Chapter 294

Damien

I remove my shoes and enter the apartment.

"Oh, Damien, you’re here?" Gary says, playing his game. He’s taller now, being a high school student. Still has that same mop of curly hair as his brother, just a lighter shade.

"Eli went to take a shower," he adds, eyes already back on the screen.

I walk over and ruffle his hair, earning a half-hearted protest. I pull out my wallet and hand him a few bills, more than enough for a nice dinner out, maybe a movie.

"Spend a night at one of your friends’ houses," I say.

He stops his game immediately, counting the notes with the practiced speed of a teenager who knows exactly what this arrangement means. His grin is knowing but unbothered. He’s been collecting these "payments" for years now.

"A pleasure doing business with you," he says, already grabbing his jacket. The door clicks shut behind him.

I walk into the bedroom, loosening my tie. The shower is running, and I can hear Elliot’s off-key singing drifting through the steam, something soft, melancholic.

I tug off my tie completely, undress, and slide open the glass door.

"—ah!" He jumps, one hand flying to his chest. Water streams down his face, his eyes wide. "Damien, you scared me."

"I’m afraid you wouldn’t have heard me over the sound of your concert," I say, stepping under the warm spray.

He smacks my chest lightly, a reflexive, playful gesture that’s become familiar over these years. The water beads on his skin, tracing paths down his neck, his shoulders, his—

"I was expecting you tomorrow," he says, but there’s no real complaint in his voice.

Yeah. Me too.

But lately, all I hear is Daphne, Daphne, Daphne, Daphne.

My own home—my father reciting her latest achievements like a litany of my failures.

My workplace—staff whispering about her corporate conquests, her charity work, her impossible success.

Online—articles dissecting her every move, comparing us, always comparing.

Daphne, who built an empire from nothing.

Daphne, who doesn’t need the family name.

The weight of it presses on my chest constantly, a suffocating blanket of inadequacy.

I needed to escape. To my one place. My one person who doesn’t see Damien Han, Mayor. Damien Han, Bernard’s son. Damien Han, Daphne’s twin.

Here, I’m just Damien.

"I was just a little stressed," I admit, dragging him by the waist until his chest presses against mine. The water cascades around us, warm and obscuring.

"Needed my favorite stress reliever."

He laughs softly, that easy, unguarded sound that Vivienne never makes. His hands slide up my arms, settling on my shoulders. The water droplets trace paths down his chest, catching the light, and I watch them fall.

I let my hand lower and smack his ass. He squeals but quickly stifles it, the reflex ingrained from years of needing silence, of being someone’s secret.

"You don’t have to be quiet today," I say, leaning down, my lips brushing the shell of his ear.

"I sent Gary away."

He shivers, a full-body response that has nothing to do with the cooling water. His arms wrap around my neck, pulling himself closer.

"You’re spoiling him," he murmurs, but there’s a smile in his voice. The kind of smile he only gives me, unguarded and warm.

"It’s worth every penny," I say, and I mean it. For these stolen hours, for this pocket of peace where I’m just me.

I lift him, his legs wrapping instinctively around my waist, and press him against the cool tiles of the shower wall. The water cascades around us, steam rising thick.

His pheromones flood the small space, drowning me in that sweet, familiar scent. For a couple of hours, I want to forget everything.

For a couple of hours, I want to just be Damien.

And Elliot lets me.

He always does.

***

Vivienne

I look at the text from Damien—working late again, don’t wait up—and I can’t bring myself to care.

The relief is startling. Shameful. But undeniable.

Because his absence means I don’t have to pretend. Don’t have to smile and nod and play the devoted fiancée while my mind is elsewhere.

I finally figured it out. That elusive note in Daphne’s pheromones, the one I couldn’t place—it’s pigment. Paint pigment. The chemical undertone of oils and turpentine and creativity made tangible.

It makes sense now. The faint stains on her fingers she thinks I don’t notice. The way she sometimes smells of canvas and linseed oil beneath the expensive cologne.

I found the source tonight.

She’s on the patio attached to her room, visible from the garden if you know where to look. I pretend to sit here with a book, pretending to read, pretending this is just a coincidence.

But I’m watching her.

I can’t stop watching her.

She sits on a wooden stool before an easel, painting in the near-darkness. I don’t understand how she can even see—the only light comes from her open doorway, spilling weakly onto the canvas.

But her hand moves with sure, confident strokes, as if she’s painting from memory rather than sight. Or maybe she sees in the dark better than the rest of us. It wouldn’t surprise me.

I lean against the side of the patio chair, the book forgotten in my lap. The early evening breeze carries her scent down to me—that intoxicating mix of Alpha and artistry. It’s so comforting.

So achingly familiar in ways I can’t explain.

I watch the way her fingers move, the repeated, hypnotic strokes of the brush. The way her brow furrows slightly in concentration, then relaxes when a passage comes together.

The way the breeze flows through her dark hair, lifting it gently from her forehead.

Her biceps flex when she dips the brush into the paints, lean muscle shifting beneath smooth skin.

She’s devastating.

What are you painting? I want to ask. What lives in your mind that needs to escape onto canvas?

But I stay silent. A ghost in the garden, watching a woman who feels more real than my own life.