Page 21

twenty-one

Lucy

I’m sitting on my bed, reading a powerpoint from my sophomore year when Damien nearly kicks down my door.

It’s late, nearly midnight when he enters. I’ve been worried about where he’s been all day, even sent a few texts on the new phone he’s given me and still, no response.

Until now.

And judging by the furious look on his face and pungent odor of whiskey coming off him, I can tell it’s best he didn’t respond. Except right now, he looks terrifying. He feels terrifying.

He stomps near me on the bed and I move my laptop aside, my eyes wide with fear as his nostrils flare. His eyes are bloodshot and right now, and I’m reminded of my father during one of his many drunken rages.

I’m terrified.

“Damien what-”

“Why didn’t you tell me that you saw her?” he growls as he smacks his hand against the wall, causing me to flinch.

Megan. He’s talking about my run in with Megan.

Fuck.

“Don’t look all scared now, Lucille. Answer me!” he roars, hitting the wall even harder.

I don’t know this man. I don’t know who he is.

“Damien, you’re scaring me. Stop it and let me explain,” I say, my voice almost a whimper as he speaks.

He freezes as his eyes widen for a moment, taking in my words. It doesn’t last long because they narrow on me almost instantly.

As I gaze into his eyes, I can see the storm brewing within them. His anger is palpable, a mix of frustration and hurt that cuts through the air between us. The intensity of his stare makes my heart race, and I feel a knot forming in my stomach. Each glance feels like a silent accusation, a reminder of the rift that has come between us. In this moment, words seem futile, overshadowed by the raw emotion in his eyes. I want to reach out, to bridge the gap, but the anger swirling in those eyes holds me back, leaving me grappling with a mix of fear, regret, and downright terror.

“No. You’re done talking. I can’t believe a word that comes out of your mouth anyway,” he hisses, and his voice is almost unrecognizable.

His voice, normally so familiar and comforting, now sounds foreign and sharp. It’s as if the anger has transformed him into someone I barely recognize. Each word he speaks is laced with bitterness, cutting through the air like a blade. The person standing before me feels like a stranger, his features twisted by the intensity of his emotions. It’s disconcerting to see him this way, a stark contrast to the man I’ve known over the last couple of weeks, this is more like the Damien I remember. The anger in his voice creates a chasm between us, making me question if the person I thought I knew ever really existed. It’s a haunting realization that the one I love can change so drastically in the heat of the moment.

Maybe this is who Damien really is, who he’s been all along. I’ve just turned a blind eye to him completely.

“You’re coming with me. It’s time for you to be punished. Good girls don’t lie,” he growls, ripping me from the bed and hauling me over his shoulders.

I don’t scream, I don’t protest. I just hold my breath as he takes me from my room and climbs the stairs to his own. We walk through his bedroom and he opens the door to the dungeon he tries to hide away from the world. A room that once excited me. A room that now terrifies me.

He throws me against a large, wooden board with shackles on it and my body freezes in terror.

My mind instantly goes to that night as Damien undoes his belt and moves it closer to me, ready to snap it.

I didn’t expect this to happen, didn’t realize my mind would wander to this place, but it’s too late now.

“Please stop!” I cry, tears spilling from my eyes as my mind goes back to that night.

He doesn’t listen, he just walks closer. He is not Damien right now, he is my attacker from three years ago. His eyes are dark blue and he smells like vodka. His hands are rough and calloused and he hisses at me like a snake. When he pins me, I scream. When he lashes me with his belt, I weep. I beg for help. For someone, anyone.

I ask him to stop. But he doesn’t listen, just presses me down and whispers my name in an angry hiss.

I try to sneak back to the present moment, try to make my way through the blurred lines of memory and reality and when I do, I shout the one word that makes him freeze altogether.

“Enough!” I scream.

His belt drops to the floor and I am catapulted back into the room, into this actual moment and not like that night years ago.

My breath is coming out hard and fast. My cheeks burn from my tears. I’m shaking, almost uncontrollably as my eyes move from the belt on the floor to meet with Damien’s.

