Damien POV
I watched Isabella's face cycle through a dozen emotions as my ultimatum settled between us like a blade. Fear, longing, desperation, and something that looked dangerously like hope all flickered across her features before she managed to school her expression back into careful neutrality.
But it was too late. I'd already seen the truth, the part of her that wanted to say yes, that wanted to throw caution to the wind and choose the reckless love we'd never had the chance to explore.
Choose me, bella. Choose us.
"You're insane," she said finally, but her voice lacked conviction. "You're asking me to abandon everything I've ever known, everyone who depends on me, "
"I'm asking you to stop living someone else's life," I interrupted. "When was the last time you did something because you wanted it, not because it was expected of you? When was the last time you chose happiness over duty?"
She was quiet for a moment, her fingers toying with the stem of her wine glass in a gesture I remembered from when she was nervous. Some things never changed.
"It's not that simple," she said. "Sterling Industries employs fifteen hundred people. If the company fails, "
"The company is already failing," I said bluntly. "With or without me, Sterling Industries is hemorrhaging money. The Morrison contract was just the beginning. You have, what, three months of operating capital left? Maybe four if you're lucky?"
Her flinch told me I'd hit the mark. She knew exactly how precarious Sterling Industries' position was, knew that she was fighting a losing battle with nothing but stubbornness and family pride as weapons.
"So you're offering to put it out of its misery," she said bitterly.
"I'm offering to give you a way out before it drags you down with it." I leaned forward, close enough to catch the faint scent of her perfume, something floral and expensive that made me want to bury my face in her neck and breathe her in. "Isabella, you're brilliant. You're wasted managing the slow death of your father's empire. Come work with me instead. Help me build something new, something that isn't poisoned by the past."
Come home with me. Let me show you what we could have together.
For a moment, I saw her waver. Saw the longing in her eyes, the part of her that wanted to reach across the table and take my hand. The part that remembered what it felt like to be eighteen and reckless and completely in love.
Then her phone rang.
She glanced at the screen and her expression changed, professional concern replacing personal vulnerability.
"I have to take this," she said apologetically. "It's Henry Morrison."
Henry Morrison. The board chairman who'd been Richard Sterling's lapdog for thirty years, who'd probably helped orchestrate my destruction. I watched Isabella answer the call, her posture shifting into corporate mode as she listened to whatever crisis required her immediate attention.
"What?" she said sharply. "When? How bad?"
I couldn't hear the other side of the conversation, but I could read the growing alarm in Isabella's expression, the way her free hand clenched into a fist on the table.
"I'll be there in twenty minutes," she said, ending the call with shaking fingers.
"What's wrong?" I asked, though part of me already knew. I'd set too many dominoes in motion today, someone was bound to notice the pattern.
"Someone leaked the Morrison situation to the press," she said, her voice hollow. "Not just the contract termination, but the details of our financial position. Henry says the phones haven't stopped ringing, clients wanting to know if their projects are safe, investors demanding answers, employees asking if they're going to lose their jobs."
I felt a stab of something that might have been regret. The media leak hadn't been part of my plan, someone else was playing games, accelerating my timeline in ways I hadn't authorized.
Marcus Blackwood.
"I have to go," Isabella said, already standing. "My company is falling apart and I need to, "
"Your company was already falling apart," I said, standing as well. "This just makes it official."
The look she gave me was pure poison. "Is this what you wanted? To watch me choose between you and the people who depend on me? To force me to abandon fifteen hundred employees so I can run away with the man who's destroying their livelihoods?"
Yes. No. Fuck.
The truth was more complicated than she knew. I wanted her to choose me, but not like this. Not with a gun to her head and innocent people caught in the crossfire. I'd wanted her to come to me freely, to realize that what we could build together was worth more than the toxic legacy she'd inherited.
But someone else was playing games now, forcing moves I wasn't ready to make.
"Isabella, " I started.
"No," she cut me off, her voice sharp enough to cut glass. "You want a choice? Here's my choice. I choose my people. I choose the fifteen hundred employees who don't deserve to suffer because of our past. I choose to fight for what's right instead of running away with someone who's forgotten what that means."
The words hit like physical blows, each one finding its mark with devastating precision. Because she was right, had forgotten what was right. Somewhere in my seven-year quest for revenge, I'd lost sight of the difference between justice and cruelty.
