Chapter 7 – Terms of Surrender
Elara spent most of the next day alone. No scheduled meetings. No stylists. Not even a message from Damian.
She should've felt relieved.
Instead, she felt like the calm before a storm.
His world had too many shadows, and she'd stepped into them blindly. The worst part? A piece of her wasn't afraid. A piece of her wanted to understand—to unravel him like a locked safe.
By noon, she gave up pretending to relax and went to his office in the penthouse. It was a fortress of glass and matte black steel, elegant and cold.
And he was there—seated at the desk, sleeves rolled up, pen in hand, scribbling notes in a leather-bound planner like he was plotting the next world war.
"You've been avoiding me," she said, closing the door behind her.
"I've been working."
"You didn't even text."
"I didn't think I needed permission to focus."
She walked over, slow and deliberate. "That's not what this is about."
Damian finally looked up. "Then what is this about, Elara?"
"You said I had a choice. Protection or sacrifice. What if I choose something else?"
His jaw tightened. "There is nothing else."
"There's always something else."
He stood, walking around the desk until he stood inches from her. "You want truth? Fine. I brought you into my life to serve a purpose. A year of marriage to settle my board's concerns. You would get revenge. I would get peace. That was the agreement."
"But that's not what this is anymore."
"No," he admitted. "It isn't."
The air pulsed between them. Heat and tension and something neither of them dared name.
"Then rewrite the terms," she whispered.
He studied her face for a long time. Then, quietly, "Why?"
"Because I'm not your puppet. And I won't be your casualty either."
There was silence. Thick and electric.
Then Damian turned away.
"I've trusted no one since I was seventeen," he said. "Not one person. Do you know what that does to a man?"
Elara didn't respond.
He kept going. "You asked me who hurt me? It wasn't one person. It was all of them. My mother. My uncle. The people I thought would protect me. They used me. Stole from me. And when I built something of my own, they came crawling back—with apologies and knives."
She swallowed hard. "So you built walls."
"I built fortresses."
He turned back to her. "You want new terms? Fine. No more pretending. No more half-truths. From now on, you're not just my wife in name. You're my partner."
Her breath caught. "And what does that mean?"
"It means if you stay, Elara, you stay in everything."
He stepped closer, voice low and steady. "No running. No games. I let you in… all the way. And you don't walk away."
Elara's heart thundered.
"Do you want that?" she whispered.
Damian didn't answer with words.
He leaned down and kissed her.
It wasn't soft. It wasn't sweet.
It was possession.
Fire.
The culmination of every stare, every unspoken word, every moment charged with tension.
His hands slid into her hair, pulling her against him as if he'd been starving. Her fingers clutched his shirt, anchoring herself to something dangerous and real.
When he finally pulled back, his voice was gravel.
"This isn't a game anymore, Elara."
"I know," she breathed.
He kissed her again—slower this time. And when he finally stepped away, his eyes were darker than she'd ever seen.
"You still have a choice," he said. "But if you stay—there's no going back."
Elara touched her lips.
And made the only choice that felt like hers.
"I'm already in."
That night, she didn't sleep in the guest bedroom.
She didn't even ask.
She curled into Damian's bed like she'd always belonged there—because in that moment, something between them had shifted. Not just lust. Not just power.
Trust.
It was tentative. Fragile. But real.
And in the dead of night, as he traced his fingers along her spine, she whispered, "You're still hiding something."
Damian didn't deny it.
Instead, he whispered back, "And you're still deciding how far you're willing to go."
They both fell asleep knowing the war wasn't over.
It had only just begun.