The car is waiting downstairs, and ten minutes later I'm handing my briefcase to Nix outside my building, tipping him enough to guarantee it reaches my apartment untouched. Five years of loyalty earns that kind of trust from me. It's the only currency that actually matters to me at this point in my life.

Morrell's is dim and intimate in low light, a triangular bar, booths tucked along the walls for people who want to disappear. I don't do booths. I take the bar, the seat that lets me see the whole room, because control isn't a preference for me, it's closer to a requirement. My whiskey is already waiting by the time I place a private order, more money than the bottle probably justifies, though I've never once regretted the extravagance.

She walks in before I've taken my first sip, still in the navy dress from this afternoon, the one with the zipper that teases down the front just enough to have occupied far too much of my attention earlier. I noticed that. I also noticed the small freckle at the corner of her eye, which I have no business remembering this clearly. She scans the room, fingers curling faintly against her palms nervous and when she finds me, she takes a breath I can read from across the bar. Good. Nerves mean this matters to her.

She crosses toward me and I let myself watch every step of it, the sway, the length of her, the quiet confidence underneath the nerves. I want her under me before the night is through. I want to know exactly what she is beneath the composed exterior, and I intend to find out, though I'm careful I have a great deal riding on discretion, and she works too close to my world for careless mistakes. She stops beside my stool.

"Hi."

"Hi." Charming. Unguarded in a way few women manage around me anymore, and sharp underneath it I can see the intelligence sitting right behind her eyes. "Glad you came."

She doesn't sit. "I almost didn't."

"Why's that?"

"Because I have too much riding on this job to gamble with it. I need to know why you were in the Blackwood lobby before I decide whether to sit down."

"Does the answer change anything?"

"It's my first week. I don't want to break a rule I don't know exists yet."

I respect honesty, expect it, the way my father always has, even when it's inconvenient. She's earning points fast. Still my name tends to reveal things about people they didn't know were there.

I rise, hands settling at her waist, and turn her until her back meets the bar, my body effectively boxing her in without force. "I appreciate the instinct to follow rules. Blackwood doesn't ban relationships between colleagues. I've never believed you can put people together seventy hours a week and expect nothing human to happen. I only require that it's handled with discretion, and disclosed properly."

She blinks. "Do you believe and require? Who exactly are you?"

"What's your name first?"

"Isla," she says, and true to the lawyer she's clearly becoming, circles straight back. "You still haven't"

"Damien."

Her eyes widened. "Damien as in"

"Blackwood," I finished for her.

The color drains slightly from her face. "You let me stand here without telling me that?"

"Would it have changed anything?"

"Of course it would have. I'm not interested in climbing anything by climbing you."

I laugh, genuinely, for the first time all day. "Is that right?"

"It is. Now let me off this bar. I need to go. Please, Damien Mr. Blackwood"

I turn us so we're side by side instead, freeing her, though my hands stay at her waist and hers remain pressed to my chest not nearly where I'd prefer them. "Damien," I correct. "I can't stand Mr. Blackwood. And I don't want you leaving, Isla. You have my attention, genuinely, and I'd like to know if that's mutual, separate from anything to do with my name."

"It is. Was. I just don't know how to separate the two anymore."

"I'm just a man."

"A billionaire."

"A man who wants to actually know you. I can promise this changes nothing about your position here, but walking out that door right now would change something else entirely." I release her waist, though our legs stay touching, her palms still resting against me.

"I'm fairly confused right now." She leans back slightly, hands sliding away, though she doesn't step back. "I wanted to know you, or I wouldn't have shown up. But now that I know who you are, I need a minute to think."

"I can work with that. Give me your phone. Put my number in it. The next move is entirely yours."

"You're my boss."

"Not directly. Phone."

She hesitates just long enough that I feel it, then hands it over. It rings mid-transfer Dad flashing across the screen and she declines it fast. "Sorry."

"You could have answered. Fathers matter."

She studies me, something shifting behind her eyes. "You're close with yours?"

"Very. As I was with my mother, before I lost her."

A pause, careful, like she's deciding whether to hand me something fragile. "I lost mine last year. It's still hard on my dad."

"Mine hasn't fully recovered either," I admit, more honestly than I planned to. "You should call him back. Don't let him worry."

