy who didn't give a shit about office politics and was just trying to fix the elevator panel.
"Hi," I said when I reached him, my vocabulary shrinking to single syllables.
"Hi." Damien's mouth curved. "You look stunning."
"I look terrified."
"No you don't." He reached out, tucking a curl behind my ear.
Behind the reception desk, Jill glared.
Take that bitch.
I sucked in a breath, then another.
"Ready?" he asked.
Weeks of hiding.
Months of secrets.
Stolen glances. Careful distance. Pretending we were nothing more than colleagues.
"Yes," I said. "Let's do this."
We walked to the elevator side by side. Not touching, but close enough that our shoulders nearly brushed.
I caught the double-take from a woman in Marketing. The raised eyebrows from two guys in Finance who quickly looked away when Damien's gaze swept past them. The knowing smile from Tessa, who was loitering near the coffee station with a mug she clearly wasn't drinking from.
The elevator doors opened. We stepped inside.
"Here we go," Damien said as he pressed the button for the sixth floor—HR.
The doors slid shut, and for a moment, it was just us—suspended between floors.
"You okay?" he asked quietly.
"Ask me again in ten minutes."
"Fair enough."
The elevator dinged.
The doors opened, spilling us onto the HR floor.
Beige walls. Beige carpet. Beige chairs arranged in a waiting area no one ever used. A motivational poster—mountain, the word INTEGRITY—hung crooked near the water cooler.
Damien approached the front desk, where an elderly woman with reading glasses perched on her nose was typing something with intense concentration.
"Dorothy," he said politely.
She looked up. Her expression cycled through several emotions—surprise, confusion, recognition, then careful professional neutrality.
"Mr. Holt." Her gaze slid to me. "Miss Sinclair. How can I help you?"
Damien pulled a folder from inside his jacket and set it on the desk.
"We need to file a personal relationship disclosure," he said.
Dorothy blinked.
Looked at the folder.
Looked at us.
"And you're disclosing a relationship between..." She looked between us again.
"Correct," Damien said, utterly calm.
I, meanwhile, was still trying not to throw up.
Dorothy removed her reading glasses, cleaning them on her cardigan with deliberate slowness. Like she was buying herself a moment to process. Then she reached for her stamp—an actual rubber stamp, absurdly antiquated—and pressed it onto the first page.
Thunk.
"I'll need both of your signatures on page four," she said, sliding the folder toward us. "And initials on pages six through eight. Once the board signs off, I'll file it."
Damien signed first, his pen moving in quick, confident strokes. Then he handed it to me.
I stared at the signature line. Emma Sinclair, Employee.
This was it. The first domino. Once I signed this, there was no going back. No more plausible deniability. No more we're just colleagues.
I signed my name.
Dorothy collected the folder, tapping the pages into alignment. "I'll hold these until I receive confirmation from the board. Assuming everything goes smoothly, you'll have copies in your inbox by the end of day."
"Thank you, Dorothy," Damien said, dipping his head.
"Good luck," she replied, but we were already through the door.
Damien checked his watch as we walked through Falkirk's halls. "We have seven minutes before the board meeting. How are you feeling?"
I considered the question.
My hands were steady. My heart was racing, but not unpleasantly—more like anticipation.
"I feel ready," I said, surprised to find I meant it.
Damien smiled—that real one, the one he saved for moments when no one else was watching.
"Good," he said. "Because you're about to walk into a room full of board members and tell them you're in love with their CEO."
"You're the one who's going to tell them that."
"We're telling them together." He offered his hand. "That's the whole point."
I looked at his outstretched palm.
At the man attached to it—flawed, terrified, trying so hard. Just like me.
I took his hand.
"Let's go make it official," I said, squeezing once before letting it fall.
We couldn't walk in holding hands—not yet.
There was a protocol to this, a performance.
We'd rehearsed it last night, though "rehearsed" was a generous term for Damien listing talking points while I nodded and tried not to hyperventilate.
Damien pushed open the doors. The boardroom had never looked so intimidating.
A room full of familiar faces already arranged around the long mahogany table, coffee cups and leather folios positioned with care.
Some smiled as we entered—Farnsworth, Linda, Alicia.
Others were indifferent—Lang, Richter, Ashford, and Shore.
And at the far end of the table, looking like he'd swallowed something sour: Nathan Bell.
His gaze tracked us as we entered, sharp and calculating.
"Good morning," Damien said, taking his seat at the head of the table as I took mine next to Farnsworth. "Thank you all for accommodating this meeting on short notice."
"Your email was vague," Alicia said, though her tone held amusement rather than rebuke. "'Personal matter requiring board acknowledgment.' Care to enlighten us?"
"That's why we're here." Damien folded his hands on the table, composed and steady. "As some of you may have surmised over the past several weeks, Ms. Sinclair and I are in a relationship."
A beat of stunned silence.
Then Linda Cavanaugh snorted. "Well, finally."
I blinked. "I'm sorry—what?"
"Oh, please," she said, waving a hand. "The two of you have been orbiting each other for weeks."
She pointed at Farnsworth. "You owe me lunch."
Farnsworth let out a low grumble. "I said they'd announce it after Christmas. I guess I was being a bit pessimistic."
"You were being delusional," Linda corrected.
I looked at Damien, who appeared equally thrown. This was… not how we expected this to go.
"We're here to formally disclose," Damien continued, recovering smoothly. "We've already filed with HR. But we want to ensure full transparency and address any concerns the board may have."
"Concerns?" Farnsworth said, arching a brow.
"Damien, you started this company from the ground up and I've never once considered your judgment compromised.
And Ms. Sinclair—" he nodded toward me "—has demonstrated competence well beyond her years.
Her APAC mitigation proposal will probably save us a quarter's worth of headaches. "
"Hear, hear," Linda added, tapping her pen.
Relief flooded my veins.
"I have something to say," Nathan's drawl came from the other end of the table.
I braced myself. Damien sat a little taller, the air tightening around us. This was the moment we'd find out what Nathan had been planning—the one we'd been preparing for, the one I knew Damien had been quietly arming himself to face.
Instead, Nathan's smile shifted. Softened into something almost cordial.
"Congratulations," he said. "To you both."
The room went still. Relief flickered—then died just as fast.
I searched his face for the trap. The sarcasm. The hidden knife. But his expression was smooth, unreadable—a perfect mask.
Fuck.
I schooled the confusion off my face. This wasn't like him. No. He was playing the long game. I could feel it. The way a deer feels the wolf in the trees.
"If there are no other concerns," Damien said, "we request formal acknowledgment so HR can finalize compliance."