Chapter 21 #2
His smile deepened. “I don’t do things halfway, Emma.”
The words settled between us, weighted and strangely intimate. A shimmering tether stretched between us, threading with the breeze and catching on the candlelight.
Silence unfurled—heavy, alive. Sparks skated over my skin, that familiar, unsettling awareness tracing patterns I didn’t have names for.
He drew in a breath. Leaned forward. And when his eyes locked on mine, everything else blurred out. “I have feelings for you,” he said, voice low—no hesitation, no deflection. “Real ones.”
Air punched out of my lungs in one uneven exhale. My pulse flickered along with the candlelight.
Now? He was saying this now—before I’d even found my footing in whatever fragile middle ground we were building?
“I fucked up,” he continued, a rough, humorless laugh catching at the end. “God, I know I did. But—” He dragged a hand through his hair. Not suave, not polished—shaken. Human.
It cracked something sharp inside me.
“I’m falling for you.” A gentle chuckle escaped him. “Head over heels, actually.”
The words hung there, suspended in the warm glow between us. For a moment, he just paused—slow, deliberate—like confessing had taken something out of him he couldn’t get back.
“Damien…” The world tipped under me, but he shook his head fast, cutting me off.
“I know.” His voice tumbled forward before I could form a thought. “I know I don’t deserve anything from you after what I did. But seeing you yesterday—after everything…” He swallowed, throat tightening. “It was the first time we were… us. In person. Real.”
He looked away for just a second, jaw flexing, tone roughening at the edges.
“I can’t pretend I don’t feel what I feel anymore,” he said. “I left Friday night a shell of myself—empty, gutted. I’ve replayed every second since.” He released a shaky exhale. “And now…” He trailed off, the rest swallowed by the quiet.
My hands trembled in my lap as I shifted, the fairy lights above us dancing in rhythm with my heartbeat. Damien waited across from me, fingers wrapped tight around the stem of his glass. He tried to look composed, but his expression gave him away—bright, sharp, terrified.
The memory of Friday night hit hard and fast.
The sting of his silence.
The humiliation splintering across the restaurant floor like broken glass.
The raw, hollow ache that followed me home.
I had bled for him—more than he would ever fully understand.
But underneath the hurt, another part of me stirred. The reckless part. The part that remembered his late-night messages, the gentleness in his voice, the way he’d shown up yesterday without hesitation, then stayed until the adrenaline left my body and I could settle again.
And logic be damned—I wanted him. I wanted this. Even if it burned.
My throat tightened, words scraping out.
“I… I think I have feelings for you, too,” I said, voice small but certain.
His breath caught.
I forced a smile, crooked and vulnerable. “Real ones.”
His eyes went wide—saucers of shock and something dangerously close to hope. “Really?”
I chuckled lightly. “Really.”
His expression shifted—skepticism, sharp and fearful, crept in around the edges. “Don’t fuck with me, Emma.”
The fear in his eyes startled me—so raw, so pleading.
My laugh cracked open anyway, brighter and honest. “I’m not.”
The moment barely finished forming before he moved.
One second, he was across the table. The next, he was kneeling beside me, hand sliding to the back of my neck, touch steady and reverent, like he was afraid I’d vanish.
And then the world snapped clean open.
His lips brushed mine—tentative, questioning, unbearably gentle. A test. A plea. A promise.
But he didn’t need permission. The moment he kissed me, heat tore through me in one unstoppable wave, lighting every nerve, every bruise, every want I’d tried to bury.
I kissed him back—slow at first, then deeper, matching him stroke for stroke. Letting everything I didn’t know how to say settle into the space between our mouths. Letting him feel it. Letting myself feel it, too.
When he finally pulled back, he was winded—wide-eyed and reverent. Like he couldn’t believe I was real. “Holy shit,” he whispered.
“Yeah.” I nodded, lungs barely cooperating. “Holy shit.”
A beat—then something wild cracked open between us. The sound felt foreign—like something unused finally working again.
We laughed, quiet at first, then louder, bubbling up from a place neither of us had touched in a long time.
“I can’t believe it,” he breathed, voice paper-fragile, every ounce of confession exposed on his face.
“Me either.” My smile faltered, dipping into something truer. “I’m not usually the kind of girl that gets the guy.”
His brows snapped together, confusion cutting clean. “What are you talking about?”
My hands jittered against my thigh. He eased down onto his knees in front of me and took my hands without a word, holding them like something fragile but important.
“I…” I swallowed, looking away, the truth clawing up like something long-buried. “I’ve never had great success with relationships.”
He stared at me, completely at sea. “I’m still not following.”
“Ever since high school, boys—men—they always looked past me to Candace.” My voice tightened. “I was always the weird one. Too opinionated. Too strict. Too… me.”
My father’s voice slithered in, sharp and unwelcome, threatening to rebuild every wall Damien had dismantled.
“Go on,” he urged gently, giving my hands a little squeeze.
“I got stood up a lot,” I said, voice shrinking. “Guys always said they were intimidated by me.”
He jerked his head back like I’d slapped him. “Then fuck them.”
I blinked. “What?”
“Fuck those guys—well, boys,” he corrected, disgust curling his lip. “You weren’t too much. They were too little. And that difference? That’s what scared them off. Not you.”
My heart thudded once, hard enough to steal my breath. “I don’t understand.” My voice barely held.
His hold tightened. “You are a masterpiece Van Gogh couldn’t even dream of. You’re sharp, and brilliant, and loyal, and funny—”
I smacked his shoulder, heat rushing up my neck. “Stop.”
But my eyes stung—a betrayal of how badly I needed to hear that and how much I hated needing it.
He grinned, delight breaking across his face like sunrise over water. “Not a chance.”