Something was wrong with Damon, and I couldn't figure out what.
Ever since we'd brought Eleanor home, he'd become a ghost in his own house—and not the fun, Casper kind. More like the kind that haunts you with passive-aggressive silence and mysterious disappearances.
Constantly on calls behind locked doors. Disappearing into his study for hours. Physically present at dinner but mentally somewhere else entirely, checking his phone every thirty seconds like he was expecting news that the world was ending.
With the Ashfords, honestly? Anything was possible.
"You're being paranoid," I told my reflection while brushing my teeth. "It's just work. Adjustment period. New father stress. Totally normal behavior for a man whose entire existence just got complicated by a seven-pound human."
My reflection looked unconvinced. Rude of her, really.
But a darker interpretation kept clawing its way up from the basement of my brain where I stored all my worst fears and that one memory of accidentally calling my teacher "Mom" in third grade.
The baby was born. His duty was fulfilled.
Whatever performance he'd been putting on, the tender moments, the soft kisses, the way he'd looked at me in the hospital like I was something worth keeping, maybe the curtain was finally coming down.
Maybe I'd served my purpose, and now I was just... furniture. Expensive furniture that occasionally needed feeding.
One night, I snapped.
I found Damon in his study, hunched over his laptop with that furrowed brow he got when he was stressed, phone glowing beside him like a malevolent nightlight.
"We need to talk."
He didn't look up. "Can it wait? I'm in the middle of…"
"No. It can't wait." I closed the door behind me with more force than necessary. "What the hell is going on with you?"
"Nothing's going on." His eyes stayed fixed on the screen. "Work stuff. You wouldn't understand."
"Try me."
"Kitty…"
"You've barely looked at me in weeks. You disappear for hours. You're physically in this house but mentally on another planet."
I moved closer, forcing myself into his line of sight. "Is it me? Is it Eleanor? Did we do something wrong, or are you just done pretending you give a damn?"
That got his attention. His head snapped up, something dangerous flickering in his eyes. "Pretending?"
"What else am I supposed to think? You kissed me in that hospital room like it meant something. You held our daughter like she was precious. And then we came home and you just... vanished."
"I haven't vanished. I'm right here."
"Your body's here. The rest of you checked out weeks ago." My voice cracked, and I hated myself for it. "Why won't you talk to me? Why are you shutting me out?"
"Because some things aren't your business." He stood, chair scraping against hardwood. "Not everything is about you, Kitty."
"This is about me! This is about our family."
"We're not a family!" The words exploded out of him, sharp enough to draw blood. "We're a contract. A business arrangement that produced a child. Don't confuse proximity with intimacy."
The silence that followed was deafening.
"Is that what you really think?" My voice came out smaller than I intended. "That none of it was real?"
Damon's jaw tightened. He looked away, then back, then away again—a man at war with himself. "I think we got swept up in the moment. Hospital emotions. New baby hormones. It doesn't mean…"
"Don't." I stepped closer, anger rising to drown the hurt. "Don't you dare reduce everything to hormones. You felt something. I know you did."
"What I felt doesn't matter."
"It matters to me!"
"Why?"
He was in my space now, close enough that I could smell his cologne, see the exhaustion carved into the lines around his eyes.
"Why do you care what I feel? You've made it perfectly clear I'm not what you wanted. Wrong brother, right?"
"That's not…"
"I saw the way you looked at Chris. At the wedding. In the kitchen. Don't pretend I'm an idiot."
"You're acting like one!"
"And you're acting like we're something we're not!"
The argument had reached a fever pitch, both of us breathing hard, standing toe-to-toe like boxers in the final round. One moment we were screaming, and then…
His mouth was on mine, hard and desperate. My back hit his office door with enough force to rattle the frame, and Damon pressed his entire body against me, pinning me there with his hips.
I could feel how hard he was already—straining against his trousers, grinding against my stomach in a way that made heat pool between my thighs.
His hands fisted in my hair, yanking my head back so he could attack my neck with teeth and tongue.
"This what you want?" he growled against my throat, one hand sliding down to grip my ass, hauling me closer. "Is this real enough for you?"
"Shut up." I grabbed his belt, yanking it open with more force than finesse.
His hand shoved up my skirt, fingers finding the edge of my underwear and pushing it aside. When he touched me, finally, god, finally, I was already embarrassingly wet, and his groan vibrated against my collarbone.
"Fuck, Kitty." Two fingers slid inside me while his thumb found my clit, and I bit down on his shoulder to muffle my moan. "You're soaked."
It wasn't tender. It wasn't romantic. It was two people trying to find connection through collision, months of frustration and confusion pouring out in the worst possible way.
My fingers fumbled with his shirt buttons, desperate to touch skin, to feel something real beneath the walls he'd built.
I finally gave up and just yanked, buttons scattering across the hardwood, and dragged my nails down his chest hard enough to leave marks.
His phone rang. Damon froze.
For one horrible, suspended second, he didn't move. Didn't breathe. Just stood there with his hands on my waist and his lips inches from mine while that shrill electronic sound demanded his attention.
"Don't," I whispered. "Please. Just don't answer it."
He pulled back. Checked the screen.
Something shuttered behind his eyes.
"I have to take this. It's important."
"More important than this?" The words escaped before I could stop them—raw, vulnerable, pathetic.
Damon stared at me.
For one suspended moment, I thought he might actually choose me. Might put down the phone and prove that I mattered, that this mattered, that I wasn't just a convenient warm body in a contract gone wrong.
His thumb hovered over the screen.
The phone rang again.
"I'm sorry." He was already stepping back, already disappearing behind that mask. "I have to… I'll explain later, I promise."
And then he was gone.
Just like that.
The door clicked shut behind him, and I was left leaning against it, lips swollen, shirt askew, dignity somewhere on the floor next to my self-respect.
The Stephanie pattern. That's what Christopher had called it—history repeating itself with different names and faces but the same devastating result.
I'd read it wrong. All of it.
The tender moments weren't real. The soft kisses were performance. The way he'd looked at me was just another move in whatever twisted competition Damon had been running against his brother since childhood.
I slid down the door until I was sitting on the floor, knees pulled to my chest, staring at nothing.
I was never the point. I was just the prize.