By the time Zina returned home, the morning had become one of those strange experiences that felt too vivid to be real.
She left her running shoes near the entrance, carried the little white flower Daisy had given her upstairs and placed it carefully in a glass of water before heading for the shower.
The warm water poured over her shoulders, but it did little to quiet her thoughts.
Daisy.
Finn.
That unsettling moment when their hands had touched and Daisy’s eyes had turned completely white.
I can’t see past you.
Zina rested her forehead against the cool tiles.
What exactly was she supposed to do with that?
For weeks, people had been speaking around her rather than to her.
Her father had left behind secrets she was only beginning to uncover.
Damien knew things he wasn’t ready to tell her.
Luca had the irritating habit of answering questions with half-answers and that knowing smile of his.
And now there was Daisy, a girl she’d met on a morning walk who apparently saw pieces of the future but couldn’t see what lay beyond Zina herself.
She shut off the water.
By the time she dressed, she had decided there was only one person she wanted to talk to.
Damien.
Her phone was already in her hand when she sat on the edge of the bed.
She stared at his name briefly before pressing call.
He answered after the fourth ring.
“Hello, fiancée.”
A smile slipped across her face.
“You really enjoy calling me that.”
“I have been waiting for the opportunity.”
“You’re enjoying this too much.”
“Probably.”
She tucked a strand of damp hair behind her ear.
“I met someone this morning.”
The amusement in his voice disappeared.
“Someone?”
“Her name is Daisy.”
Damien paused.
The name stirred a faint memory.
Luca had mentioned it once, perhaps twice, during phone conversations Damien had overheard over the years.
He had never paid much attention at the time, and certainly hadn’t imagined that the name would eventually be connected to Zina.
“Daisy,” he repeated.
“I think I’ve heard Luca mention that name.”
“You know her?”
“No. Not personally.”
Zina frowned.
“Then how do you know the name?”
“Luca has spoken about her before. Briefly.”
That answer was enough to make her curious, but she decided to leave it for later.
She told him everything else.
The walk.
Daisy waiting for her.
Finn.
The flower.
The vision.
Damien listened quietly, asking only a few questions when he needed clarification.
When she finished, he didn’t immediately give her an explanation.
Instead, he said, “You should come here.”
“To your house?”
“My office.”
She glanced at the time.
“I’ve never been there.”
“I know.”
“Why do I feel like you’re smiling?”
“Because I am.”
She laughed softly.
“Fine.
I’ll come.”
“I’ll see you soon.”
The call ended. The source of this chapter is g.com.
Zina didn’t know why she suddenly felt nervous.
It wasn’t as though she hadn’t seen Damien before.
Still, there was something about going to his world for once instead of having him appear in hers that made the whole thing feel different.
Damien had ordered breakfast before she arrived.
It was a small thing, but he knew she would have skipped eating after her morning run, especially after everything that had happened.
He’d learned enough about her habits to recognize the difference between I’m not hungry and I haven’t thought about food yet.
The tray sat on the small table beside the windows, coffee included.
He had just finished checking a document when his hearing caught the faint sound of footsteps approaching from the corridor.
He knew it was her before anyone knocked.
The receptionist had already announced her arrival downstairs, but he would have recognized her footsteps anyway.
There was a lightness to them that didn’t belong to anyone else in the building.
A soft pause outside his door.
He smiled.
Before Zina could knock, Damien opened it.
She stopped with her hand still raised.
For a moment, surprise replaced every other expression on her face.
“You heard me?”
“I heard you coming.”
“That’s still strange.”
“Give it time.”
Her gaze moved past him into the office.
Then she noticed the breakfast waiting near the windows.
“You ordered food.”
“You’ve been running around since morning.”
“I could have eaten at home.”
“You could have.”
He stepped aside.
“But you didn’t.”
Zina walked in, trying not to smile.
She failed.
Damien closed the door behind her, then reached toward the side table where a single red rose rested in a narrow glass vase.
He picked it up and offered it to her.
Zina stared at the flower.
“A rose?”
“I thought the occasion deserved something less complicated than the morning you’ve had.”
She took it carefully.
