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“Under the guise?” Damien scoffed. “There is no ‘under the guise’ where I’m concerned. I am investing. But I did come here to see you.”

I tried to play it cool. “Gee, I wonder why.” But I was failing miserably.

He wasted absolutely no time. “Why have you been avoiding me?”

His voice sliced through the charged silence like a blade, and my fingers tightened around the edge of the folder I didn’t need, the one I’d pretended to organize just to avoid this moment because I could not keep looking at him.

“You’re doing it again.” He stepped closer, and there was that heat again that always simmered whenever he was close. “During the meeting…you couldn’t even look at me. Why?”

“You know why.”

“No, Elena, I fucking don’t.”

My breath caught, chest tight. I felt the fury in his words. The disappointment. But I remembered Katya, and the last words I’d spoken to him in the hospital.

This wouldn’t work. Whatever feeling I had for this man was wrong, completely forbidden, and they had to be forgotten.

“I had that presentation to focus on,” I said quietly, eyes glued to the folder. “It wasn’t personal.”

“For six weeks? You think I was fucking born yesterday? That’s bullshit,” he snapped, stepping even closer.

Now, I could feel his presence like static electricity on my skin.

“Don’t fucking lie to me, Elena. I asked you a question that night, and you walked away from it.

You walked away from me. So, don’t fucking stand there and use work as an excuse. ”

His voice had cracked a little on my name, and that was what finally did it. I lifted my eyes against my better judgment, and there he was.

Damien. Beautiful, infuriating, unforgettable Damien Yezhov.

His blue eyes locked onto mine, full of everything I’d been trying to bury for weeks.

And damn it, it still hit me like a punch to the ribs.

I hated that he could do this to me. That he could make me feel like I was burning from the inside out with nothing more than a few honest words and a look that stripped me bare.

I turned away.

But he was faster. His hand caught my wrist, just enough to stop me, just enough to make my heart slam against my ribcage.

“Elena, I’m not leaving here without an answer.”

God. Why did he have to sound like that? Like I mattered?

“I’m trying to move on,” I whispered, barely trusting myself to say it. “You’re here as an investor, right? Well, I’m trying to do the professional thing. Luxe Nest doesn’t need our messy situationship getting in the way of—”

“Luxe Nest doesn’t give a damn about us or what we had. I fucking do.”

That shut me up—shook me, in fact.

I felt tears threaten, but I blinked them back. He didn’t get to see that anymore. And before I could control it, I started laughing dryly.

“ About us? What we had? Really? What did we have, Damien? Because if I’m right, that means the only thing we had was sex . The only thing you really want from me is my fucking body, or am I wrong?”

I waited and waited, and when he didn’t say anything, I’d never felt more stupid in my entire life.

“That is exactly what I thought. You don’t get to show up now and act like you care when you don’t. You see? This is why I kept my distance. This is—”

“You’ve said a lot of things, but you haven’t told me why. I know it isn’t really because of Katya. We fucked at her party, and judging by the way you opened up yourself for me, you didn’t have a problem with it.”

“Wow! That’s a fantastic reminder. You know, you should win ‘Father of the Year.’”

He frowned harder now, his lips pulled into a tight line. “Don’t make me fucking ask again.”

I should have walked away minutes ago. I should have shut the folder, gathered my bag, muttered something professional, something safe, and walked away from him. Again.

But I stayed. I let the conversation drift where it shouldn’t have, and now I had to answer to him.

I swallowed. My throat burned with the pressure. I’d spent weeks building marble-hard, steel-limed walls, and in one stare, he was tearing them down.

My hands trembled at my side, and I clenched them into fists. If I said it, if I admitted the truth, I wouldn’t be able to take it back.

But the words ripped free anyway, born of exhaustion and pent-up frustration.

“Because I hate that I have to hide it from you,” I blurted out.

His eyes searched mine. “Hide what?”

My instinct screamed at me to run, to laugh it off, to say it was nothing, to shove this all back into the neat little drawer where I kept everything that wasn’t appropriate for a Luxe Nest office. But I moved to back away, and the goddamn table caught the backs of my thighs, stopping me cold.

He stepped near enough that I could feel the heat of him, smell the faint musk in his cologne. My breath hitched as I tilted my chin up to look at him.

His body didn’t touch mine, but his presence pressed against me like gravity.

And in that moment, I wasn’t the pristine marketing executive with her curated smile and campaign drafts.

I was a woman trapped between honesty and desire, terrified of both, and before I could stop myself, the truth tore from my lips like it had claws.

“I’m pregnant.”

The silence that followed was deafening, with nothing but the sound of my pulse crashing in my ears.

Damien didn’t move.

He stood there, utterly still, his eyes locked on mine like he was trying to x-ray my soul.

I took a shaky breath.

His hand came up, firm fingers curling around my jaw, not roughly, but with a pressure that said, Don’t look away.

His thumb rested just beneath my cheekbone, and I tilted my face toward him until I had no choice but to meet his eyes.

I realized he was searching them for the truth, as if he were a detector that could sniff out lies just by looking at someone. The man was full of surprises. Who knew if he could?

But I wasn’t lying.

And the flicker in his gaze that sent a rush of heat and panic through my veins confirmed it.

“You’ll come with me.”

It wasn’t a question. There was no room for a debate. And there was a gut-feeling that there was no escaping him now. Not the man who could see through my walls like they were glass. Not the man who already owned too many pieces of me to count.

The baby wasn’t the only truth in the room anymore. He was. And if there were a better way to put this, it would be simply to say…that I was screwed.