He looks normal now, except he’s terrified. He’s staring at me in such shock and belief, and beneath that, disgust.

“Lucy-I…” he starts, but chokes on his words.

He realizes what he’s done. He saw the terror in my gaze. Heard the safe word. And he stopped. He’s Damien again. My Damien.

“I thought you were him,” I cry softly, dropping my head as he backs away from me.

“Lucy, I’m not. I’m sorry- I was just pissed and I thought you understood the dynamic. I thought you could handle-”

“Not when you do that to me! Not when you act like the men who have fucking abused me!” I sob, dropping to my knees on the floor as I bury my face in my hands.

I realize then, that all of the intimacy I’ve had with him, all of the pain I’ve taken and searched for, was nothing but a coping mechanism for what I’ve been through. I’ve been hiding from my abuse for years and I finally found a vice.

Sex. With my savior.

Except now, the truth is laid out and bare.

Damien is not my savior. He is just a man. And I am nothing but a broken girl who has refused to face her trauma.

He pulls me into his arms and I do not flinch, but rather lean into him. He smoothes back my hair and rubs my back as I sob and he kisses the top of my head while whispering that I’m okay and that I’m safe, that I can trust him.

That he’s sorry.

And I believe him. I really do. No matter how fucked up that sounds.

Because look at our dynamic, look at what I’ve allowed.

He’s threatened to kill me and I’ve invited him into my body. He showed me his deepest, twisted desires and I let him in my body. I watched him kill a man and grind him into pieces and I still let him inside of my heart.

I am just as fucked up as he is.

Of course he thought this moment of rough, make up sex would be okay.

After a while, I pull back to look at him. He looks so lost and ashamed, unlike the Damien I’ve known. It’s raw and pure. I realize now I’ve seen more sides to him in the last ten minutes than I have in the last seven years.

“You thought I was him,” he whispers as he wipes the tears from my eyes.

“I don’t know what happened-” I try to say, but he cuts me off

“I do. I showed you the monster that I am,” he says, his eyes to the floor as he speaks.

Oh Damien, you broken, shattered boy. What has made you this way? What has made you so cold, so callous, so filled with guilt and shame that you have to hide behind it?

And why am I the one who breaks down pieces of the wall you’ve built around you?

“I didn’t say anything to her. She cornered me in the bathroom and I left immediately. That’s it. I should have told you. I’m sorry,” I say, knowing that Andy probably confessed about what happened, I don’t blame him. He was probably following orders.

“Jesus Christ, Lucille,” he hisses, backing away from me before he stands and shakes his head. “Don’t fucking apologize to me after what I just…after what I tried to…” he shakes his head violently as more of that disgust and shame spreads over his beautiful, tired features.

I don’t think I’ve ever seen him this disheveled, this undone.

It’s the most human he’s ever looked.

And it’s beautiful and confusing and fucked up all at once. Just like him.

“Damien, stop-”

“I could’ve hurt you. You thought. I. Was. Him.” he says, his voice a chant almost, his face breaking.

“Damien, don’t do this. You stopped. You listened to the safe word, it’s okay-”

“No it’s not! Fucking none of this is!” He roars as he turns away from me and makes his way to his bedroom.

I don’t know why, but I follow him.

I grab at his arms and he fights me through it.

“Don’t run from me,” I growl, as he tries to flee.

“You’re being a coward! Face me!” I shout at him as he freezes near the bed.

“Face the consequences of your actions. Like a man,” I say, my fists balled at my sides as he turns slowly to face me, his face twisted in despair.

You poor, broken man.

“You’ve fucked up, countless times, but you can’t run from it. You can’t manipulate it any way that you’d like when it feels uncomfortable. When it’s too tough. Too real. That’s what cowards do,” I say and he stares at me, a slight bit of wonder and confusion in his eyes.

I realize then that neither of us have ever had a single form of a healthy relationship. I haven’t with my family, and I can definitely tell he hasn’t with anyone else either.

