Isabella POV
"Stop fidgeting," Damien said, his hand sliding up my thigh as our car pulled up to Blackwood Tower. "You look like you're going to your execution."
"Maybe I am," I muttered, but his touch was already making it difficult to think about anything except the way his fingers felt against my skin. Even now, facing our most dangerous enemy, my body responded to him like we were still tangled in his sheets instead of dressed for corporate warfare.
"He's going to try to get in your head," Damien continued, his voice dropping to that register that made my pulse skip. "Make you doubt everything between us, everything we've built."
"And what if he succeeds?" I asked, turning to meet his gray eyes. "What if he knows something that changes everything?"
Damien's hand tightened on my leg, possessive and claiming. "Then we deal with it. Together. But bella..." His thumb traced small circles that made me shiver. "Whatever he says, whatever he shows you, remember that you're mine now. That's not changing."
Mine. The word sent heat pooling low in my belly despite the fact that we were about to walk into what could be a trap.
God, what this man did to me.
The lobby of Blackwood Tower was all marble and intimidation, designed to make visitors feel small and insignificant. But walking beside Damien, I felt anything but small. He radiated power and barely leashed violence, his hand at the small of my back burning through my silk blouse.
"Ms. Sterling, Mr. Cross." The receptionist's smile was plastic perfection. "Mr. Blackwood is waiting for you."
The elevator ride to the top floor was torture. Damien stood close enough that I could smell his cologne, feel the heat radiating from his body, and all I could think about was how he'd pressed me against his windows this morning, making me come apart with his name on my lips.
Focus, Isabella. This isn't the time.
But when Damien's fingers brushed mine as the elevator doors opened, sending electricity shooting up my arm, I wondered if there would ever be a time when I could think clearly around him.
Marcus Blackwood was waiting in an office that screamed old money and older secrets. Tall, silver-haired, with pale blue eyes that missed nothing, he was everything I'd expected and somehow worse.
"Isabella," he said, moving forward with the kind of predatory grace that made my skin crawl. "You're even more beautiful than your photographs suggest."
Before I could respond, Damien stepped partially in front of me, his posture shifting into something that looked casual but felt dangerous.
"Blackwood," he said, his voice carrying enough ice to freeze the Hudson River.
"Damien." Marcus's smile widened, like he was enjoying some private joke. "Please, sit. We have so much to discuss."
The seating area overlooked the city, but all I could focus on was the way Damien's muscles were coiled with tension, like he was ready to destroy anyone who threatened me.
"Your assistant mentioned opportunities," I said, settling into my chair with as much composure as I could muster. "What kind of opportunities?"
"The kind that save beautiful women from making terrible mistakes," Marcus replied smoothly. "Tell me, Isabella, what do you really know about your new business partner?"
The question was loaded with implications that made my blood run cold. Beside me, Damien went perfectly still in the way that meant someone was about to get hurt.
"I know enough," I said carefully.
"Do you?" Marcus leaned forward, his pale eyes fixed on my face with uncomfortable intensity. "Do you know what Damien Cross was planning to do the night before your father destroyed his life?"
My heart stopped. Literally stopped beating for a moment as Marcus reached into his desk and pulled out a manila folder thick with secrets.
"Do you know," he continued, opening the folder with theatrical precision, "that he bought an engagement ring?"
The photograph he slid across the table hit me like a physical blow. Damien at twenty-five, young and beautiful and achingly familiar, standing outside Tiffany & Co. with a small velvet box in his hand.
"He was going to propose," Marcus said quietly. "The foster kid with nothing but dreams was going to ask the Sterling princess to marry him. To take her away from everything Richard had built."
The room spun around me. All these years, all the wondering and heartbreak and believing he'd simply abandoned me... he'd been planning to propose.
"Isabella." Damien's voice was rough, desperate. "Let me explain."
"Explain what?" Marcus's laugh was silk over steel. "That you've spent seven years becoming everything Richard Sterling feared you could be? Rich enough to buy his empire, powerful enough to destroy it, charming enough to seduce his daughter into handing it over willingly?"
"Fuck you," Damien snarled, starting to rise from his chair.
"Damien, sit down," I said quietly, my eyes still fixed on the photograph of the boy who'd loved me enough to risk everything.
"This merger isn't about business," Marcus continued relentlessly. "It's about completing the most elaborate seduction in corporate history. He's been planning this for seven years, Isabella. Every move, every attack on Sterling Industries, all designed to drive you into his arms when you had nowhere else to turn."
"Is that true?" I whispered, finally looking at Damien. "Have you been planning this all along?"
The pain in his gray eyes was answer enough. Not all of it, but enough. Enough to make my heart crack open in my chest.
"Some of it," he said quietly. "Isabella, I won't lie to you. Everything I've done has been shaped by what happened seven years ago. But that doesn't make what I feel for you any less real."
"Doesn't it?" The words tasted like ash in my mouth. "How do I know this isn't just revenge? How do I know you're not planning to destroy me the way my father destroyed you?"
Marcus was watching our exchange with the satisfaction of a man who'd just won a chess match in three moves.
"I have a proposition for you, Isabella," he said smoothly. "Blackwood Industries is prepared to make an offer for Sterling Industries that would allow you to maintain control, protect your employees, and avoid the... complications... that come from mixing business with pleasure."
The trap was sprung. Everything Marcus had revealed, every doubt he'd planted, had been building to this moment. The offer of salvation that would destroy everything Damien and I had built.
"Thank you," I said, standing abruptly, "but Sterling Industries isn't for sale."
"Everything's for sale," Marcus replied. "It's just a matter of finding the right price."
"Then you don't know me very well," I said, moving toward the door. "Damien, we're leaving."