"I will, in a minute. He knows my hours are brutal. That's actually what you need to understand before I leave this bar. I don't work like this because I want to. I work like this because I have to. I turned down two Ivy League offers because I couldn't swing the tuition without going part-time, put in two years at a firm that barely paid me anything just to prove I could win cases, and I finally got here. I can win for you. I won't be the associate who becomes a cautionary tale in this industry."

I let that settle. She could be angling for something plenty are but there's no performance in her voice, no calculation. She's not trying to keep me. If anything, she's trying to talk herself out of me, and I have no intention of letting that stand. Her phone is still in my hand; I finished entering my number and haven't returned it yet. "I don't date or sleep with anyone on my payroll."

"Then why bring me here?"

"Because you've become considerably more interesting in the last five minutes." I cup her jaw. "I'm about to kiss you, unless you tell me not to."

"I really shouldn't let you."

"That's not a no, Isla."

"I know," she breathes, and I close the distance, and the second I taste her, I already know one glass of wine and one kiss are never going to be enough. She makes a small, helpless sound against my mouth, leans in rather than away, and I force myself to pull back before I lose what little restraint I'm holding onto. I press her phone back into her palm.

"You have my number now. Use it whenever you're ready. But understand this first next time I kiss you, I'm not stopping.”

Isla's POV

The foyer is too small for two people who used to know each other this well, so I move through it fast, putting real distance between us before I let myself breathe. The living room opens up beyond its dark hardwood, ceilings that go up forever, light fixtures hanging like something out of a magazine and I stop dead at the edge of it, because none of this looks like it used to. The black couches are gone. Gray leather has taken their place, matched to a kitchen island I don't remember either. I press my lips together and think about what it must have cost him to walk into this house after his father died and decide whether to preserve it like a shrine or make it his own. He loved Raymond in a way most sons never manage. I know that better than almost anyone.

Damien comes to stand beside me, and we both just look at the room like it might explain itself. I wonder if he's thinking about the funeral too the last time either of us reached for the other and meant it. The lie between us had already done its damage by then, but the ache hadn't caught up yet. "I'm not going to say what's in my head right now," I tell him, and my voice shakes more than I want it to.

"You don't have to say it. I already know." He tips his chin toward the far wall. "Downstairs."

Down to the bar, away from the front door, away from any easy exit. I wonder, briefly, if that's the point if he's herding me somewhere I can't bolt from as easily but I don't ask, because it's his house and his call to make. I fall into step beside him, and when we reach the stairwell, all steel and curved gray, narrow enough for one body at a time, he waves me ahead of him instead of leading. I hesitate half a second before I go, one hand skating the railing, every nerve in my back lit up with the awareness of him behind me. He still hasn't asked why I'm here. That silence says more than a question would.

Downstairs opens into a den deep brown sectional, a television practically the size of a wall, a bar shaped like a crescent moon tucked into the corner. "Drink first," Damien says, dropping in beside me, his shoulder grazing mine hard enough that I actually flinch and look away.

I don't meet his eyes, but I feel them on me the whole walk to the bar. I take the stool across from where he settles behind the counter. "Still a Brandy Alexander girl?"

"I shouldn't. I'm driving back tonight, and you remember exactly how badly I handle alcohol." The admission that he remembers anything about me at all slips out before I can stop it.

"I remember plenty," he says, and he's already reaching for the bottle, mixing mine before he pours his own that fifteen-year scotch he's never once switched out for anything else. He slides my glass across. "Either way, we both need one of these right now." He knocks his back in a single motion, refills it, then rounds the bar to stand at my side, close enough that his warmth reaches me before he even speaks again. I look up and I'm on fire and rooted to the floor in the exact same instant.

"Damien "

"Bring the drink," he says quietly. "Patio's better. You won't feel boxed in out there." He's already walking.

He still reads me the way other people read the weather. It doesn't mean anything, I remind myself. It's a skill, not a connection. I follow him with my glass, and he pulls the curtains and slides the door open, and we step out under the awning onto stone, the ocean spread out gray beneath a sky that's holding a storm just out of reach. I've always loved the ocean right before it turns violent. The fireplace catches in the corner, and he comes to stand beside me.

I finish my drink in one long pull. "That buys me time to sober up before I drive." I set the glass down on one of the small tables and cross to the railing instead, resting both palms on the wood.

I hear his glass land beside mine before he joins me at the rail. "Talk to me."

"I came to warn you."

"Warn me about what."

"Ri. He's coming after you."

