Chapter 159 - ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY NINE

Chapter 159: Chapter ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY NINE

ANGEL

Damien worked from home now. Most days, at least.

His study was all dark wood and leather, blueprints spread across a massive desk, his screens glowing with data I didn’t understand. He spent hours there, phone pressed to his ear, his voice shifting between languages I couldn’t follow.

I kept finding excuses to interrupt him.

At first, it was small things. Asking what he wanted for dinner. Questions that didn’t need asking but gave me a reason to see him, to hear his voice directed at me instead of whoever was on the other end of the line. I was jealous of any moment that wasn’t spent on me.

Pathetic? Absolutely. Did I care? Not even a little bit.

He never sent me away. He seemed to enjoy that—my neediness, my hovering, the way I manufactured reasons to be near him. Like watching me orbit him fed something hungry inside his chest. He told me once that my desperation was a drug he couldn’t get enough of.

No matter how important the call, his eyes found mine when I entered. Today, he caught me staring from the doorway and ended the call mid-sentence.

"Come here."

I crossed the room. He pushed back from the desk and pulled me onto his lap, my head against his shoulder. Like I was a cat he’d been waiting to pet all day.

"I’m interrupting your work," I said, even as I settled into the warmth of him.

"You’re never interrupting." His arm wrapped around my waist, "I work better when I know exactly where you are and what you’re doing."

The dark possession in his voice spread warmth through my chest like honey.

I was so fucked. In every sense of the word.

"That sounds obsessive," I said.

"It is." He pressed his nose into my hair, inhaling deeply. "Everything about you makes me obsessive. I used to be able to focus for hours. Now I can’t go twenty minutes without wondering what you’re doing. If you’re comfortable. If you need something. It’s fucking maddening."

"Poor you," I said, but I was smiling. "Sounds terrible. The big bad mafia boss, brought to his knees by a pregnant woman who can’t stop eating pickles dipped in Nutella."

"It is terrible." His lips brushed my temple. "You’ve ruined me, Angel. Completely fucking ruined me. And I’d burn the world down before I’d let anyone fix it."

"Romantic. Should I be concerned about the world?"

"The world should be concerned about itself." His arms tightened around me. "You’re the only thing I give a shit about protecting."

"What are you working on?" I squinted at the blueprints spread across the desk, I’d noticed that he’d been working on it for weeks now. The technical drawings were covered in annotations I couldn’t begin to understand.

Damien’s chin came to rest on top of my head. "New project. Been developing this for almost two years now." He reached past me to tap a section of the blueprint. "See this component here? Changes everything about how the mechanism functions."

"I have absolutely no idea what any of that means." I stared at him. "It looks like a weapon. Should I be worried that my baby daddy’s side hustle is advanced murder technology?"

He laughed, "It’s not a weapon. It’s a... security system. A very advanced security system."

Okay, now I felt dumb.

"When this project is finished," he continued, pressing a kiss to my temple, "I’m taking you somewhere. Anywhere you want."

"Anywhere?"

"Anywhere in the world, little girl." His hand spread across my belly, "You name the place, and I’ll make it happen. Private island. European city. Fucking Antarctica if that’s what you want. Just tell me."

I thought about it.

A part of me tried to remember what wanting something for myself felt like. What freedom tasted like. What it meant to have choices beyond survive and surrender.

"I’ll think about it," I said finally.

"Take your time." Another kiss, this one to my jaw, lingering. "I’m not going anywhere. And neither are you."

"Was that a threat or a promise?"

"Yes."

***

The baby was growing.

I watched my body change with a detached sort of wonder. The swell of my belly becoming more pronounced each week, rounding out beneath my clothes. My breasts got heavier, more sensitive to every touch—a fact Damien seemed determined to exploit at every opportunity. Strange cravings hit at odd hours—combinations that should have been revolting but tasted like heaven.

Last night it was ice cream with hot sauce. The night before, olives dipped in peanut butter. The baby was either going to be a culinary genius or completely unhinged.

Given who its father was, I was betting on unhinged.

Damien noticed everything.

When my feet swelled, he pulled me onto his lap and rubbed them. His strong hands working out the aches with surprising gentleness, finding knots I didn’t know I had and releasing them until I was practically melting into the couch.

He was attentive in a way that went beyond caring. Obsessive.

And the warmth of his devotion was intoxicating.

I was drunk on it. High. Completely fucking addicted.

I learned things about him I never knew.

He told me about his childhood. Growing up in the orphanage before he was adopted.

"My adoptive father was a drunk. A mean one. The kind who came home looking for someone to hurt, and our mother was usually the closest target." He told me one night.

I stared at him. He was delivering to me this piece of himself to mess

"She had enough one time, so she... killed him. I watched her stab a blade into his chest one night," his eyes got intense as he stared at me, "My grandfather—who happens to be her father-in-law—found us."

Us?

Was he talking about Jillian?

The thought of that name sent a stir through my heart.

"He raised you? What happened to your mother?"

The sides of his lips curved. "A lot happened. My grandfather married my adoptive mother. So, he sort of became my father, I guess?" He chucked, like he wasn’t saying the most insane thing. "If there was one thing my Mom taught me, it was that love is dangerous. That caring about anything gives your enemies a weapon to use against you. So I wonder, Angel—"

He traced his fingers from my lips, down my throat, to the valley between my breasts. His gaze pierced into mine, grey and glittering in the darkness like coins at the bottom of a well.

"Wonder what?" I spoke breathlessly, my skin burning where he touched.

"I wonder if you’re going to kill me like my mother did to my father." His fingers paused over my heart, pressing down until I could feel my own pulse beating against his palm. "Can you bear to tear my heart out of my chest? Could you do it, Angel? If I handed you the knife?"