But it was too late to pull back now. Too late to undo the damage I'd already set in motion.
"Then you've made your choice," I said, my voice colder than I felt. "Don't expect me to make this easy for you."
"I wouldn't dream of it," she replied, her chin lifting in the gesture of defiance I remembered from when she was eighteen and arguing with her father about curfew. "But Damien? When this is over, when you've destroyed everything I care about, remember that you chose this too. You chose revenge over redemption. You chose hate over love."
She turned to leave, but I caught her wrist, my fingers wrapping around the delicate bones with careful pressure. She froze at the contact, and I felt the way her pulse jumped beneath my thumb.
"This isn't over," I said quietly. "Whatever you think about me, whatever you choose to believe about my motivations, this isn't over between us."
For a moment, her mask slipped. I saw the girl I'd fallen in love with seven years ago, vulnerable and fierce and completely beautiful in her pain.
"It has to be," she whispered. "Because I can't keep loving someone who's trying to destroy me."
Loving.
Present tense.
The admission hung between us for a heartbeat that felt like eternity. Then she pulled free from my grip and walked away, her heels clicking against the marble floor with the kind of precision that suggested she was holding herself together through sheer force of will.
I watched her leave, every instinct screaming at me to follow her, to explain that the media leak hadn't been my doing, that someone else was manipulating both of us. But pride and seven years of carefully cultivated hatred kept me rooted to the spot.
She made her choice. Now you have to live with yours.
I signaled for the check and drained the rest of my wine, trying to ignore the way the restaurant suddenly felt empty without her presence. The waiter approached with nervous deference, probably recognizing the tension that had been crackling between Isabella and me, and I paid the bill with mechanical precision.
My phone buzzed with a text as I walked to the exit:
"How did it go with the princess? Did she choose love or duty? , A Friend"
I stared at the message, ice forming in my veins. Someone had been watching us, someone who knew about my dinner with Isabella, someone who'd probably orchestrated the media leak to force exactly the choice she'd just made.
Marcus Blackwood.
I deleted the message and called my driver, my mind already racing ahead to damage control and contingency plans. Because if Marcus was playing games, if he was manipulating both Isabella and me like pieces on a chess board, then everything I thought I knew about this situation was wrong.
But first, I had a more immediate problem. Isabella was about to walk into a media feeding frenzy with no protection and no allies except a board of directors who'd probably throw her to the wolves to save themselves.
You chose revenge over redemption. You chose hate over love.
Her words echoed in my head as my car pulled up to the restaurant. She was right, had chosen revenge. But maybe it wasn't too late to choose something else.
Maybe it was time for Damien Cross to remember what it felt like to be the man who'd once loved Isabella Sterling enough to risk everything for her.
My phone rang as the car pulled into traffic. Sarah Martinez, probably calling with updates on the media situation and tomorrow's planned attacks.
"Sir? The Sterling Industries story is everywhere. Financial networks, social media, even mainstream news outlets. Someone fed the entire financial breakdown to the press."
"I know," I said grimly. "Cancel tomorrow's operations. All of them."
"Sir?"
"You heard me. I want everything related to Sterling Industries put on hold until I say otherwise."
"May I ask why?"
I thought about Isabella walking into Sterling Tower right now, facing hostile reporters and panicked employees and board members who were probably already planning to throw her under the bus.
"Because someone else is playing games," I said. "And I don't like being manipulated any more than she does."
"What are your orders?"
I closed my eyes and made a decision that would have seemed impossible twenty-four hours ago.
"I want a full security detail on Isabella Sterling. Discrete but comprehensive. And I want to know everything about who leaked that financial information to the press."
"Sir... are you protecting her?"
Protecting her. The woman who'd just chosen duty over love, who'd walked away from everything I was offering to save people who would abandon her the moment things got difficult.
"I'm protecting my investment," I lied. "Sterling Industries is worth more to me intact than destroyed. At least for now."
But even as I said the words, I knew the truth was more complicated. I was protecting Isabella because despite everything, despite seven years of hatred, despite her rejection tonight, despite the impossible choice between love and loyalty, was still the boy who'd once promised to love her forever.
And maybe, just maybe, some promises were worth keeping even when they'd been broken