Page 13 of The Founder's Power

I want to believe him, but I’ve seen the cost of letting him in.

“I can’t fall back into something that still feels like a risk,” I murmur. Even though every part of me wants to avert my gaze, I force myself not to.

He searches my face, his expression open in a way I’m not used to seeing. “Then let me prove I’m worth the risk.”

I shake my head, backing away slowly and carefully. “Don’t chase me, Damian.”

His expression doesn’t change, and although he says nothing, I already know he will.

Deep down, I’m afraid that a part of me wants to stop running.

CHAPTER7

DAMIAN

Ihaven’t been sleeping lately, not really.

I close my eyes, but all I see is her standing beneath the gallery lights, lips parted after a kiss, spine straight even when she’s afraid I’ll hurt her again. She thinks I don’t feel guilty and that I only want to win.

But this doesn’t feel like winning.

It feels like bleeding.

I pace my office long after everyone’s gone home, my jacket off, tie forgotten on the back of a chair. The skyline glitters beyond the windows, hollow and cold. My empire. My monument to control.

It’s never felt smaller.

I slam a folder shut. Another acquisition finalized today—an entire distribution channel locked in—but all I can think about is how she backed away from me like I was a cliff she almost walked off.

“You pull, and you consume.”

I didn’t used to care about words like that. Not when I was building something bigger than myself. Not when every deal, every partnership, every negotiation was about securing power.

But now, her words dig in like nails behind my ribs because she’s right. I’ve controlled everything from my image and emotions to my life. It not only kept me safe. It kept me functional.

Until she came back.

Until those kisses tore straight through the walls I built and left me bare.

I’ve faced down CEOs who’ve threatened to ruin me. I’ve taken on billion-dollar negotiations and walked out with the room under my thumb. Isabelle, though, makes me feel helpless.

Worse. She makes me hope, and I don’t know how to live with that.

I grip the edge of my desk and stare down at the phone. I could call her again and try to explain or attempt to bargain.

But this isn’t a deal I can close.

This is her, and I’m losing control.

The man I’ve had to become to survive this world, the man who can turn emotion into silence and vulnerability into strategy, is unraveling and losing his edge.

And I don’t know who I am without the armor.

* * *

I tellmyself I’m just going for a drive, that she’s not the only one who needs air, space, or silence.

But I end up on her street.

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