Chapter 87: Take Me as I Am
He didn’t ask where they were going. She didn’t offer. They just walked, her hand still on his arm, their footsteps silent on the runner carpet. The compound felt different after her words in the study—the walls seemed to lean in, listening, the portraits of stern Rossi ancestors watching with a new, calculative interest.
She steered them past the grand staircase, down a narrower corridor lined with doors to guest suites and, at the end, to the private wing that had always been his. Her heart hammered against her ribs, a frantic counterpoint to his steady, measured pace. The fury from the foyer, the defensive ice from the study—it was all dissolving, leaving behind the raw, exposed nerve of what she’d admitted.I love your son.He used his free hand to push open his bedroom door. It was exactly as she remembered, a study in restrained masculine luxury. Dark wood, a massive bed with a simple black duvet, shelves of books that weren’t for show. The city glittered beyond the floor-to-ceiling windows, a galaxy of neon and ambition. He released her arm, finally turning to face her.The door swung shut behind them, sealing them in a bubble of quiet.
“Well,” he said, his voice low. “That was a thing.”
“It needed saying.”
“Oh, I know.” He ran a hand through his hair, the gesture tense. “My father’s probably having a brandy the size of his head. My mother is re-evaluating every slight she’s ever given you. You just redrew the map of this family in there.” He took a step closer. “And you used my love as your justification.”
“It’s the truth.”
“Is it?” The green of his eyes was intense, searching. “Because an hour ago you were telling me my love was a crisis. Now it’s your shield?”
She didn’t answer with words. She closed the distance between them, took his face in her hands, and kissed him.It wasn’t the desperate, claiming kiss from the foyer. This was slow.Deliberate.A pouring of certainty from her lips to his. She felt the initial tension in his jaw, then the gradual, shuddering release as he yielded, his hands coming up to her waist, pulling her tight against him.When she finally pulled back, they were both breathless.
“I need you to trust me,” she said, the words whispered against his mouth.
“Beth—”
“Listen.” She pressed a finger to his lips. “I am not leaving you for Gavin Accardi.I never was. The lunch, the earrings, all of it… it’s a performance.It only works if there’s an audience to believe it. You think I’d let some mafioso’s son paw at me over risotto if I didn’t have a reason?This is chess, Damien. Not checkers.”
He caught her wrist, moving her hand from his mouth.His thumb stroked her pulse point. “You could have told me the play.”
“I did. With my eyes.” She saw the memory click in his face.“Remember, I told you about the Real Ranch. Not the Montana story, the real one.What my father built.What I manage.”
“You said you let Dove handle it. That you weren’t sure to claim it”
“I’m more sure now, than I was 20 years ago.” She sighed, pulling away to walk towards the window.The city’s pulse throbbed below. “I didn’t tell your parents because I never wanted their approval to be contingent on my usefulness. When I was twenty-six and walking down that absurd flower-lined aisle towards you, I didn’t want to be a useful asset to your father. I didn’t want our marriage to be a merger of two ‘problem-solving’ enterprises.” She turned to face him, the skyline framing her.“I wanted a family.A real one. Blended.Messy. With Sunday dinners and stupid arguments about the thermostat and your mother eventually, maybe, liking me for me. Not because we both knew how to make a body disappear without a trace.”
Damien was silent, watching her. The play of light and shadow cut across his sharp features.“I wanted you,” she said, her voice softening, fraying at the edges. “Just you.And your undying, catastrophic, magnificent loyalty. The rest was just noise I was trying to tune out.”
He crossed the room in three long strides. He didn’t kiss her again. He just wrapped his arms around her, pulling her into an embrace so tight it felt like he was trying to fuse their skeletons.His face buried in the curve of her neck.
“You have it,” he murmured into her skin, the words muffled but fierce. “You’ve always had it.The loyalty.The catastrophe. All of it.”
She clung to him, fingers digging into the hard muscle of his back. The scent of him—sandwood, ozone, home—filled her senses. For a long moment, there was only their breathing, syncing in the quiet dark.
“So what’s the play?” he asked finally, his lips moving against her temple.“Accardi thinks he can acquire me.My network.My loyalty. He’s testing your family’s hold.I’m going to let him think it’s working. I need to see how far his reach extends, what he really knows about my father’s old deals.” She leaned back, looking up at him.“It means I have to play along. Publicly.There will be more lunches.More gifts. Gossip.”
A muscle ticked in his jaw.The jealousy was a live wire in him, she could see it sparking behind his eyes. But he nodded, once.“And my role?”
“You get to be furious. Jealous.Unpredictable.It’ll sell the narrative that we’re fracturing. That he’s winning.” A ghost of a smile touched her lips. “Shouldn’t be too hard for you.”
He gave a short, dry laugh.“No. It won’t be.” His expression sobered. “And when the performance is over?”
She reached up, tracing the line of his cheekbone. “Then you and I have a conversation about what happens when the map is redrawn.About where the Rossis end and the Montgomerys begin. About what we build, once everyone finally understands the value of the silver.”
Outside, a siren wailed, distant and fleeting. Down in the belly of the compound, his parents were likely still reeling, planning, worrying. But here, in this room, there was only the two of them and a dangerous, fragile truth they were now holding together.He leaned his forehead against hers. “Okay.”
Just that.A surrender.A pact.“Okay,” she echoed.
And for now, with the city humming its electric song beyond the glass and the weight of their shared secrets settling between them, it was enough.