The city lights blinked dimly in the distance as the Lu estate fell into silence. Damien sat alone in his private study, the mahogany desk lit by a single lamp, casting golden shadows across the parchment before him. The window was cracked open, letting in the scent of early spring and the faint whisper of rustling leaves.
The engagement had gone public. The media loved it—"Two titans of industry, once rivals, now lovers." Headlines painted it as poetic fate. Share prices rose. Celebrities congratulated them. But none of it mattered here.
Not in this room.
Not in this moment.
What mattered was her.
Damien stared at the blank page, his pen resting against his calloused fingers. He wasn't a man of flowery words. Not when it came to feelings. But for her, the words clawed their way out of him whether he wanted them to or not.
He began to write.
Liyana,
You walked into my life wearing heels sharp enough to cut through concrete and eyes cold enough to freeze time. I thought I could break you. Bend you. Defeat you.
Instead, you undid me.
Every time we stood on opposite sides of the boardroom, every time your voice defied mine, I told myself I hated you. I didn't. I feared you. You were the one person I couldn't predict. You were never part of the plan.
But you became my only plan.
He paused, closing his eyes. Her laugh echoed in his memory—low, rare, genuine. Like that night at Celeste's rooftop, when she smiled through exhaustion and asked him if he was done playing games.
He wasn't. He'd never be done when it came to her.
He continued.
I don't vow to protect you from pain—because you never needed protection. I vow to stand beside you, shoulder to shoulder, even when the world thinks we should be enemies. Especially then.
I vow to hold your hand even when your pride wants to pull away. To speak when you're silent and listen when your silence says more than words ever could.
I vow to love the parts of you no one else dares to touch—your rage, your ambition, your loneliness. Your scars. Because they are mine now, too.
His handwriting grew more deliberate, darker with each stroke, as though the ink itself understood the gravity.
You once told me I didn't really see you. But I do now. All of you.
And I will spend the rest of my life proving it.
No boardroom, no battlefield, no empire will ever matter more than the woman who taught me that surrender isn't weakness—it's love.
He signed it quietly:
– Damien
Then folded the page, sealing it with the red wax stamp that bore the Lu family crest. But before placing it in the drawer, he reached for a smaller envelope—one with Liyana's name in elegant cursive on the front.
He slid the letter inside.
He wasn't sure when he would give it to her.
On the wedding night? On a bad day? Or maybe—maybe he would leave it in her desk, tucked between her blueprints and empire-building contracts, so she'd find it when she least expected it.
Because that's what she did to him.
She found him when he was least expecting love. And made him believe it was worth losing control for.
Later that night, he walked into their shared bedroom. Liyana was already asleep, her breathing soft, her form wrapped in a silk robe. One hand rested over the pillow beside her—his side.
Damien stood for a moment, watching her.
Then, carefully, reverently, he slid the envelope into the drawer of her nightstand.
As he lay down beside her, he whispered, "Mine."
And for once, he didn't mean possession.He meant belonging.