“It’s beautiful.”
“So are you.”
The words came so naturally that for a second neither of them moved.
Zina looked at him.
Damien seemed perfectly composed, as though he hadn’t just said something capable of making her forget the reason she had come.
She lowered her eyes to the rose.
“You’ve been practicing.”
“I haven’t.”
“That’s worse.”
A quiet smile touched his mouth.
“Come and eat before you accuse me of having ulterior motives.”
She followed him toward the table.
The office was nothing like she had imagined.
It was elegant without being excessive, with dark wood, tall windows and shelves lined with legal volumes.
Everything had a place, yet the room didn’t feel sterile.
A few personal touches softened it—a framed photograph, a watch resting beside a stack of papers, a book left open on the corner of his desk.
It felt lived in.
It felt like him.
Zina sat opposite him and reached for the coffee.
“You remembered.”
“I remember most things about you.”
She looked up.
There was no teasing in his expression this time.
That did something inconvenient to her heart.
She took a sip to hide it.
“About Daisy,” she began. Find the original chapter at g.com.
Damien leaned back.
“I’m listening.”
“She says she’s been seeing me in her visions.”
“I gathered that much.”
“And when she touched me, she couldn’t see past me.”
His expression grew thoughtful.
“Did she explain what that meant?”
“No.”
“Did Luca?”
“No.”
Damien sighed softly.
“That sounds like Luca.”
“You know him very well.”
“I’ve known him for a long time.”
Zina studied him over her cup.
“Sometimes I think you know everyone.”
“Not everyone.”
“Just all the mysterious people in my life?”
“Apparently.”
She laughed.
The tension that had followed her from the morning began to loosen.
Damien watched her for a moment before asking, “Are you frightened?”
Zina considered the question.
“A little.”
He nodded, waiting.
“But I’m more annoyed.”
“That sounds like you.”
She smiled.
“I am tired of being the last person to know things about myself.”
Damien’s expression softened.
“I understand.”
“No, you don’t.”
“I do.”
She set down her cup.
“Then tell me what you know.”
His eyes remained on hers.
“I know that you’re being pulled into a world you didn’t ask for. I know your father left you more than a company and an inheritance. I know there are things moving around you that you cannot see yet.”
Zina listened carefully.
“And I know,” he continued, “that none of that gives me the right to make your decisions for you.”
Her expression changed.
That was the part she hadn’t expected.
Damien reached for his coffee.
“Whatever happens next, I want you to choose it because you want it. Not because Chike wrote it into a will. Not because you’re frightened. Not because you think you owe me something.”
Zina looked down at the rose resting beside her plate.
“And the marriage?”
He was quiet for a moment.
“Especially the marriage.”
She looked back at him.
The answer should have made everything simpler.
Instead, it made her heart more complicated.
Because the truth was becoming harder to ignore.
She wasn’t sitting across from Damien because of a contract anymore.
She had wanted to see him.
Wanted to hear his voice.
Wanted to know what his office looked like, what he ate during long workdays, whether he kept his coffee the way she imagined he did.
She wanted to know him.
That realization arrived gently, almost beautifully.
And somehow, that frightened her more than Daisy’s vision.
Damien reached across the table and turned the rose slightly between his fingers.
“You know,” he said, “you haven’t asked why I gave you that.”
Zina smiled.
“I assumed you were trying to impress me.”
“I was.”
Her laugh came easily this time.
“At least you’re honest.”
“I’ve always been honest with you.”
She held his gaze.
“Not always.”
A faint smile appeared.
“Perhaps not always.”
For a while, neither of them mentioned visions, bloodlines or secrets.
They simply ate breakfast together while sunlight spilled across the office windows, and for the first time since this strange arrangement had begun, Zina forgot that she was supposed to be somebody’s heiress, somebody’s problem, somebody’s protection.
For that hour, she was simply a woman sitting across from a man who had begun to matter to her.
And Damien, watching her smile over something as ordinary as breakfast, realized that the woman standing in front of him was becoming far more dangerous to his carefully ordered life than any enemy ever could.
Not because she threatened him.
Because he wanted her in it.