So I guess it starts now. I guess we start from square one.

“You didn’t need to freak out on me, we could have talked and avoided all of this,” I explain as he goes to sit on his bed, his eyes still on me as I speak.

“I kept the truth from you, and I’m sorry. But you don’t get to treat me like that. You talk to me and confront me like a man, not a monster,” I say and he starts to retreat, but I walk to him and grab his jaw, forcing him to look up at me like he’s done so many times.

“And you don’t get to run away when shame starts to fill you, when actual, real, guttural emotions confront you. You face them, like a man. Like a human should,” I say and his eyes search mine.

“I am not your enemy, Damien. I’m here because you want me to be your wife, because you need me, for some stupid reason, you need me. Whether you care to admit it or not. I wouldn’t be here if you didn’t. You wouldn’t fuck me like you do if you didn’t,” I say and he swallows tightly.

I can tell he wants to run right now, away from the feelings that are rushing forth, away from the inevitable words I have to let out.

“I love you,” I say, and he closes his eyes on a sharp exhale.

“Look at me,” I bark, and his eyes snap open instantly.

“Don’t hide. I love you and some stupid part of me always has. It started when I met you in my father’s living room, it expanded when you beat a man that attacked me. It grew alongside my hatred for you, alongside my sadness when you abandoned me. It grew when I knew that you chose her, that you were with her every night while I suffered,” I say, a tear falling from the corner of my eye as I speak my truth.

“I’m not saying this because I want to, or because you need to hear it. I’m saying it because it’s truth. Because I promised no more lies. Because I know that you will never feel the same about me, but I would be doing you and myself a dishonor by keeping it from you,” I say as I stand and press myself against his knees.

“You’re just as broken as me, Damien. Just as twisted and fucked up as I am, but I know there’s good in there. There’s good in everyone, just as much good as there is sadness. Just as much good as torment,” I say, and his breath catches at my words.

The "I love you" hangs in the air, creating a palpable tension that fills the room. My heart pounds in my chest as I watch his reaction, his face a mixture of surprise and uncertainty. The silence that follows is deafening, each second feeling like an eternity. I can see the wheels turning in his mind, processing what I’ve just confessed. The atmosphere is charged with anticipation, every breath I take weighted with the fear of rejection and the hope for reciprocation. It’s as if time has slowed down, and we’re both suspended in this moment of vulnerability. The room, once a space of comfort, now feels like an arena where the future of our relationship, of whatever the fuck this complicated mess is, hangs in the balance.

He doesn’t move for a while, but when he does, he shifts to retrieve something from his pocket. It’s a box, a ring box actually.

“I was going to give this to you this morning. I saw it at one of my stores last week. It just felt like…you,” he says as he opens the box to reveal my engagement ring.

The centerpiece is a massive, pear-shaped black diamond, its dark facets gleaming with an almost hypnotic intensity. Encircling the dramatic stone are tiny, shimmering white diamonds that create a stunning contrast, making the black diamond’s rich, deep color even more striking. The platinum band is sleek and elegant, perfectly complementing the opulence of the ring. It’s a bold, unique piece, exuding sophistication and mystery, just like me.

And in a way, just like us.

“I’m sorry, Lucy. I’m so fucking sorry,” he says, and I can’t tell if he’s apologizing for his actions or for not saying that he loves me back.

With the way his eyes search mine, I realize that I don’t care. Right now, with the way that he’s looking at me, it’s enough.

He slides the ring onto my finger and I watch as he does.

“I can’t promise you the world. Can’t promise you much at all really. But I can promise that I will keep you safe. Safe from the world. Safe from me,” he chokes on the last word and I can’t ask what he means by it.

I can’t really do much at all because as soon as the ring slips onto my finger, Damien rises. He grabs my face in his hands, stares into my eyes with so much emotion that it renders me speechless, and then he kisses me. For the very first time.

