Chapter 16

Damian’s POV

The door shut behind me with a sharper click than I intended.

I stood in the silence of the adjoining room, the echo of Kayna’s words replaying in my head, each one a carefully sharpened blade. “I’m here in a professional capacity, Mr. Marshall. Nothing more.”

Nothing more.

My jaw tightened until I could feel the ache in my teeth.

I’d been told “no” before. By competitors, by investors, by women who thought they could bargain with my name for a slice of power. But this…this was different. She wasn’t angling. She wasn’t playing coy. She wasn’t even afraid. She meant it. She had looked me in the eye and erected a wall I hadn’t anticipated.

And the worst part?

I respected her for it.

That respect was the problem. It was the very thing digging under my skin, making it impossible to dismiss her the way I should.

I tugged my tie loose and crossed the room, pouring two fingers of scotch into a crystal glass. The amber liquid caught the city lights through the window, glinting like something alive.

I lifted it to my lips, but the burn did nothing to steady me.

She had been brilliant tonight. Flawless in execution, precise in delivery. She had turned the Cosmo board in a way even I hadn’t calculated for. That kind of control, that sharpness of mind—it wasn’t luck. It was instinct. A rare instinct that couldn’t be taught.

And when she looked at me after… when she shut me out with that calm, decisive voice… it was the same instinct.

Boundaries.

Kayna Scott was drawing them in ink.

The question that unsettled me most was whether I intended to respect them or ignore them.

By the time I finished my second glass, the private elevator chimed. Julian stepped out, his presence as unshakable as ever. Dark suit, no tie, his usual air of casual lethality.

“You look like hell” he remarked, dropping his carry-on near the sofa.

“And you look like a man who forgot this isn’t a holiday.”

He smirked, unbothered. “Flight was early. At least pretend you’re glad to see me.”

I poured him a drink without asking. He took it, settling into the armchair opposite me. His eyes flicked toward the door Kayna had gone through earlier, but he didn’t ask yet. Julian had a way of circling his prey before striking.

Instead, he cut straight to business. “Cosmo?”

“Promising. We turned the board.”

“We?”

I ignored the flicker of satisfaction in his tone. “Kayna presented. The room bent toward her.”

Julian chuckled, low. “She’s sharper than you let on.”

“She’s sharper than most” I said before I could stop myself.

Julian caught it, of course. He never missed anything. His brows lifted slightly, but he didn’t press. “That’ll buy us time, then. Cosmo’s deal goes through, it undercuts Halifax’s position in Europe. Brighton holdings will also feel the heat if the media when they find out we’ve gotten the contract. They’ve been throwing money at Prestley, trying to shore up influence.”

The mention of the Prestleys brought a darker current to the room. I leaned back, scotch in hand. “They’ll keep throwing money. But if we hold Cosmo, Halifax loses their wedge.”

Julian nodded, thoughtful. Then, after a long sip of his drink, he asked the question he’d been circling.

“So. You going to tell me why her name was on the prep list?”

The glass stilled in my hand.

Ixora.

Her name tasted like smoke and ash in my mouth.

I set the drink down with controlled precision. “Because she’s attached herself to Cosmo’s European board. And because she never learned how to stay buried.”

Julian’s expression hardened. “She always did know where to position herself. Like a parasite.”

“Like a weapon,” I corrected softly.

Silence stretched. The city lights outside gleamed in fractured patterns across the glass wall.

Once, she’d been a diversion. A distraction made of silk and teeth, someone who could match my hunger with her own. It hadn’t been love—God, it was never that but it had been something dangerous. Because she was clever. Too clever. And unlike most, she had watched me closely enough to see beyond the mask.

She knew things. Not everything, not enough to dismantle me, but enough to wound if she wanted. Enough to make her proximity to Cosmo feel like a rope tightening at the worst possible time.

Julian’s voice was a blade. “She’s still a risk.”

“She’s more than that,” I admitted. “She’s like a bee And bees have a way of stinging when you least expect.”

Julian studied me, his dark eyes calculating. “And Kayna?”

The question was simple. The answer was not.

I exhaled, slow. “She drew her line tonight.”

Julian arched a brow. “And?”

“And I’m trying to decide what this storm I’m feeling is. Has anything new popped up concerning her?”

For once, Julian didn’t smirk. He didn’t needle. He just sat there, silent, watching me like he was measuring the cracks I didn’t want to admit existed.

The silence thickened until I broke it.

“She said she’s only here in the capacity of an assistant. That’s it. Nothing more.”

Julian’s mouth twisted. “You don’t believe that?”

“No,” I said truthfully. “But she does.”

And that was the heart of it.

She believed it.

She believed she could stand in front of me, in front of everything I had built, and draw a wall as if her conviction alone could hold it steady.

It infuriated me. It surprised me. It made me want to tear down every defense she’d built just to prove she couldn’t outmaneuver me.

But it also made me want to respect her enough not to try.

That contradiction was a poison I could feel seeping through every vein.

Julian finished his drink, setting the glass down with a deliberate click. “So what’s the move? You going to chase the ghost of Ixora or the girl who thinks she can out-stare you?”

I stared into the amber depths of my glass. The reflection of the city fractured inside it, sharp and endless.

“The move,” I said slowly, “is to win Cosmo. Everything else waits.”

Julian gave a low laugh, though there was no humor in it. “You keep telling yourself that. But I know you, Damian. Business isn’t the only thing haunting you tonight.”

I didn’t answer. Couldn’t.

Because in the silence of the room, my mind was already divided—half on Ixora, the ghost from a past I should have buried, and half on Kayna, the woman who had just proven she could burn me alive with nothing more than the word no.

That night, long after Julian retired to his own suite, I stood at the window alone, the scotch forgotten at my side. The city stretched endless beneath me, a glittering reminder of everything I owned, everything I had fought to keep.

And still, I couldn’t silence the thought that haunted me most.

What if the very thing I couldn’t own was the only thing I wanted?