The rain came without warning that morning, a gray sheet tumbling over the city as if the sky had decided it was done holding back. Stone Industries’ glass façade reflected the storm in jagged streaks, and inside, the air was charged with something Reina couldn’t name.

She had barely slept. Not after Lucien’s threat. Not after the images she’d found in Damian’s office. Not after realizing that, in some twisted way, both brothers were circling her for reasons that had nothing to do with who she pretended to be.

Ezra had been unusually quiet at breakfast, pushing cereal around with his spoon until she coaxed a smile out of him by threatening to eat it all herself. He laughed—small, fleeting—but his eyes still held that wary intelligence she sometimes forgot was there. He was only three, but he understood more than most adults she’d met.

Now, sitting at her desk in the research department Damian had conveniently placed her in, she tried to focus on the files open before her. Contracts. Financial reports. A series of client portfolios with too many zeros for her to comfortably process before coffee.

She wasn’t really reading any of it. She was thinking about the folder marked SABRINA.

And about the man whose shadow fell across her desk without warning.

---

Damian.

He didn’t speak immediately, and she didn’t look up right away. That was their rhythm now—a silent, prickling awareness before either of them acknowledged the other.

“Busy?” he asked finally. His voice was low, smooth, but there was a tension in it that made her pen pause mid-stroke.

She looked up, her expression neutral. “That depends. If you’re here to dump more last-minute reports on me, yes. If you’re here to lecture me about office efficiency—also yes.”

One corner of his mouth twitched, but he didn’t smile. “I was hoping for something else.”

“Oh?” She set the pen down and leaned back in her chair. “Do enlighten me.”

Instead of answering, he stepped closer, his gaze fixed not on her face, but on her hands.

“Where did you get that?” he asked.

It took her a second to realize what he meant.

Her left sleeve had slipped back slightly, exposing the faint, pale line around her wrist—a thin scar, no more than an inch long. She usually kept it hidden without thinking, but in that moment she hadn’t been paying attention.

She pulled the sleeve down quickly. “Old accident.”

Damian’s eyes didn’t leave hers. “That’s not just any scar.”

She forced a laugh, though her stomach tightened. “And what would you know about it?”

His answer was immediate. “Because I have the same one.”

---

Her breath caught. She hadn’t expected that.

Damian reached into his jacket and unbuttoned the cuff of his right sleeve, rolling it up to reveal a matching line—slightly longer, angled differently, but in the same spot.

“It happened when we went for a 2 weeks vacation at my island,” he said quietly, as if the words might dissolve if he spoke them too loudly. “You were opening a bottle of champagne. The glass shattered. You insisted you were fine, but the blood—” He stopped himself, exhaling slowly. “I still remember cleaning it myself. The doctor said it would leave a mark. I didn’t think I’d… ever see it again.”

Reina’s pulse thundered in her ears. Every instinct screamed at her to deflect, to laugh it off, to pretend she had no idea what he was talking about.

But his gaze was too steady. Too certain.

“That’s a nice story,” she said finally, her voice flat. “But I’m not your wife.”

He didn’t move. “Then tell me why you have the exact same scar she did.”

She pushed her chair back and stood, creating space between them. “Coincidence.”

He gave a short, humorless laugh. “I don’t believe in coincidences. Not when it comes to you.”

---

The air between them thickened, heavy with unspoken truths. Damian stepped closer until she could see the faint shadow of stubble along his jaw, smell the crisp cedar of his cologne.

“I don’t know why you’re pretending,” he said, his voice dropping lower. “I don’t know what happened to you after that night. But I know you. And I know that scar.”

Her heart twisted unexpectedly at the way he said I know you. She shoved the reaction down. “You’re imagining things.”

“Am I?”

Before she could step away, he reached up and brushed a stray strand of hair from her face. The touch was light—barely there—but her breath hitched all the same.

His eyes searched hers. “Say you’re not her,” he murmured. “Say it, and I’ll walk away right now.”

She opened her mouth. The lie was right there, ready.

But nothing came out.

---

Damian’s expression shifted—some mix of relief and grief—and then, without warning, he kissed her.

It wasn’t gentle. It wasn’t tentative. It was the kind of kiss that came from years of holding back, from finding something you thought you’d lost forever and being afraid to let go again.

For a split second, her body betrayed her. Heat rushed through her, a familiarity she couldn’t explain sparking in her chest, her hands curling against his shirt as if they’d been there before.

Then reality crashed back.

She shoved him away so hard he staggered a step.

“Don’t,” she said, her voice shaking. “Don’t ever do that again.”

Damian’s jaw clenched. “You didn’t pull away right away.”

“That doesn’t mean anything,” she snapped, hating the way her lips still tingled. “You think you can just… force me into remembering something I don’t have? That’s not how this works.”

His eyes darkened. “Then tell me what does work, Reina. Because I’m done pretending I don’t see her every time I look at you.”

---

She grabbed her bag from the desk. “What you see is a woman who works for you. That’s it. Nothing more.”

“Nothing more?” His voice was sharper now. “Then why do you look at me like you’re afraid of remembering?”

She froze. Just for a heartbeat. But it was enough for him to see.

“I have work to do,” she said, forcing her legs to move toward the door. “And so do you. So whatever fantasy you’re holding onto, drop it.”

She walked out without looking back.

Damian didn’t follow.

But his eyes stayed on the door long after it closed, his mind replaying the way her breath had caught, the way her hand had trembled when he touched her wrist.

---

That night, she sat on the edge of Ezra’s bed long after he’d fallen asleep. His small hand was curled loosely around her finger, his breathing deep and even.

She traced the pale line on her wrist with her thumb, remembering the heat in Damian’s voice, the way his kiss had cracked something in her she’d worked so hard to seal shut.

Lucien’s threat still hung over her, sharp as glass. But now Damian was a danger of a different kind—the kind that didn’t just threaten her life, but her heart.

She couldn’t afford either.

She bent to kiss Ezra’s forehead, whispering against his hair. “I won’t let them take you from me. Either of them.”

And in the quiet dark, she began to plan—not just how to survive Lucien, but how to keep Damian from digging deep enough to uncover the truth she wasn’t ready to face.