Chapter 77 Guilt and Consequences
POV Damian:
“I’ve got some documents I need to read. In a bit I’ll come down to help you with a bath and bed,” Liam says to Scarlett, who smiles at him.
“I loved the bed part.”
“I know you did.” Without Aria in the kitchen, Liam almost devours Scarlett with his kiss. “See you in a bit, Scarlett.”
Liam leaves the kitchen without looking at me. I know my brothers want me to go fuck myself. How many times have I heard their disapproval because of my attitude toward Aria? And they were very honest when they told me that when Scarlett found out, they’d leave me to get fucked on my own. Said and done.
“Scarlett…”
“You don’t talk. You just listen. What the fuck is going through your head? Uncle? Are you fucking with me, for fuck’s sake?”
“You don’t understand.”
“I don’t understand? I understand perfectly, and I’m only going to ask you one question.” I swallow hard. “Is that what you want… do you only want to be Aria’s uncle?” she asks, mocking.
“Scarlett…”
“Answer the question.” I close my eyes. Breathing deep, I answer.
“Yes.”
“Fine.”
I sigh in relief because she understands me. I don’t want my decision to affect what we have, or affect Aria’s growth. I just want what I believe I deserve, and as much as it hurts to confess it, I don’t deserve to have Aria as a daughter. Because of me she almost wasn’t born, and by a hair’s breadth she almost lost her mother.
“If you want, I can help you with the bath and bed.” I wink at her, trying to ease the mood that’s settled, but she doesn’t smile. “Are we okay?”
“We are,” she answers, chin lifted. “I just don’t think it’s right that my daughter’s uncle—and my men’s brother—offers to give me a bath and put me to bed.”
“What are you talking about?” I ask, my heart tightening.
“Damian, you made your choice and I just made mine. You chose to be only my daughter’s uncle, and I chose that you’ll be only my brother-in-law. Starting today, what we had is over.”
My eyes go wide. Scarlett can’t be serious. I open my mouth to question her, but at that moment Liam and Noah walk into the kitchen too, eyes wide.
“Scarlett…”
“Will you help me get upstairs to my room? I want to rest.” Scarlett cuts off what Noah was going to say, and my brothers help her with what she asked. “Good night, Damian.”
“Good night.”
I thought I was doing the right thing, but I couldn’t have been more wrong… I lost her.
Scarlett:
Two weeks later…
I’ve reached my limit! Damian wants to keep being stubborn? Fine. I’ll make a point of rubbing in his face what he’s losing. For two weeks I’ve been patient. I’ve given him space to think about his choice, I’ve tried to be understanding and all that bullshit. However, I forgot something very important: I’m not dealing with just anyone. I’m dealing with the arrogant asshole I met over a year ago who turned my world upside down—and that was the best thing he could have ever done to me.
With my crutches, I walk slowly down the company corridors. I’m going to show that rotten bastard what he’s losing. I’m going to make him regret his choice every day he lives. My mother-in-law stayed with Aria and helped me call a taxi. Since I started supporting my body and taking my first steps, I’ve put up with every one of Damian’s choices and with how much of a coward he’s been. I barely see him around the house. He lives holed up at the company, and that’s why I’m here.
I love him. I love that stubborn asshole, and that’s why I can’t give up on him. Despite everything, he was the one who held out his hand and helped me. He was the one who brought me the people I love most in this life, and I need to do the same—not because I think it’s my obligation, but because I’m incapable of feeling whole without him.
With slow steps, I head toward the meeting room, where I’m going to put him in his place once and for all. Does he really think he’s getting out of this unscathed? That I forgot the nerve he had, saying he wants to be our daughter’s uncle, when we both know his eyes say something else? Does Damian think I didn’t see him, every dawn, walking into Aria’s room and saying how much he loves her? How much he wanted her to be his daughter? Well, I saw. I noticed. I heard. And I love him even more for it—because it took me a while to understand, but now I understand his reasons.
Guilt.
Not caring in the slightest about Damian’s serious face that I see through the meeting-room glass, I move forward, determined to put an end to our separation of bodies. I want to be with them. I want to love them and be loved. I want my body to transmit everything I feel for them. I open the door without making a sound, and my eyes fall on the partner.
“We could have another meeting at that hotel. Last time we had a big win,” she says, subtly touching his arm, and he smiles, making my blood boil.
“Damian, I think we could have the meeting somewhere else, preferably in a restaurant at lunchtime.”
“Liam, Madison is right. The meeting will be at the hotel. After we finish, we can have dinner.”
“Sure, why not? We have dinner at the hotel, and the second we set foot inside the house, Scarlett eats us alive,” Noah jokes. “Nothing against it being at the hotel, but it could be during business hours.”
“Noah’s right,” Ethan agrees.
I hide behind the giant, ostentatious vase Damian put inside the room and keep listening.
“You guys need to know how to separate things. It’s work, and your girlfriend will have to understand,” the partner says as if she knew me, and the sneer in the word girlfriend doesn’t slip past me.
“Madison is right. Talk to your girlfriend and explain the situation,” Damian says. How it hurts to hear those words—doesn’t he realize I still belong to him the way I belong to each one of his brothers?
“Why don’t you explain? Say it to her with those same words,” Noah throws back.
Tired of being nice to Damian, I make myself known—and four heads turn at the noise I make when I accidentally knock over Damian’s super hyper mega expensive rare-edition whatever-the-hell vase.
“Oops. I knocked it over.” Damian’s eyes shoot daggers at me, but he doesn’t say anything, and that’s how he’s been getting away from what he feels for me. Damian has been avoiding arguing with me, because we both know that’s how we burn for each other.
“Scarlett, you decided to come,” Noah says, excited.
Since I started taking my first steps, he’s been encouraging me to come to the company. He was more eager than I was for this confrontation with Damian.
“Yes. Can you help me? I don’t want to hurt myself on these shards of rare-edition-vase-or-whatever broken pieces.” I bite back a smile when I see Damian clench his fists.
Ah, Damian. You have no idea that by the end of today we’ll burn in living fire.