Six months later
POV Damon
Life looked nothing like I'd imagined—and for once, that was a good thing.
I stood on the back porch of our new house, watching chaos unfold across the lawn with the satisfaction of a man who'd survived corporate warfare, family blackmail, and approximately seventeen thousand dirty diapers.
Our house. Bought with my inheritance. Far enough from the Ashford estate that I could breathe without inhaling dysfunction with every exhale.
Kitty's mother sat on a blanket in the grass, Eleanor in her lap, both giggling at something only babies and grandmothers understood.
The woman who'd once tried to stop an abortion was now completely besotted with the result—funny how that worked out.
The twins sprinted past with a kite that was doing more crashing than flying, their shrieks carrying across the yard.
"LEFT, Maya! Pull it LEFT!"
"I AM pulling left! You're the one who..."
The kite nosedived into a rosebush. Again. Third time in ten minutes. I was keeping count.
We had a nanny now—Sophie, a pretty brunette who was currently engaged in conversation with Christopher by the grill. I squinted at them.
Was my brother... smiling? Like, genuinely smiling? With teeth visible and everything?
And was Sophie twirling her hair?
Well. Good for him. Someone in this family should get a happy ending that didn't require a twelve-step program of trauma recovery first.
I spotted Kitty near the porch railing, watching the same scene with an expression I'd grown to recognize over the past six months. Contentment. Peace.
The look of a woman who'd expected disaster and gotten a backyard barbecue instead.
I moved toward her, wrapping my arms around her from behind and pulling her against my chest. She fit perfectly—always had, even when we both pretended otherwise.
"You're thinking too loud." I pressed my lips against her hair. "I can hear it from inside."
"I'm thinking about how domestic this is. It's disgusting." She leaned back into me. "I love it."
"We have a kite. And a grill. And a lawn." I sounded personally offended by my own contentment. "Who even am I anymore?"
She kissed me—soft at first, then deeper, her fingers curling into my hair in that way that made rational thought difficult. When we broke apart, I knew my eyes had gone dark. Could feel the shift.
"You know," I murmured against her lips, "no one would notice if we disappeared for ten minutes."
"Ten minutes?" Her eyebrow rose. "That's ambitious. Or insulting. I can't decide which."
"Fifteen?"
"Now you're just showing off."
I grinned and scooped her up without warning. She yelped, laughing, clutching my shoulders as I carried her toward the back door.
"Damon! They will see."
"Who cares."
The door swung shut behind us.
***
Later that evening, after the guests had left and Eleanor was asleep and Kitty had gone outside to help her mother load the car, I sat on the edge of our bed, scrolling through emails.
Work stuff. Spam. More work stuff.
And then—an email with no sender name. Just a string of random numbers. No subject line.
I almost deleted it. Should have deleted it.
But something made me tap it open. The attachment loaded automatically.
Photos.
Kitty. Christopher. His car. Windows fogged. Faces unmistakable. Her straddling him in the backseat. His hands on her hips. Their mouths fused together.
The world stopped spinning.
I stared at the screen, waiting for my brain to catch up with what my eyes were seeing. Waiting for some alternative explanation to present itself. A deepfake. Photoshop. Some elaborate hoax designed to…
But I knew those clothes. Recognized the dress Kitty had been wearing the day Eleanor got sick. The day she'd come home looking disheveled, smelling like guilt I'd been too panicked to notice.
The day my brother had driven her back from wherever they'd been.
Wherever they'd been fucking.
I set the phone down carefully. Precisely. The way you handle something explosive.
Through the bedroom window, I could see the backyard. The lawn we'd bought together. The swing set I'd assembled while Kitty laughed at my inability to follow instructions.
And there she was—my wife, my partner, the mother of my child. Standing with her mother by the car, Eleanor on her hip, laughing at something one of the twins said.
She looked happy. Beautiful. Like everything I'd ever wanted.
Like everything I'd been stupid enough to believe in.
How many times had I fallen for this? How many times had I let myself hope that maybe, just maybe, someone could actually love me without an agenda? Without a betrayal waiting in the wings?
Stephanie. The first girl I'd ever really wanted, wrapped around my brother in his car while I stood there like an idiot, heart in my hands.
And now Kitty. The woman I'd fought for. Protected. Loved with everything I had left after a lifetime of learning that love was a weapon people used against you.
How stupid was I for falling for this love bullshit again?
Every single time. Every single time I let my guard down, let someone in, let myself believe that maybe I was worth choosing—reality came crashing back to remind me I wasn't.
Love wasn't worth the play. Never had been. Only ever hurt.
I watched Kitty wave goodbye to her mother, watched her turn back toward the house with our daughter in her arms. She was smiling. That soft, content smile she'd been wearing for months now.
The smile I'd thought was for me.
Christopher appeared in my peripheral vision, crossing the lawn toward his own car. My brother. My blood. The person who'd already taken one woman from me and apparently decided that wasn't enough.
They didn't know I knew.
They were standing there, existing in my life, breathing my air, thinking their secret was safe. Thinking I was the same trusting idiot who believed in family and loyalty and love.
They were wrong.
I didn't move from the window as Kitty walked inside. Didn't flinch when I heard her footsteps on the stairs, her voice calling out asking if I wanted tea.
Didn't react at all, because reacting meant revealing, and revealing meant losing the advantage.
My father taught me one thing worth keeping: never show your cards until you're ready to play them.
I wasn't going to confront them. Not yet. Not in some dramatic explosion that would give them the chance to explain, to justify, to spin their betrayal into something that was somehow my fault.
No.
I was going to wait. Plan. Let them think everything was fine while I figured out exactly how to make them pay for what they'd done.
Both of them.
The bedroom door opened. Kitty appeared, Eleanor drowsy against her shoulder, that beautiful smile still on her lying face.
"Tea?" she asked.
I smiled back. The smile I'd perfected over years of board meetings and family dinners and pretending everything was fine when nothing was.
"Sure. I'd love some."
She crossed to kiss my neck, and I let her. Didn't flinch. Didn't pull away.
"I love you," she murmured against my skin.
"Love you too." The words tasted like ash. But she'd never know. Not until I was ready for her to know.
I watched her leave, our daughter in her arms, humming softly as she headed downstairs.
And I began to plan.