Chapter 2

What he really is?

I yanked my hand back like his abs were a stovetop. Damian's jaw tightened—outside, nothing; inside, a wounded howl: "Too fast. You scared her. Idiot."

"I have calls," he said, standing, armor back in place. "The car comes at seven. Wear whatever you like."

"Wear the green one. The green one ruins me."

He disappeared into his study. I sat there clutching a couch cushion like a life raft, running diagnostics on my own sanity.

Option one: I was having a very specific stroke.

Option two: I had genuinely, inexplicably, started hearing my husband's thoughts the moment I touched him.

I tested it through the door. Nothing. Apparently there was a range. I crept closer to the study, pressed my ear near the wood, and got hit with:

"—can't postpone the board meeting again. Marcus is circling. If he finds out about the condition before the shareholder vote—" a pause, then, helplessly derailed: "—vanilla. Her shampoo is vanilla. Focus, you pathetic—"

I backed away, cheeks flaming.

Here was the thing nobody knew about my marriage. I could have lived with platonic. Honestly, having a six-foot-three work of art wander the penthouse shirtless every morning was its own kind of compensation package. What I couldn't live with was the humiliation—the headlines, the pitying looks at brunch, my mother forwarding me articles with the subject line "Sweetheart, blink twice if you need a lawyer."

But cheaters didn't recoil from their wives like nervous altar boys. Cheaters didn't memorize their wives' shampoo.

Something didn't add up. And now I had a cheat code.

At seven, I came downstairs in the green dress.

Damian, adjusting his cufflinks, looked up—and short-circuited. His face stayed carved from stone. His brain made a sound I can only describe as a dial tone, followed by:

"I'm going to die at this gala. Cause of death: my own wife. The obituary will be embarrassing."

"You look adequate," he said.

"Adequate?" I demanded.

"You look like the reason men start wars."

"Adequate," he repeated, and opened the car door for me, and I spent the entire ride watching the most composed man in New York stare out the window while internally composing what I swear was poetry about my collarbone.

At a red light, his phone buzzed. He glanced at it; his thoughts went sharp and cold as a blade.

"Marcus moved the vote up. He knows. Somebody told him about the condition. If I lose control in front of the board—if it happens in public—everything Grandfather built goes to that vulture."

"Bad news?" I asked innocently.

"Nothing important." His voice was smooth as poured concrete.

"If Marcus exposes me, the company is the least of it. They'll come for her, too. They'll use her. I should've let her divorce me a year ago. I should let her go now." His hand, resting on the seat between us, curled into a fist. "I can't. God help me, I can't. One more month. Just give me one more month of her."

I looked at my husband—at his perfect profile, the streetlights sliding across it—and felt the divorce papers in my bag turn to lead.

What condition? What could a billionaire with a face like that possibly be hiding that was worse than the tabloids already printed?

The car stopped. He came around and offered me his hand, and when I took it, warmth shot up my arm and his eyes did the thing again—a flash of gold, like an animal's eyes catching headlights.

"Stay close to me tonight," he said quietly.

It didn't sound like a request. It sounded like a warning.