Page 61 of His Secret Merger

I looked down at my mug, fingers wrapped tight around the ceramic. “I don’t even know where to start,” I admitted. “I keep thinking if I say it all out loud, it’ll make it too real.”

He shifted beside me, just enough that his knee brushed mine—a subtle touch, but grounding, solid.

“I’m here, Jules,” he murmured. “Start wherever you want.”

The words were simple, but they softened something jagged inside me. I drew in a shaky breath, willing myself to speak, to peel back the layers I’d been hiding under all day.

And at that moment, with his quiet weight beside me, I realized this was the first time in a long time that I didn’t feel entirely alone.

I stared into my mug, watching the pale steam curl into the quiet. My fingers flexed around the ceramic like I could somehow pour all the tension in my body into it, like the tea could soak up the fear I couldn’t name out loud.

Damian sat beside me, his elbow resting on the back of the couch, one ankle crossed over his knee. He cradled his mug in one hand, his thumb brushing along the rim in slow, absent strokes. He hadn’t said much, hadn’t pushed, just waited — which somehow unraveled me faster than if he’d demanded answers.

I let out a breath, shaky and thin. “The doctor… confirmed what Gabrielle was already dealing with.” My voice wavered, and I swallowed hard. “Diminished ovarian reserve. IVF’s my best shot.”

Saying it out loud felt like opening a floodgate. The words rushed out in a clumsy, tumbling spill. “It’s not like I didn’t expect it—Gabrielle and I are twins, after all—but hearing it, having a doctor sit across from you and explain your odds in percentages and charts, it’s…” I let out a helpless laugh. “It’s a lot.”

Damian’s eyes stayed on me, steady and unflinching. Not pitying, justthere. His thumb was still tracing the rim of his mug. For some reason, the small, quiet motion anchored me.

“I thought I’d feel more decisive by now,” I admitted. “Like the minute I had the facts, I’d know what to do. But I don’t. I just… I keep imagining this life, this future, and I don’t even know if it’s mine or just something I’ve been clinging to out of habit.”

I felt his hand brush my knee, a light touch, barely there—but it made me suck in a breath, the contact like a match striking against skin.

When I looked up, his gaze was gentle, his mouth pulled into a faint, almost hesitant line. “You don’t have to have all the answers tonight, Jules.”

I huffed softly, blinking hard. “I don’t know how to do this alone.”

The admission left me raw, like I’d torn a page from my own chest and handed it to him. My throat tightened, and for a moment, I pressed the edge of the mug to my lips just to have something to do with my shaking hands.

Damian set his mug on the coffee table with a quietclink.His palm came to rest over mine, still wrapped tight around the tea, and his warmth bled through the cool ceramic.

“I need to tell you something.” His voice was low, rougher now. “Something I should’ve told you sooner.”

I met his gaze, heart pounding, air suddenly thin.

“There’s a child,” he said quietly. “A twelve-year-old son. Mateo. I was a sperm donor once, years ago—before any of this, long before you. His mother passed away, and the court contacted me. Otherwise, I would have never known. And it matters now because I should’ve told you, and I didn’t. I’m sorry.”

The words hit like a bell rung deep in my chest—not a clean break, but a reverberation, a tremor working its way through bone and breath. All I could do was stare at him, my mind trying to fit his new shape into the man I thought I knew.

And yet… I didn’t pull away.

There was a quiet, stubborn thread of understanding somewhere beneath the shock. Of recognition. Because wasn’t that what we both were, underneath it all? People carrying truths we didn’t know how to share.

My eyes stung, and I blinked fast, a shaky laugh slipping out. “Well,” I whispered, “that’s one hell of a cleanse, Sinclair.”

He huffed out something close to a laugh, his mouth curving, and for the first time all night, the tension in his shoulders eased—just a fraction.

With unsteady fingers, I set the mug on the table and pressed my hands to my face, dragging in a breath that felt too sharp. “I’m amess,” I murmured, words muffled against my palms. “I’m such a damn mess. I don’t know what to do.”

When I dropped my hands, Damian was closer, his eyes dark and focused, his thumb brushing a tear from my cheek before I even realized it had fallen.

“You don’t have to do this alone,” he murmured, his voice low, almost rough with restraint.

And just like that, the knot in my chest loosened—not all the way, but enough.

Damian’s fingers lingered at the edge of the robe, the silk parting under his touch like a held breath finally exhaled. My skin prickled in the cool air, but it wasn’t the temperature that sent a shiver through me—it was the way his eyes softened when they swept over me, as if seeing me this way wasn’t about possession or hunger, but something quieter, more reverent.

I felt raw, exposed in every sense, but I didn’t look away.

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