Chapter Nine: The Walls Between Us
Ava
The meeting room was too quiet.
Not the usual quiet. Not the polite, focused kind. This was calculated quiet. The kind that made her skin itch beneath her silk blouse.
Across the table, Damien sat like a king at war—watchful, unreadable, disarming.
Her presentation was done. The numbers were good. The client had nodded. Yet he said nothing.
Nothing except, "You've changed, Ava."
Her heart stuttered.
"Excuse me?" she asked.
"You used to wear brighter colors," he said, his voice soft, almost casual. "You smiled more. You laughed at things that weren't funny. You were… open."
"I grew up," she replied, quickly.
His eyes narrowed. "You disappeared."
"I had my reasons."
Damien leaned forward, elbows resting on the glass. "Was one of those reasons about three years tall, with curly hair and hazel eyes?"
Ava froze.
Panic stabbed her lungs like ice.
"What did you say?"
"I saw a photo. Two years ago. You were holding a child."
"That's none of your business," she said, rising from her chair.
He didn't flinch. "So he is yours?"
Her lips parted. No sound came out.
And that was all the answer he needed.
---
Damien
She didn't deny it.
She couldn't.
Every instinct in his body screamed with the truth, even as his pride fought to process the betrayal.
She had his child. His blood. His name. And she never told him.
Why?
Because of who he was back then? Cold? Obsessive? Ruthless?
Or because she didn't believe he could be a father?
He stood up slowly, walking around the table until they stood just a breath apart.
"You should have told me," he said lowly.
Her voice trembled. "You weren't the kind of man I could trust with a child."
"I'm not that man anymore."
"But I don't know who you are now."
They stared at each other—two former lovers, two broken people, and one truth hanging between them like a sword on a thread.
He wanted to rage. To demand. To hurt the way she hurt him.
But all he asked was:
"What's his name?"
Her lips moved.
"Liam."
And it broke him.
.