Damian returned late at night... or rather, it would be more accurate to say that he returned early next morning. I was barely awake at that point, the phone falling down on my face more than once as I tried to keep reading.
Someone yanked the phone out of my hand and placed a hand on my tired eyes. It felt... familiar to me. Almost as if I had felt this sensation before, but I could not recall.
The warmth of his palm lingered a moment too long, as if he had to force himself to pull away.
My first instinct was to try and reach for my phone, but I gave it up easily enough once I noticed that it would not be possible for me.
"Just go to sleep. Otherwise, you will have dark circles under your beautiful eyes."
Damian told me, and my heart skipped a beat at the honesty in his voice. That man truly believed that I had beautiful eyes.
His tone wasn’t playful - it was reverent, almost frustratingly sincere.
’Do I... truly have beautiful eyes? This is the first time I have heard someone tell me this sincerely.’
And perhaps, that was why I let my guard down and relaxed. Sleep claimed me not long after, and my body sagged.
Just before drifting off, I felt him adjust the blanket around me - gentle, practiced, and far too careful for a man claiming not to care.
The next time I woke up, I was in my own bed, and I felt well-rested. I quickly washed up and decided to head outside.
Damian was already sitting at the table, eating breakfast when I arrived. He only looked up as he watched me approaching the table and sitting down.
His eyes traveled over me in a single quiet sweep - assessing, confirming I was unharmed, pretending it meant nothing.
As soon as I pulled the chair back, I had a stack of paper pushed toward me. When I looked up to see what this was about, Damian just gave me a flustered look as he turned his head around.
The faintest hint of red touched his ears - from embarrassment or anticipation, I couldn’t tell.
"What is this...? A marriage contract?"
I asked as I turned the pages around. The more I looked through, the more shocked I felt at what I was looking through.
Damian did not say anything at first, clearly trying to bide his time to think what he should tell me. But when he did decide to speak, his voice was clear.
"I want to offer you a deal. I know that you are strong enough to stand on your own and do not need my help at all. But there might come a time when you will not be able to protect yourself by your own strength. So I want to make sure I have legal power to protect you at that time. A marriage is the best way to do that."
Damian assured me as he urged me to read the paper he was sliding toward me.
He didn’t look away this time - he watched me, waiting for my decision like it held more weight than he would ever admit.
’A marriage...? Is that truly... the right thing to do...?’
The only person I had ever thought of a future with had been Karl, and only because he had been my fiancé for so long.
I might not have loved him in the same way as most people loved their significant others, but I had respected what we had enough to never think of anyone in the same capacity.
Clearly, Karl had not thought the same of me and had even decided to have some ’fun’ with my sister.
However, despite that, I did not feel like I was ready to move on and start another relationship. Even if the marriage was fake, my feelings about being married were not fake.
Damian kept looking at me, his sharp eyes trying to catch any expression I made before he sighed and spoke up once more.
His fingers tapped the table - restless, betraying the calm mask he tried to maintain.
"I know that you are worried and that this is a huge decision for you to make. But unfortunately, I cannot give you a lot of time to think over your decision. Please, give me your answer quickly."
Damian was not forceful, but he was not giving me enough time as well. And it made... somewhat sense with the kind of position he was in at the moment.
Just as it was risky for me to take his offer to form a formal relationship, it was risky for him to be associated with me without a formal claim as well.
And unlike me, who had no reputation and nothing to lose, Damian had a lot to lose - his clean reputation and the trust he had built over the years. He was risking a lot for me.
The weight of that risk hung between us - a silent admission of importance that neither of us dared name.
’I have no room to hesitate. If I want my revenge and my identity back, I will need to drink the poison. At least, Damian is making it bearable for me.’
"Have you made up your mind?"
Damian asked, and I nodded before I grabbed the pen and signed my name alongside his. With this, our relationship finally had a name.
Damian let out a breath - small, but undeniably relieved - as if losing me had been a possibility he didn’t want to face.
"Thank you for understanding. This relationship is just for the sake of achieving our end goal. Please, do not expect any actual love from this agreement. As you might have guessed, my heart already belongs to someone else."
Damian told me before he packed the papers back in his bag. An awkward silence spread across the room between us, and neither of us knew what to do.
His eyes didn’t match his words - they lingered on me too long, too intensely for a man whose heart "belonged to someone else."
In the end, I was the one with more experience in a fake relationship, so I suggested what we should do next.
"Well, since we have put a name to our relationship, it is time to flaunt it. We should make a few public small public appearances to strengthen our bond and to show the public that our connection is not a one-time thing."
I reminded Damian, and he nodded without considering my words much. He must have come to a similar conclusion as I did.
"Then, shall we put on a good show for the public, Miss? Once we both get what we want, we can annul our engagement and go our separate ways. Surely, you would want to look for someone who would care for you, and I doubt I could ever become that person for you."
Damian assured me and gave me a way out. It stung just a little to hear these words. Especially since it felt like I was being slighted.
There was a flicker of hesitation before he finished his sentence - as if the idea of me wanting someone else bothered him more than it should.
But I could not understand my own feelings over this matter because wasn’t this exactly what I wanted from Damian? - to fake a relationship for my end goal? So why did these words disappoint me so much?
Why did it feel like I had wanted him to contradict himself... to say that he could care for me?