When he finally lowers me onto the old studio daybed, he hovers above me, eyes locked on mine.
“You’re everything,” he says. “I didn’t see it before. I was too busy surviving.”
I cup his face, my thumb brushing the sharp edge of his cheekbone. “You see it now,” I whisper. “That’s what matters.”
And then he enters me—slow, careful, like he’s relearning the shape of love.
My legs wrap around him, pulling him deeper, grounding him. His hands grip my hips, his mouth buried against my neck. Every movement is deliberate. Anchored. No roles. No power games. Just us, flesh to flesh, heart to heart.
We move together like we’re rewriting the language of every time we broke apart.
“Isabelle,” he groans.
“Damian… Give me all of you,” I whisper, stroking his face.
When he presses his forehead to mine, I see the tears shining in his eyes, and I realize mine are already falling.
This right here isn’t just lovemaking.
It’s a homecoming, a reclamation of everything we thought we’d lost.
We fall together, trembling and undone, and when the storm inside us finally stills, he wraps me in his arms and holds me like he never plans to let go.
Neither do I.
There’s no empire between us, just a love that’s real, messy, and ours.
CHAPTER29
DAMIAN
The headlines come fast.
KINCAID GLOBAL ABSORBED BY VERIDIAN HOLDINGS.
GREYCORE TRIUMPHS IN FINAL BID.
THE FALL OF A TYCOON: DAMIAN KINCAID EXITS THE BOARDROOM.
They call it a defeat, a collapse, a surrender.
Let them.
They don’t know what it felt like to walk out of that tower for the last time. To take one last look at the skyline I used to believe I could own and then let it go like ash between my fingers.
It wasn’t defeat.
It was release.
For the first time in my life, I don’t need a corner office or a signature on a billion-dollar contract to feel powerful.
I just need her.
Love is power.
Not money.
* * *