As soon as his lips press to mine, it feels like a fire igniting within me. His lips are urgent and demanding, sending shivers down my spine. The intensity of the kiss takes my breath away, and I can feel the raw emotion and desire behind it. It’s as if the world around us disappeared, leaving only the two of us in that moment. Every touch, every movement, is filled with a fervor that makes my heart race. It is a kiss that speaks volumes, a silent declaration of the depth of our connection, whatever it is.

It is powerful, like this kiss. It is remarkable, like this kiss. It is unforgettable, like this kiss.

We tumble back on his bed and I start peeling the clothes from his body. He lets me, but doesn’t break contact with my mouth. He swallows me down with lips and teeth and tongue. Consumes me for all that I’m worth. Like he’s been dying to kiss me.

I can feel the heat radiating between us, our breaths mingling as we lose ourselves in the moment. Every touch, every movement, is filled with a raw, unspoken emotion that leaves me breathless.

I am suspended through space and time and I can’t tell where I end or where he begins, but I don’t care. I’m kissing Damien Reed.

He peels my clothes away tentatively, sliding down my yoga pants to find that I’m already naked underneath all my clothes. I straddle him then, my wet center pressed against his hard length. I’m dying to take him now. Right now.

He breaks the kiss to look at me, and when he does, I feel like I can see the entire world through his eyes. I trace his scar as he slides inside of me. My teeth sink into my lip and his hands wrap around my hips, holding me still, memorizing every detail.

It feels like the first time our bodies ever joined.

It’s…different. Much more intimate. Like our souls are mating this time.

“You’re so beautiful,” he whispers, and I start to ride him, deep and slow.

“Take me. Take all of me,” he growls and I do, I listen to him.

“Use me how you want to,” he says and I sigh as he hits a spot inside of me that has my head tilting back to look at the ceiling.

“So tight. So fucking perfect,” he praises and I know right then I’m going to come fast.

I start to shake around him, but before I burst, he pulls me down to claim my mouth in yet another all-consuming kiss.

He doesn’t need to say I love you then.

I feel it all right here in his lips. I feel it when he comes with me. I feel it when he holds me after, when he wakes me up again to make love to me soft and slow. I feel it when we drift off sometime before sunrise, when he holds me against his body tightly, shielding me away from the world.

And the parts that kept this side of him from me.

* * *

The next morning, I awake, still in Damien’s bed. His body is curled around mine and I smile against his forearm as his snores vibrate against my spine.

My stomach growls and I realize I never ate last night, or really at all yesterday.

I reach for my phone on the nightstand and open up a food delivery app. I search for the closest coffee shop and order two coffees for us and a box of delicious looking pastries that I spend way too long looking at. Once the order is placed, I rest my head against his arm and I inhale his scent and soak up every bit of this moment.

As the first light of dawn filters through the curtains, I find myself wrapped in a cocoon of warmth and comfort. His arms are around me, holding me close, and I can hear the steady rhythm of his breathing. The rising sun casts a soft glow over the room, and everything feels peaceful and right. In this quiet moment, there’s no need for words—just the gentle reassurance of his presence and the shared intimacy of our embrace. The world outside may be waking up, but for now, all that matters is this tender connection, the perfect start to a new day.

Time passes and peace overtakes me until my phone vibrates against my chest.

The delivery driver alerts that the order has arrived downstairs. I sigh and leave the bed as quietly as possible, shifting beneath the sheets before I slide out and away from Damien, who is snoring loudly on his bed. I look around for clothes and only find something of his. It’s his suit jacket from last night. I slide it on and it drops to my knees as I wrap it around me and inhale his whiskey scent. There’s a faint smell outside of that, something more…feminine. Something familiar.

I know he told me he had a meeting at Fleur de Femme yesterday, so that’s probably it. However, as I walk from his room upstairs down to the front door, I can’t shake the triggering feeling that this faint scent gives me.

I slip on my flats near the door and make my way to the lobby. When I grab the order from the driver, I turn and realize that I am face to face with my sister.

