“Yes,” I admitted.“I did.During the contract.Every night, I put myself away so I could survive what was happening.I still do it.At work.With Sophie.Every time someone expects me to be fine and I have to pretend I am.”
His expression shifted.Grief, or guilt, or both.“I made you do that.Made you learn to survive something you should never have had to survive.”
“Maybe.Or maybe I already knew how.Maybe I learned from my father, the same way you learned from yours.”The words came easier than I expected.“We both had teachers.”
“We’re alike,” he said quietly.“In ways I didn’t expect.”
The recognition settled into my bones.Two people who had learned to survive by fracturing themselves.By becoming what they needed to be in order to function, regardless of the cost.
“Do you ever feel like…” I started to ask, then stopped.The thought was too dark.Too honest.
“Like a monster?”He finished my sentence with the ease of someone who knew exactly where I had been going.“Like the things you’ve done to survive have made you into someone you don’t recognize?”
My breath caught.
“Yes.”
The word sat there, exposed.Raw and ugly and true.
“Me too.”
I looked at him.Really looked.Past the expensive suit and the controlled expression, past the billionaire veneer and the mob connections and everything I had used to build him into a monster in my head.
He was just a man.A damaged man who had done terrible things to survive.Who carried scars from wounds I was only beginning to understand.Who looked at me like I was the first person who had ever seen him clearly.
“Maybe we’re both monsters,” I said.The words surprised me.They weren’t bitter, the way they should have been.They sounded almost hopeful.
“Maybe monsters can recognize each other.”
His hand found mine in the darkness.Warm and rough and sure.The calluses on his palm catching against my skin, evidence of a life more physical than his tailored suits suggested.
I didn’t pull away.
His thumb traced a slow circle against my wrist, finding my pulse point.I wondered if he could feel how fast my heart was beating.If he knew what this simple touch was doing to me, how much more intimate it felt than all the hate-sex and the angry encounters and the nights I had used his body to punish us both.
“What’s on your list tonight?”he asked, turning my own question back on me.
I considered lying.Considered deflecting the way I always did, keeping my fears locked away where no one could use them against me.
But he had given me his list.His real one, not the sanitized version.
“The gala,” I said slowly.“Whether the restaurant critic will destroy us.Whether I’m capable of running a hotel or just pretending while everything falls apart around me.”I paused, then added quietly, “You.What it means that I’m here.What it means that I keep coming back.”
His fingers tightened around mine.Not possessive, the way his grip used to feel.Anchoring.Like he was afraid I might float away if he let go.
“And what conclusion have you reached?”
“I haven’t.”I turned my head to look at him, really look at him, in the dying firelight.The sharp lines of his jaw, the shadows under his eyes that spoke of too many sleepless nights.“Every time I think I understand what’s happening, you change.You show me a new piece.And I have to start all over again.”
“Is that a complaint?”
“I don’t know what it is.”The honesty surprised me.“A month ago, I knew exactly who you were.The man who bought me to save his business deal.The man who took everything I had because he could.”I swallowed hard.“Now I look at you and I see… someone else.Someone who keeps sculptures of wolves because his mother never got to finish them.Someone who lies awake counting threats because he’s terrified of losing control.Someone who looks at me like…”
I couldn’t finish the sentence.
“Like what?”His voice was barely above a whisper.
“Like I matter,” I said.“Like I’m not just a contract or an obligation or a problem to be managed.Like you actually see me.”