I could feel Marcus's eyes on us as we waited for the elevator, could practically hear him calculating his next move. But all I could think about was the photograph of young Damien with that ring, planning a future that my father had destroyed before it could begin.
The elevator ride down felt like an eternity. Damien stood beside me, radiating tension and something that felt like fear.
"Isabella," he started.
"Not here," I said quietly. "Not where he might be listening."
We didn't speak again until we were safely in his car, tinted windows providing privacy from the world that seemed determined to tear us apart.
"Is it true?" I asked, my voice barely above a whisper. "Were you really going to propose?"
Damien closed his eyes, and for a moment he looked exactly like the boy in the photograph. Young, vulnerable, heartbreakingly beautiful.
"Yes," he said simply. "I was twenty-five and stupid in love and naive enough to think your father would give us his blessing."
"So this merger, everything between us..." I couldn't finish the sentence. Couldn't bear to hear him confirm Marcus's accusations.
"Is exactly what I told you it was," he said fiercely, turning to face me. "A way to save Sterling Industries and build something together. Isabella, I won't pretend the past doesn't matter. I won't pretend I haven't thought about revenge every day for seven years. But what I feel for you, what we have together, that's real."
"How do I know?" The question came out broken, desperate. "How do I know you're not just finishing what you started seven years ago?"
Damien's hand cupped my face, his thumb brushing away tears I didn't realize I was crying.
"Because if I wanted to destroy you, bella, I wouldn't need to seduce you first. I could have taken Sterling Industries apart piece by piece and left you with nothing. But that's not what I want."
"What do you want?"
"You," he said simply. "All of you. Forever. The way I wanted you seven years ago, the way I've wanted you every day since."
His words hit me like a drug, dangerous and intoxicating. Because despite everything Marcus had revealed, despite all the reasons I should doubt him, my heart still recognized the truth in Damien's voice.
"Take me home," I said finally. "I need to think."
"Your place or mine?" The question carried weight beyond logistics.
"Mine," I said, though part of me wanted to say his. Wanted to lose myself in his arms and forget that the outside world existed.
As the car pulled away from Blackwood Tower, I stared out at the city that had witnessed our destruction and rebirth, wondering if love really could survive seven years of secrets and carefully orchestrated revenge.
"Isabella," Damien said quietly as we neared my building. "Whatever you decide, whatever doubts Blackwood planted, remember that I chose you. Seven years ago, this morning, right now. I'm choosing you."
I chose you too, I wanted to say. But the words stuck in my throat, trapped behind all the fear and uncertainty that Marcus Blackwood had awakened.
Some choices, I was learning, were harder to make twice.
Damien POV
I watched Isabella disappear into her building with the sick certainty that I was losing her all over again. Marcus Blackwood had played his hand perfectly, revealing just enough truth to poison everything we'd built without giving away his own agenda.
The engagement ring. Christ, I'd forgotten about that photograph. Forgotten that Richard Sterling's surveillance of me had been even more comprehensive than I'd realized.
My phone buzzed with a text from an unknown number:
"How did it feel to watch her doubt everything? This is just the beginning. - M.B."
I stared at the message, rage building in my chest like a nuclear reactor reaching critical mass. Blackwood thought he'd won. Thought one photograph and some carefully chosen words could undo seven years of transformation and one night of perfect understanding.
He was about to learn how wrong he was.
I speed-dialed Sarah Martinez.
"I want everything on Marcus Blackwood," I said without preamble. "Financial records, personal life, business dealings, everything. I want to know what he eats for breakfast and how many times he pisses in a day."
"Sir, that level of investigation will take—"
"You have twenty-four hours," I cut her off. "And Sarah? I don't care what it costs or what laws we have to bend. Marcus Blackwood just made this personal."
After ending the call, I stared up at Isabella's apartment, noting which lights were on, wondering if she was pacing her living room the way she used to when she was upset.
Wondering if she was already convincing herself that everything between us was a lie.
My phone rang. Isabella's name on the caller ID made my heart stop.
"Bella?"
"Come up," she said quietly. "We need to finish this conversation."
The elevator ride to her floor felt like ascending to either heaven or hell. When she opened her door, she was wearing nothing but a silk robe that barely covered her thighs, her hair loose around her shoulders, her green eyes bright with unshed tears and something that looked like determination.
"I've been thinking," she said, stepping aside to let me in.
"And?"
"And I realized that Marcus Blackwood made one critical error in his psychological warfare."
I moved closer, drawn by the magnetic pull that had always existed between us. "Which was?"
"He assumed I gave a damn about your motivations seven years ago." Her hands fisted in my shirt, pulling me against her with desperate strength. "He assumed I cared whether this started as revenge or seduction or some elaborate corporate game."
"Isabella—"
"I don't care," she said fiercely, rising on her toes to press her mouth to mine. "I don't care why you came back. I don't care if you planned this or if it just happened. All I care about is that you're here now, and you're mine."
The kiss was fire and desperation and seven years of longing finally given free rein. I backed her against the door, my hands tangling in her hair, my body responding to her with an intensity that bordered on violence.
"Are you sure?" I asked against her lips. "Because once I claim you again, once we cross this line, there's no going back. I won't let Blackwood or anyone else take you away from me."
"Then don't let them," she whispered, her robe hitting the floor with a whisper of silk. "Take me, Damien. Make me forget everything but us."
I lifted her against the door, her legs wrapping around my waist, her soft moan sending fire straight to my cock.
"Mine," I growled against her throat.
"Yours," she gasped as I carried her toward the bedroom. "Always yours."
Whatever game Marcus Blackwood thought he was playing, he'd just lost the most important piece on the board.
Isabella Sterling was mine, and I was done sharing.