“Megan…” I gasp, her eyes narrowed as she glares at me on the sidewalk, wearing nothing but her ex-husband’s suit jacket.

Her eyes lock on the engagement ring on my finger and I know right then and there that I am fucked.

“What are you doing here?” I ask and she scoffs at me.

“It’s downtown Manhattan, Lucille. I’m walking,” she growls, and it’s a lie.

She’s loitering outside of her ex-husband’s business.

“The real question is, what are you doing here, little sister?” She sneers and I know then that I’m caught.

There is no running, no hiding.

I have to face the truth. Right here on the Manhattan sidewalk.

Or rather, the lie.

I don’t know why, but my free hand slides inside of the pocket and presses the side button of my new phone, starting a video immediately in my pocket.

Why do I feel the need to record my older sister speaking to me? Is it because she’s conniving? Or because I have to tell Damien about this immediately and show him the recording so that he knows I’m not lying this time?

Either way, I’m fucking uncomfortable.

Either way, I have to start lying now an yways.

Why is shame filling me?

“We’ve been having an affair since that night he saved me on campus,” I lie, my bottom lip trembling as I speak. “He picked me up from the hospital that night and we’ve been inseparable ever since. He proposed to me last year, we had to wait until you finalized the divorce.” Lie, lie, lie. I find that’s all I ever do since I’ve been in Damien’s world.

She eyes me for a while and seems unbothered by my words, which is shocking, then again, she is just as cold as my mother, she’s great at manipulating and hiding her emotions.

“I see,” she says as she starts to back away to call a taxi.

I’m shocked to see her retreat so quickly.

I want to say something, but I refrain as soon as a taxi pulls up and she opens the door. She turns to look at me, a ghost of a smirk on her lips.

I know that whatever words come from her lips, they’re going to wound me. As they always have.

“Since you’ll be married soon, you should probably know that I came by his office downtown yesterday,” she starts, and I shift on my heels.

“He fucked me on his desk before going home to you, Lucille. You cannot trust this man,” she says, and her words slice right through me.

“I- I don’t believe you,” I say, and she laughs at me, she actually laughs at me.

“I wouldn’t really worry about believing me when I should be the one that doesn’t believe you,” she says icily as I freeze and stare at her.

She holds up a hand for the cab driver to wait before she approaches me, walking slow. I try to back away but she stops me and leans forward to speak so low that only I can hear her.

“He didn’t pick you up from the hospital that night, Lucille. Because he was with me, helping me toss the body of the man that raped you into the Hudson River,” she says, and my whole world tilts on an axis.

“Might want to make sure your stories align before you fabricate. It’s the first thing I learned in law school, sweetheart.” She grins before hopping in the taxi and slamming the door behind her.

As it speeds away, I stand there frozen on the sidewalk. Unsure of what to do or say or feel.

Before I can dive into her admission of covering up a murder, I have to dissect her words about him fucking her yesterday. He did come home flustered and disheveled; he was incredibly angry with me.

My stomach turns as I catch another whiff of the perfume that is on Damien’s jacket, a smell that was present in front of me just moments ago. It is a fragrance I know all too well and my heart sinks into my chest as I recall the scent now.

Amber and saffron, a scent Megan has worn all of her life.

The anger in his words were jarring, and the perfume served as a silent testament to the lie. I can feel the betrayal cutting deep, the trust I had built crumbling before my eyes all from the realization of her fucking perfume. The mixture of anger, confusion, and sadness is overwhelming, and it’s amplified when I think of her admission. When I remember what she said about the man that attacked me.

He did beat him, I was out of it, but I watched him through my blurry vision and I heard the man’s screams in the distance, but the president at our school said he was expelled, never once was a murder mentioned.

Then again, I never googled him, never cared to since he had ruined both my body and my life.

I stop the recording on my phone and sniff back the tears that threaten to spill. I have to get off this sidewalk. I take the elevator all the way up to the penthouse, my heart pounding in my chest the higher it climbs. When the doors open and I step inside, I find Henry setting up his knives in the kitchen. I must have missed him on my way out.