He actually laughs. "Ri's been coming after me since law school, since I made him look like an amateur in front of people who mattered. Running our own companies now hasn't changed a thing. He got the closest he'll ever get when he got you."

I turn to face him fully. "He never had me. Not for one second."

"He's my enemy, and you left my bed, my company, and walked straight into his."

"I needed work. That part is on you."

"You never needed a job that badly," he snaps.

I drag a hand through my hair. "That's not why I'm here. You need to actually hear me."

"You want to explain how the man you're sleeping with is now suddenly worried about my safety?"

"I am not sleeping with Ri. Stop. Just listen to me for once."

"Like you listened to me? I fought hard to get you to hear me out, Isla. I remember every single attempt."

I retreat until my spine finds the concrete pillar behind me, arms wrapping around myself. "I heard you. It wasn't enough at the time, but that's not the point right now. I took a week off recently to look at other jobs. I interviewed with the District Attorney's office."

"The DA's office pays garbage. Why would someone like you even consider it?"

"Because I'm exhausted by your money, yours, his, all of it. I wanted somewhere that wasn't built on power, except I lasted forty-five minutes before I understood it's exactly the same game everywhere. Everyone wants what you have, and that makes them despise you for having it."

"Meaning what, specifically?"

"I was sitting in an office with the door open. Down the hall, in a conference room, there were four men talking about a billionaire who plays at being ethical, who thinks nothing can touch him. They said they had someone inside your company. They said they were about to bring you down and come out looking like heroes for it."

"Did they use my name?"

"No. But "

"I don't break laws, Isla. That's simply not who I am."

"I know that. That's exactly why I drove out here. I got scared your calls were being watched, because it was you, Damien. I know it was. And there was a detective's business card sitting on Ri's desk that I wasn't supposed to see. He's building something against you."

His eyes narrow on mine. "And you're telling me this man who supposedly betrayed you, why, exactly?"

"Because you're not a criminal, and that's the whole reason I came." I push off the pillar, trying to move past him, but his hand closes around my arm and hauls me back.

We end up chest to chest, hips aligned, history crackling in the space between us, and instead of pushing us apart it drags us closer. Thunder rolls overhead and the sky finally breaks, rain hammering the roof and pouring past the edge of the patio in sheets. Damien's fingers slide into my hair, his other hand flattening between my shoulder blades. "You honestly thought you'd walk out of here without this happening first?" His mouth finds mine before I can answer.

Isla's POV

The minute Damien’s mouth is on mine, his body pressed to mine, I forget everything but him. It’s like I can breathe again, like I’ve barely been living until right here, right now. I don’t want to, but I still love him, and I didn’t think I would ever kiss him or touch him again.

He backs me up and presses me against the wide concrete pillar that divides the railings and walls, his fingers tangling into my hair, his hand slipping under my sweater, his warm palm pressing to my ribcage. It’s not until that hand cups my breast that I jolt into reality.

“Stop,” I say, catching his hand and pressing on his chest. “Stop. I can’t do this.”

He goes still but he doesn’t immediately release me. God, I don’t want him to release me and yet I cannot survive the onslaught of emotions he creates in me if I don’t stop now. I can’t just fuck him. It’s not in me.

“Right,” he says, his hand falling away and pressing onto the concrete on either side of me, his body lifting away from mine. “You’re with Ri.”

“I’m not with Ri, and if I was with him or anyone, it wouldn’t be any of your business. We’re not together anymore.”

“You went from me to him. You went to my enemy. Do you know how badly that cut? That’s when I stopped coming after you. That’s when I let you go.”

“I was trying to survive. And you were cut? I was bleeding out. And do you really think I’d come to you if I was with Ri? I’m a loyal person. I never betrayed you. I wouldn’t betray someone I was with.”

“Unlike me, right?” he challenges. “I did not betray you. I’ve tried to explain.”

“I’m not here to talk about this. I can’t go down this path again. It still hurts and I'm telling you that is more than you deserve.”

He stares at me, those green eyes unreadable, but his emotions are radiating off of him and pounding on me even as the rain pounds against the roof. He pushes off the pillar and walks a foot away to plant his hand on the railing and lowers his chin to his chest.

I can still feel his hand on my breast. I can still taste him and it’s killing me.

“I said what I came to say. I should go.” But I don’t move. I don’t push off the pillar.

“Don’t,” he says, looking over at me. “Don’t go.”

