Chapter 81 Who’s Wrong? Who’s Right?

Chapter 81 Who’s Wrong? Who’s Right?
After I finished telling him everything, Caspian stayed quiet for a moment. Then he asked just one question.
"What, did you hold a gun to his head and force him to marry you?"
His tone was cold and sharp. The meaning couldn't have been clearer.
I couldn't help the small laugh that escaped me.
"Henry Blackwood met me at some charity event," I said. "For whatever reason, he got it in his head that I was the one who could straighten his son out. So he kept trying to set us up."
When I first heard about it, the whole thing seemed ridiculous. But I didn't tell Caspian that part. I just kept going.
"But then my father's company hit a wall. We ran out of money, and all our projects came to a dead stop. That's when Henry showed up again." I paused, feeling the weight of it all over again. "He dangled hope in front of me. Whether I could actually reach it was another question."
"Marriage takes two people to agree," I continued. "Back then, Damien's grandmother was still alive. He couldn't stand his grandfather, but he loved his grandmother. Really loved her. She was getting sicker, and all she wanted was to see him married and settled before she died."
I felt Caspian's hand on my back, steady and warm, so I kept talking.
"The problem was, Isabella wasn't the kind of woman Damien's grandmother wanted in the family. Neither was Henry, for that matter. But after Henry introduced me to her, she adored me right away."
"I didn't know Isabella existed at that point," I admitted. "Looking back, I think Damien and Isabella must've been fighting about the whole mess. So out of spite or anger or whatever, he agreed to marry me just to shut everyone up."
My voice went quieter. "My father told me it was a bad idea. But I pushed for it anyway. And look how that turned out."
"Isabella got hurt on our wedding day. Damien ran out of the house like he'd lost his mind and didn't come back all night. I had no clue what was happening."
I swallowed hard before continuing. "The next morning, Henry sent a driver to take me to Damien with some soup. Like that would fix anything. When I walked in, he'd just hung up the phone."
Even now, remembering it made my skin crawl. "The look on his face made my blood run cold. Like he wanted to wrap his hands around my throat."
"Then he threw a stack of photos at my feet and shoved my head down, making me look at each one. I recognized two of the men. Low-level thugs I'd had some dealings with a while back."
"That was it. Case closed in his mind. Everything pointed back to me. Isabella's accident, her injuries, all of it was my fault. So I became the villain. The evil woman who ruined everything."
I let out a bitter laugh. "After that, I barely saw him. This marriage has been a sham from day one."
When I finished talking, Caspian didn't say anything for a long time.
"If you were in his shoes, you'd think it was too much of a coincidence too, right?" I was still leaning against him, my voice flat. "Why did it happen to Isabella of all people? Why did I know those two guys? If it wasn't me pulling the strings, then who?"
His hand moved to my back, rubbing slow circles. After a while, he finally spoke. "Why did you know those men?"
His voice was calm, curious even. Not accusing me of anything.
It was like he genuinely just wanted to understand how I'd ended up crossing paths with people like that.
I went quiet for a second, then let out a short laugh. "That's a whole different story. Not part of this one. You want to hear it, it'll cost you extra."
I tilted my head to look at him, forcing a smile that didn't quite reach my eyes.
"I want to hear it," Caspian said simply.
Something in my chest tightened. I stared at him, really looked at him, for what felt like forever.
His eyes always had this quality I couldn't pin down. Something I couldn't read.
But right then, for just a second, I thought I saw it clearly.
I looked away fast, biting down on my lower lip. "It's a long story. Another time, maybe. I'm exhausted. I need to sleep."
His gaze dropped to where my teeth pressed into my lip, and then suddenly he leaned in and kissed me.
We'd kissed plenty of times before. This thing between us, whatever it was, had always involved that.
But this time, my heart started racing.
The kiss wasn't gentle. It was hungry, demanding, like he was trying to pull answers from me that I wasn't ready to give with words. His hand slid up from my back into my hair, fingers tangling and tightening just enough to make my breath catch.
I reached up without thinking and grabbed onto his shoulders. The fabric of his shirt bunched under my grip as he pulled me closer, kissing me slow and thorough. Heat spread through me, starting where our bodies touched and radiating outward until I felt like I was burning.
When his mouth moved from my lips to my jaw, then lower to the sensitive skin of my neck, a sound escaped me that I didn't recognize as my own. My head tilted back automatically, giving him access, and I felt him smile against my throat.
"Caspian..." My voice came out breathy, unsteady.
He didn't respond with words. Just kept kissing that spot below my ear that made my knees weak, his teeth grazing the skin lightly before soothing it with his tongue. One of his hands stayed in my hair while the other slid down my side, slow and deliberate, leaving a trail of heat in its wake.
I should have pulled away. Should have remembered all the reasons this was complicated, dangerous even.
Instead, my fingers dug harder into his shoulders, and I pulled him closer.
\---
Caspian still remembered I'd said I couldn't stay. Even though it was getting late, he drove me back to Jade Bay himself.
Maybe because I'd dug up all those old wounds, I stayed quiet the whole drive.
Caspian didn't talk much either.
We'd done everything two people could do together, but when you added it all up, it hadn't actually been that long.
We both understood without saying it out loud, don't ask about the past, don't talk about the future.
We both knew the only thing we really had was right now. This moment.
Nothing lasts forever. People change on a dime.
When you know there's no future, what's the point of digging into the past?
But he'd just asked about mine.
It bothered me more than I wanted to admit.
I didn't say anything about it, though.
The car pulled into the underground garage at Jade Bay. I turned to look at him. "You want to come up?"
"Is that an invitation?"
I pressed my lips together. "Since when do you need an invitation?"
He didn't answer.
But he came up anyway.
We ended up in the shower together again.
The cold tile pressed against my back, and his body burned hot against my front.
The push and pull of it, the contrast, somehow felt exactly right.
This was what we were. What we'd always been.
From the start, I'd known what I wanted from him. What I was trying to get. It was never unclear. These lines between us had to stay drawn. They couldn't blur.
They couldn't be crossed.
At the same time, across town in a hotel room.
Damien walked out of the bathroom, water still dripping from his hair.
His clothes were draped over the arm of the sofa. He walked over and started getting dressed, pulling on each piece slowly.
The woman in the bed had been sitting there with the sheet wrapped around her, but when she saw him buttoning his shirt, she hesitated for just a moment before letting the sheet drop and walking over to him. Her hands reached up to help with the buttons.
Damien glanced down at her. Her eyes were lowered, her whole face soft and uncertain in the dim light.
He reached out suddenly and tilted her chin up.
She flinched. Her eyes went wide, full of nerves and fear.
"How many times now?" he asked. "And you're still this scared of me?"
"I'm not," she whispered.
"Not what?" He barely kept the irritation out of his voice.
Her eyes got even more anxious, and her hands shook slightly against the fabric of his shirt. Like she was forcing herself to be brave. "I know you're upset today."
Damien kept staring at her, cold and flat. "Why would I be upset?"
"Your wife," she said quietly, stumbling over the words. "She... what she did. Filing for divorce like that. It wasn't... she shouldn't have made such a big scene."
Damien actually laughed. He brushed his fingers lightly across her face, almost gently. "So what should she have done instead?"