Chapter 11

Damian’s POV

The city looked different from thirty-four stories up.

Not alive, not glittering, not beautiful. Just noisy. Distracting. Beneath me, Los Angeles sprawled like a battlefield. Deals were struck in those towers, loyalties shifted in those bars, knives were pressed into backs of individuals with each person trying to be the best.

I should have felt at home. This was my terrain.

But tonight, I felt like a stranger in it.

I closed the file in front of me, though I hadn’t really been reading it for the past hour. The Cosmo proposal was sharp, our numbers flawless, the projections undeniable. We had the leverage, the vision, the market edge. By tomorrow evening, I should have been focused solely on the performance.

Instead, my mind circled back to that single conversation in Manhattan.

Her voice, her presence. Her warning.

I clenched my jaw, forcing the thought back into its box. She didn’t belong here. Not in this city, not in my work, and certainly not in Kayna’s orbit.

But Kayna…

I leaned back in the chair, staring at the neat rows of lights lining the horizon. She had been quiet all day. Almost too quiet. Professional, precise, focused. She hadn’t asked about the delay, hadn’t questioned my clipped responses, hadn’t once pushed beyond her role.

And yet I’d seen her watching me. On the jet. In the lobby. Even when she tried to hide it, her eyes carried questions she was too cautious to voice.

That same caution was what unsettled me now.

Most people wanted things from me. It was usually either money, power, connections. They asked, demanded, clawed their way closer. Kayna… stayed still. She performed, she delivered, she observed. And in her silence, she made me notice her.

Too much.

….

It was past midnight when I gave up pretending I could focus. I stood, sliding my phone into my pocket, and left my suite.

The hallway was hushed, the kind of silence you only find in luxury hotels—thick carpets swallowing footsteps, air heavy with perfume. I stopped outside her door before I had time to reconsider.

For a moment, I simply stood there, staring at the polished wood, hand hovering.

This was a mistake. I knew it before I even knocked.

But I knocked anyway.

The door opened slowly, revealing Kayna framed in the dim light. She wore a hotel robe, her hair damp, eyes wide. She looked younger like this—unguarded, almost startled.

“Mr. Marshall?” she whispered, her voice a mix of confusion and something else—uncertainty, maybe even fear.

For a heartbeat, I didn’t speak. I just looked at her. At the way she tightened her grip on the door, like she wasn’t sure if she should let me in. At the faint mark of exhaustion under her eyes, proof she hadn’t been resting either.

I’d sent her dinner earlier, thinking it would silence my conscience. Clearly, it hadn’t.

“May I come in?” My voice came out lower than intended.

She hesitated, then stepped back, holding the door open.

I entered, the scent of roses and warm water filling the air. Her room was immaculate, though her laptop lay open on the desk, papers spread across the table. She had been working, even at this hour.

Of course she had.

“You should be asleep,” I said, more sharply than I meant.

“I couldn’t.” Her tone was soft but steady. She straightened, tugging the robe tighter around herself. “Too much on my mind.”

I nodded once, though I already knew what haunted her. Tomorrow’s meeting. My silence. My distraction. And that damn shadow I’d let follow me from Manhattan.

“I won’t keep you long.”

Her eyes lifted to mine then, searching, as if trying to read the things I wasn’t saying. “Then why are you here?”

It was a fair question.

One I didn’t have a polished answer for.

I crossed to the window, pushing the curtains aside. The city glared back at us, bright and merciless.

“The meeting tomorrow…” I began, keeping my voice level. “It will determine more than Cosmo’s direction. It will set the tone for the next decade of market influence. I need you sharp.”

Her brows furrowed slightly. “I will be.”

“I know.” I let the curtain fall back into place, turning to face her. “That’s not the issue.”

She tilted her head. “Then what is?”

I should have lied. Told her it was nothing. Told her to sleep. Walked out before this moment unraveled further.

But something in her gaze disarmed me. The same quiet steadiness that had made me notice her in that interview room.

I exhaled slowly. “Distraction.”

Her lips parted slightly. “Mine… or yours?”

Damn. She was sharper than she let on.

“Both,” I admitted.

The word hung between us, heavy and unwise. I could see her processing it, her shoulders tensing, her fingers tightening on the fabric of her robe.

She looked away first, back toward the desk, as though retreating into the safety of work. “I’m here to do my job, Mr. Marshall. Nothing more.”

Her formality was a shield. But shields had cracks.

“You’ve done more than that” I said quietly. “More than most in your position could manage.”

She swallowed hard, still avoiding my gaze. “You didn’t come here just to tell me that.”

No, I hadn’t.

I’d come here because that damn silence in my suite had become unbearable.

Because I couldn’t shake the image of her sitting in this room alone, carrying questions she didn’t deserve to carry.

And because—for reasons I refused to name—I needed to see her.

I stepped closer, slow enough to give her room to retreat. She didn’t.

“You’ll hear things” I said carefully. “About me. About the people I deal with. You’ll hear them sooner than I’d like.”

Her eyes flicked up to mine, startled.

“Some of it will be true,” I continued. “Some of it won’t. But when that happens, you need to remember this—what I’ve built, what I protect, comes at a cost. And not everyone will understand it.”

Her brow furrowed. “Is this about… the woman?”

So she had noticed. I shouldn’t have been surprised.

I didn’t answer immediately. Silence stretched, charged. Finally, I said, “It’s about a great many things. The woman included.”

Her lips pressed together, as if holding back questions. Questions I wasn’t ready to answer. Not yet.

“I’ll ask you for one thing, Kayna,” I said. “Trust.”

Her breath caught, barely audible. She stared at me as if weighing the word in her mind, testing its strength, its danger.

And in that moment, I realized the irony. I, Damian Marshall, who trusted no one—not boards, not allies, not even blood—was asking it from her.

Her voice was quiet when she finally spoke. “Trust goes both ways.”

I felt something in my chest tighten. She wasn’t wrong. But she didn’t know what she was asking.

Not yet.

The air between us had thickened, laced with unspoken things. I should have left then. Walked out before the line blurred further.

But instead, I stepped closer. Close enough to catch the faint scent of her shampoo, the warmth of her presence.

Her eyes lifted to mine, wide and unguarded. For a moment, the world outside ceased to exist…the city, the deal, the shadow of the past. There was only this room, this silence, this dangerous pull.

I forced myself to stop.

Any closer, and I wouldn’t.

I straightened, drawing in a sharp breath. “Get some rest, Kayna. Tomorrow, everything begins.”

Her shoulders dropped slightly, a flicker of something unreadable passing over her face. “Goodnight, Mr. Marshall.”

I nodded once and turned, forcing each step to carry me back to the door.

When it clicked shut behind me, I let out the breath I didn't know I'd been holding.

I had been right.

Coming here was an mistake.

And yet, as I walked back down the hushed hallway, all I could think of was the look in her eyes when she said it—Trust goes both ways.