There’s torment in his voice, a guttural plea that conflicts with all he did to me. I know this, but I don’t move. I squeeze my eyes shut.

“I don’t know why I’m still standing here.” My lashes lift. “I can’t stay. I have to go.”

I move then. I try to walk past him, but he pushes off the railing and steps in front of me.

“Eric and Davis are about to be here,” he says of his best friend and business manager, and his personal attorney. “I’d like them to hear what you had to say.”

“You can tell them.”

“I’d like them to hear it from you.”

“I need to get back.”

“Stay the night and you can chopper back with me tomorrow.”

“I have a rental car,” I argue.

“I’ll take care of it for you.”

I hug myself. “I don’t need or want you to take care of anything for me.”

He looks skyward and then lowers his head to cast me in a turbulent stare.

“You’re helping me. It’s the least I can do.”

I inhale and let it out. “I’ll get a room and drive back tomorrow.”

“This house is ridiculously large. You can stay on another floor. You’ll never know I’m here.”

“I’ll know you’re here.” I turn away from him and press my hands to the railing.

He mimics my action and we stand there, side by side, the rain pounding fiercely.

“You always loved the rain on the ocean,” he murmurs after a few moments.

I loved it when I was with him. I have good memories of loving it with him.

“I won’t let you hurt me again,” I whisper.

We look at each other, a punch in the connection between us before he says, “I never meant to hurt you. I would die for you, Isla. That hasn’t changed.”

I cut my stare, so very confused because I believe him and that makes the way we ended illogical, at least for me, at least for my way of loving someone. I don’t understand his kind of love and yet I need it so damn badly.

“If I’m staying, I’ll take a glass of that scotch.”

I feel his eyes on me, those perfect, intelligent green eyes, before he says, “Scotch it is,” and pushes off the railing. “I’ll be right back.”

I nod, but I don’t watch him walk away. I stare out into the rain and my mind goes back to another day, back to the funeral, to sitting in the car and staring at the church. I hadn’t seen Damien in six painful months. I’d told myself that I was out of his life. I’d told myself that he wouldn’t want me there, but I’d cared about his father and I still loved him. And so, I’d gotten out of that car. I’d gone inside.

Damien’s footsteps sound behind me and I turn as he sets the bottle down on a table between the two chairs facing the fireplace. He fills two glasses, mine with ice, and his without because he knows I’ll want ice, and then he hands me mine. I know he’s going to touch me, but I don’t resist. I reach for my glass and when our hands collide, he catches mine and walks me to him. Heat radiates up my arm from where he touches me and I know if I look at him, I’ll forget why that kiss was bad when it felt so damn good. For several seconds we just stand there, rain and history suffocating us until he reaches up and brushes my cheek. The touch shocks me, and I shiver, my gaze jerking to his.

“Let’s sit down by the fire,” he says softly.

“I’d like that.”

He seems to hesitate to release my hand, but it slowly slides away and neither of us move. The wind gusts and that’s enough to set us in motion. I walk around the chairs and sit down in front of the fire, sipping from the glass.

“That’s strong,” I say as he sits down next to me and I place the glass on the table between us. “Maybe you need to drink mine. Eric and Davis aren’t going to be an easy audience for me.” I lean forward and hold my hands toward the fire, my elbows on my knees.

Damien leans forward with me, only he ignores the fire. “They’ve both always liked you, Isla. You know that.”

“They’re your friends, your very good friends. They’ll protect you, which is good. That’s why I came. So you can throw up the armor.”

“I thought I had,” he says. “And then you showed up at my door.”

Damien’s cellphone buzzes with a text, and he pulls it from his pocket, glancing at the screen. “Eric,” he says. “They’re almost here.” He sticks his cell back into his pocket, downs his drink, and stands up. “Let’s meet them upstairs.”

I nod and decide I do need that drink. I pick it up and take a big slug before setting it down. I stand up and turn to walk toward the door but Damien steps in front of me.

“Don’t even think about leaving while they’re here. I’ll come after you, and this time I won’t stop coming.” He pulls me to him, his long legs pressed to mine. “We’re not done, Isla. Not now. Not tonight. Not ever. We’re done pretending otherwise.”

He kisses me, a brush of lips over lips that I feel in every part of me before he rotates us and turns me to the door, his hands on my shoulders, my back to his front as he leans in and whispers, “But be warned. I’m not going to stop the next time I kiss you.”