chapter 8
The fallout was brutal.
Lily and her mother were convicted for drugging and conspiracy. The men involved were charged too. Their reputations were shredded beyond repair.
Damian personally made sure the scandal stayed pinned across every major platform for weeks.
The internet did what it always does when given blood.
It tore them apart.
And then, because people are incapable of leaving anything alone, it turned to me and Damian next.
Comments started appearing everywhere.
They’re not blood-related, right?
Why do they look insanely good together?
He protects her like she’s his whole world.
I’m shipping this immediately.
Damian, who had once looked carved out of ice, would secretly read those comments and walk around with the faintest hint of satisfaction for hours afterward.
Three years later, my company was thriving.
The script I brought back became a phenomenon. Then another. Then another. By the time I was established, we were producing massive hits and becoming exactly what I had dreamed of—a place where talented people could work without selling their dignity to survive.
My father began openly talking about retirement every other day.
He wanted to hand the Carter Group over and spend the rest of his life traveling the world with my mother.
One evening, over dinner, he looked at Damian and me and said, “So? Are you two ready to take over the company together?”
I laughed and leaned against Damian’s shoulder.
“I’ve said it before. I only want my brother to support me. I want to spend my life doing what I love.”
Damian looked at me with helpless fondness.
“Fine,” he said. “I’ll support you forever.”
My parents exchanged one of those looks that meant they had already discussed something privately and were now about to become unbearable.
My father clapped his hands.
“Then what are you waiting for? Propose already.”
I froze.
“What?”
I turned to them in disbelief.
Damian was already standing.
And kneeling.
A ring box appeared in his hand.
For a second, he didn’t speak. He just held my hand carefully, almost reverently, like he was touching something fragile and precious.
When he finally looked up, the usual shadows in his eyes were gone.
He was clear.
Open.
Certain.
“Claire,” he said softly, “I was lonely from the moment I can remember. No one needed me. No one leaned on me. No one made me feel like I belonged anywhere. Then you came into my life and gave me your trust without reservation. That was the moment my real life began.”
My vision blurred.
He continued, voice low and steady.
“You are the person I want to protect for the rest of my life. Before you came back from overseas, I told Mom and Dad I wanted to marry you. I told them I wanted to spend my whole life taking care of you. They agreed.”
My father nodded.
“We know him. We raised him. We trust him more than anyone.”
My mother was already crying.
“I never wanted to send my baby girl far away to some stranger’s house,” she said. “I wanted you where I could still see you.”
Damian squeezed my hand.
“I don’t know what the perfect proposal sounds like,” he said. “But I know this: I’m not asking you for a promise I haven’t earned. I’m offering you everything I am. My past. My future. My loyalty. My life. So please… let me keep the promise I made years ago.”
He lifted the ring.
“Will you marry me?”
I looked at him—at the man who in my last life had turned into a monster because no one loved him properly, and in this life had poured all of that fierce intensity into protecting me instead.
He said his life began when I trusted him.
But he didn’t know the whole truth.
I had approached him at first because I knew what kind of danger he could become.
I had wanted to guide him.
Win him over.
Keep him close.
And somewhere along the way, I had stopped playing any role at all.
The place I felt safest in all the world was where he was.
Tears spilled over.
I nodded hard.
“Yes.”
The ring slid onto my finger with trembling hands.
Then he stood and pulled me into his arms while my parents cried and laughed like the entire universe had just gone exactly the way they wanted.
Maybe it had.