I hide my face as I drop the coffee mugs on the counter.

“Has he come downstairs yet?” I ask as I start to walk in the direction of his office.

“No, I think he’s sleeping,” he says as I rush down the hall on the opposite side of the penthouse.

“I would have made you coffee!” Henry shouts, and as I shut the door of Damien’s office behind me, I almost wish he had too.

I lock the door and rush over to his desk, knowing that I’m really risking it all by doing this, but I could care less at this point. This man has been using me and manipulating me for almost two weeks now, I’ve risked my body and my self-worth at this point. I’ve got nothing to lose.

I rummage through his drawers. Pulling out file after file, searching for the name of my attacker, yet nothing. I open google and type his name on my phone and all that I find is a missing persons report, which is still shocking, because we never heard anything about a fellow student going missing.

Then again, I wasn’t enrolled in school for too long after that attack. Maybe a couple of weeks at best. It probably takes just as long to file a missing persons report.

Which means that Megan very well could be telling the truth.

Which makes me sick to my stomach. Nausea creeps up on me again and threatens to spill all over Damien’s desk, but I swallow tightly and still search through his files for some sort of truth, any truth.

(Is this paragraph necessary?)However, when I came across one with my own name on it, I didn’t realize how deep I was digging through Damien’s graveyard of secrets. I didn’t know I’d be finding out a truth I had absolutely no suspicion of.

As I stumble upon a blank folder on Damien’s desk, right next to his computer, a sense of unease washes over me. Curiosity gets the better of me, and I open it, only to be met with a shocking revelation. The documents inside detail a secret my father has kept hidden for years.

My life, as I know it, is a lie.

I have a mother, one that is not Ann Fairchild, or so this file states.

My real mother was paid off to keep quiet and disappear from my life. The words on the pages blur as I try to process this betrayal. My heart pounds, and I feel a mix of anger, confusion, and heartache. The foundation of my identity feels shattered, leaving me grappling with the truth of who I really am and questioning everything I’ve ever known about my family. Not only that, but I question every single thing I’ve learned about Damien Reed as well.

The file contained a woman’s name, age, job, and the amount of hush money she received.

Amy Stark was a seventeen-year-old intern at my father’s office during his first run for senator and she had an affair with him, leaving her pregnant, as a minor.

She was paid a lump sum of two hundred thousand dollars, and in the contract it states that she was to keep the affair quiet and that the rights to her child would be signed over to Michael Fairchild upon birth.

And beneath all of that, lies my official birth certificate and a photo of a young, blond woman holding her baby with tears in her eyes.

Did she not want to give me up? Or was it her condition for keeping this affair quiet? She was just a kid after all.

My mind swims with a million different questions and scenarios, an endless loop of twists and turns that my father is so great at creating.

He is a gaslighter, a manipulator, and a fucking monster at best. And this file is nothing but a reminder of that.

It is a stark reminder of the lengths my father goes to keep his secrets hidden. The details were meticulously documented, leaving no room for doubt. Each piece of information painted a clearer picture of the deception that had been woven into my life. The woman’s name was unfamiliar, but her story was now intertwined with mine, a testament to the hidden truths that had shaped my existence. The hush money was a cruel confirmation of the price paid to keep me in the dark.

And it all makes sense now. The outcasting, the difference in appearance, the hatred. The constant, never-ending hatred. The abuse, the ridicule. All of it.

It’s because I never truly was one of them.

I cover my mouth with a sob as I cling to the photo of my real mother holding me in the hospital. My vision is swimming with tears and my heart is cracking open in my chest. My entire world has shattered before me, and it’s because of my father and Damien Reed.

Why does he have this file? How long has he known and why is it out on his desk?

I have to get out of here. He can’t find me like this in his office.

I shove everything back into the drawers except for my file. I burst free from his office and rush into my bedroom, locking the door behind me. As soon as I’m alone in here, I collapse to the floor in tears.